There is lots of graduating going on this month – it’s great to see and experience. Today I will earn a certificate in University Teaching and Learning from Dalhousie. Our godson Andrew will graduate with his first post graduate degree from Dal later this week. Our god daughter will soon graduate from High School on her way to St.F.X. Nova Scotia enjoys a great network of higher education institutions. I’m privileged to be associated with 5 of them as a student, teacher, or both. I thought it might be fun to take a look at the history of these schools and how they came to be. I’ll start with Dalhousie, since they’ll be papering me today, even though Saint Mary’s is the oldest. I’ll also mention Mount Saint Vincent University and the Nova Scotia Community College. Of course I’ll include St.F.X. where it all started for me.

Lord Dalhousie invested 7,000 pounds of Atlantic sea faring taxes to endow what was a college in 1818 at the Halifax Grande Parade. Dalhousie became Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia which enabled him to further help the school get established. Teaching began there some 20 years later and about 30 years after that the first students graduated from what was then a university. Around that same time the roots of St. Francis Xavier University were established with the opening of a seminary at Arichat by His Lordship Reverend Dr. MacKinnon. Apparently Bishop MacKinnon later moved the then seminary to Antigonish as a college after which it was established as St. Francis Xavier University. It was affiliated with the then University of Halifax which later folded. St. Mary’s University was similarly part of the short lived University of Halifax. The Saint Mary’s University roots trace back to 1802 when it was a boy’s school on Spring Garden Road which was later established as a college and then a university in 1841. Mount Saint Vincent University was originally an academy started by the Sisters of Charity in 1873 as one of the only places in Canada where women could pursue higher education. It then became a college and its charter as a university was granted in 1966. About 30 years later the Nova Scotia Community College was established in an effort to amalgamate Nova Scotia’s network of post-secondary vocational schools creating a more coordinated and sophisticated network across the province.

Nova Scotia has a total of 12 universities including NSCC. That’s a lot of schools for a population of less than a million people. Our province is aging yet we are surrounded by learners – generally associated with youth. Albert Einstein once said, “Once you stop learning, you start dying.” Amen Albert.