Premier Tim Houston’s supermajority government could fire Nova Scotia’s top watchdog and censor her office’s reports as early as next week. The development comes just weeks before provincial auditor general Kim Adair is set to share the findings of her investigation into university funding in Nova Scotia. The audit, scheduled for release on March 4, […]
Lauren Phillips, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Lauren Phillips is The Coast’s Education Reporter, a position created in September 2023 with support from the Local Journalism Initiative. Lauren studied journalism at the University of King’s College, and has written on education and sports at Dal News and Saint Mary's Athletics for over two years. She won gold in the Canadian online publishing awards in the academic Best Multicultural Story category for her work on "Kwe’ Eskasoni," in May 2022, and assisted the journalism academic partners of Looking Out For Each Other (LOFEO), a project that started with the media guidelines on how to report responsibly on missing Indigenous people. Lauren assisted in researching recommendations for family and friends of missing Indigenous people to help them understand how media works and how to communicate effectively with reporters.
Posted inNews + Opinion
Back in black to school
Nova Scotia is home to 373 public schools, with more on the way. These are places of learning for more than 133,500 students. These students depend on school support workers: bus drivers, education assistants, library assistants, Mi’kmaq and Indigenous student support workers, custodians, early childhood educators and other roles integral to their school life every […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
An injury to the soul, often overlooked
What is moral injury, and who experiences it? Moral injury describes “the persistent suffering, including shame or guilt, experienced by those who witness, perpetrate, or fail to stop acts of grievous harm,” write the co-organizers of two upcoming events on moral injury in frontline workers, Catherine Baillie Abidi and Ardath Whynacht. The injury is experienced […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Trio of art shows on Black resilience, faith, cultural pride opens at Dalhousie Art Gallery
This February, African Heritage Month, let the Dalhousie Art Gallery be a beacon for community power, intergenerational knowledge sharing and creative resistance. Let it be a salve for the isolating chill of not winter but the racist, fascist and systematic efforts to scapegoat, divide and erase communities, cultures and histories. From Feb 4 through Apr […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Scholar Elizabeth Bearden gives second lecture in King’s College series on representations of disability.
This Tuesday evening, Feb 4, visiting English professor Elizabeth Bearden will give the second lecture in a new series from the University of King’s College, “Representations of Disability in Historical, Scientific and Artistic Perspectives.” Related Bearden is a professor of early modern literature and disability studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her talk will reflect […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Ending harmful use of non-disclosure agreements means changing the culture
“It’s the culture that determines if non-disclosure agreements are allowed to be used,” says Kristina Fifield, a trauma therapist in Nova Scotia who is leading an NDA-informed training session on Tuesday, Feb 4, from 11am-12pm. It’s organized by the advocacy group Can’t Buy My Silence. NDAs are “gag order” agreements that are frequently used in […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
NSCAD president Peggy Shannon leaving post two years early
On Nov 14, students, staff and faculty learned that Peggy Shannon, the current president of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, would be leaving the job “soon” to “round out her career at another art school,” specifically the Kansas City Art Institute, and to reunite with her family in the US. NSCAD’s board […]
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Tents, vigils, signs and teach-ins: (un)rest take visitors inside student-made university
“We will not rest until liberation. Al Zeitoun forever.” The student-creators of Al Zeitoun University shared this line on July 29—the day their camp was dismantled by security guards and police after 78 days on Dalhousie University’s campus. The pro-Palestine student encampment was built by a coalition of students from five Halifax universities. The Students […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Author, poet, scholar Kenny Fries presents “Stumbling over History: Disability and the Holocaust”
“We need to have these conversations more,” says Michelle Mahoney, the first accessibility officer at the University of King’s College. Mahoney is talking about a new lecture series that begins Tuesday, Jan 21 at UKing’s, called “Representations of Disability in Historical, Scientific and Artistic Perspectives.” The series is meant to “challenge stereotypes, highlight marginalized voices […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The beauty of human frailty wrapped in universal form
“In those trancelike moments, I wondered at the personal nature of perception,” writes Nova Scotian artist, Dawn MacNutt, on being transfixed as a child by the light streaming through her grandmother’s coloured stained glass windows, in a new memoir and exhibition catalogue, Timeless Forms. Her book coincides with the artist’s sprawling retrospective show by the […]
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School workers in contract talks feel “unheard and undervalued” by province
New year, new deal? Not yet for roughly 5,000 school support staff in Nova Scotia. These are bus drivers, educational program assistants, library support specialists, early childhood educators, custodians and Indigenous or African Nova Scotian student support workers. They’re represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, and they’re “frustrated with the province” as bargaining […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Call-out for African Nova Scotian artists
A trio of groups supporting African Nova Scotian artists and art-making are seeking three artists to exhibit their work in an upcoming February exhibition. The Black Artist Initiative, The Cowry Collective and The Concrete Garden Association are inviting African Nova Scotian artists to submit their works for display in “The Concrete Garden,” which will run […]