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http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/To...562/story.html

Thousands of students signed up for Mount Royal College this fall. But when they start classes next Thursday, they'll be attending Mount Royal University--the first new public university to be launched in Alberta since Athabasca University opened in 1970.

The eagerly awaited announcement comes on campus at 2:30 p. m. today from Premier Ed Stelmach and Advanced Education Minister Doug Horner.
Government sources say the change from college to university will take effect immediately, enabled by a simultaneous order-in-council released in Edmonton.

Today's formalities finally end a gruelling multi-year quest for university status that often seemed doomed because of inter-school rivalries.
Hardly anybody in any other university or college wanted Mount Royal to take this leap. The University of Calgary was always quietly opposed, preferring to make Mount Royal its own satellite university campus.
Sensitive to these jealousies, the government will present the MRU triumph as part of the overall Campus Alberta plan. Edmonton's Grant Mac-Ewan College won't be far behind Mount Royal on the university podium.

The timing of today's announcement is also propelled by the Calgary-Glenmore byelection being contested just down the road in southwest Calgary.

Handing Calgary a second university, when Edmonton doesn't have a second one (yet), is a shrewd counter to charges that Stelmach's government is anti-Calgary.