The interim label has been removed from Dr. Scott Morrison who is now the fifth president and vice-chancellor of St. Mary’s University in Calgary and began a five-year term on April 1.

“Dr. Morrison brings both stability and vision to this role,” said Gary Strother, chair of St. Mary’s board of governors. “He understands St. Mary’s University — our identity, our community and our aspirations. The unanimous support from both the board and our search committee reflects our full confidence in his leadership as we continue advancing our vision of becoming the preeminent Catholic university in Canada.”

Morrison applied for the presidential role early in 2026. The backing he received from faculty and staff “was a really big deciding factor.”

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“To be honest, it was the unsolicited support of the faculty and staff,” said Morrison. “I'm not saying everybody, but I got enough people encouraging me that it was really kind of the tipping point for me. I expected I had the board’s support. It was the people inside who were pleased with the way our team was doing things and pleased with some of the changes in communication and transparency.”

Instead of the one-way flow of information from the executive leadership to faculty and staff present at the majority of higher-education institutions, Morrison said he and his team started “asking quite open-ended questions about areas we thought they were both informed enough to give us good input on and interested in.”

“At the fall launch, we started giving (faculty and staff) information on three major initiatives in the university,” said Morrison. "And then we said, ‘what do you think? Tell us what we should do to tweak or adjust this kind of plan.’ That was the start. We've done that with a host of planning initiatives.”

St. Mary’s University has ambitious plans to double the size of the physical campus and the student population over the next several years. The campus objective will be achieved through leasing the nearby Father Lacombe Care Centre starting in January 2028. The long-term health-care society, led by the Sisters of Providence, plans to relocate to a different facility (the Sisters will maintain ownership of the current building).

More than 80 residences, 10 new classrooms and 20-25 administrative spaces are slated for the renovated building, projected to open in autumn 2028.

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Additionally, a gymnasium is being built at St. Mary’s for the first time ever to give St. Mary's athletes a true home-court advantage. The new dome-shaped facility — construction is set to begin this spring — will also be utilized to host conferences, liturgies and other key events.

These developments represent just phase one of St. Mary’s expansion plans. Morrison, formerly the chief superintendent of Christ the Redeemer Catholic Schools, said a desire to see this period of growth through loomed large in his decision.

“It really was a significant factor, probably second to having the board, faculty and staff was the excitement I have for the growth of the place,” said Morrison. “I've had the experience through God's good graces to have participated in the design of seven or eight schools in a few months when I was a school superintendent.”

He expressed confidence in his ability to “guide and harness the powers of our team to accelerate the expansion.”

Additional phases of the expansion plan are set to be announced in the coming months.

Morrison is also interested in launching new academic programs in the years ahead, but this will follow  ongoing work to backfill positions in an effort to ensure existing arts and sciences are as robust as possible. The faculty is projected to grow by 20 per cent over the next two years.

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Recognizing that 80 per cent of the faculty are in the research stream, Morrison wants to extensively grow the academic research emanating from St. Mary’s.

“We would expect every single faculty member in the research stream to be producing high-quality research,” said Morrison. "That will help reputationally and will help spread our story.”