First things first: you don’t have to know how to play Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) to take a new course developed by Jeff MacLeod for January 2025, called Wizards, Rogues and Elves: Exploring Politics Through Dungeons & Dragons. It’s a 3000-level (or upper year) special topics course, cross-listed within the departments of political studies and […]
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
Alan Syliboy massive retrospective at Dal Art Gallery hosts artist talk next Saturday
Alan Syliboy’s largest retrospective ever is up at the Dalhousie Art Gallery (DAG), until Aug. 11. The Journey So Far exhibition spans 50 years of work from the prolific self-taught Mi’kmaw artist from Millbrook First Nation. It offers a wide and diverse display of Syliboy’s multimedia work that continually draws material and figurative inspiration from […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Universities are the new hotels in Halifax over the summer
If you’re travelling to Nova Scotia this summer and need a place to stay, consider making one of the local university residences your home base. Most have opened their doors since May while school is not in full swing and are offering a variety of rooms to book until Aug. 11. Across Halifax, each university […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Last chance to see artist Mitchell Wiebe’s show at SMU gallery
If you plan it right, you’ll be able to catch Mitchell Wiebe gallery-sitting his own show at the Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery in Halifax’s south end during its final week. His exhibition, Third Elbow, has been up since April 23, has been extended twice and will finally disappear next Sunday, July 14. Wiebe, the […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Student union president hopes Dal will fulfill divestment before her term is up
Mariam Knakriah, the re-elected president of the Dalhousie Student Union (DSU) as of May, has been pushing the university divestment movement since she took office. She tells The Coast that the reason she ran for a second term was because she wanted to see these changes through to finish before leaving office. She has been […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
New teachers contract signed, made public
School is out for the summer but the province has a lot of homework to get done in the next few months. The Nova Scotia Teachers Union (NSTU) ratified a new collective agreement back on April 26 with their employer, the minister of education and early childhood development (EECD), Becky Druhan. On Thursday June 27, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Students most vulnerable when administrations “rush to judgment” on speech issues
David Robinson is the executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), a group that advocates for more than 70,000 teachers, librarians, researchers and other academic staff at 125 universities and colleges across Canada, including academic workers at Halifax’s six universities. The CAUT is a defender of academic freedom and investigates instances of […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
First in workplace violence, last to the table
Stop me when you disagree: Workplace violence is not appropriate. Disproportionate workplace violence is not appropriate. Those being disproportionately harmed should be included in a discussion about ways to address and prevent workplace violence. Those deciding on appropriate witnesses to include in the conversation about violence in public schools showed their disagreement with that last […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Embracing Mi’kmaw concept of reciprocal learning on National Indigenous Peoples Day
National Indigenous Peoples Day, as it’s known today, is celebrated annually on June 21 in Canada. In 1996, Governor General of Canada, Roméo LeBlanc, issued a proclamation declaring the recognition of this day, then known as National Aboriginal Day. However, there’s a third name for June 21: “Freedom Day.” LeBlanc was coining a day of […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Mi’kmaw educator shares history, language and culture on X for Indigenous History Month
It all started with Mi’kmaw History Month in 2016. Jarvis Googoo had shared a piece of Mi’kmaw trivia each day that October. On the final day, Oct. 31–his birthday–Googoo shared a story on X, then known as Twitter, about his experience attending his cousin’s high school graduation in his home community of We’koqma’q in Unama’ki/Cape […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
More support for students at encampment from senate, faculty and alum
Since May 12, support for the encampment on Dalhousie’s front lawn organized by the coalition Students for the Liberation of Palestine-Kjipuktuk(Halifax)–or SLPK–has continued to grow as its space has expanded with tents, teach-ins, banners and gardens. Although it flanks the steps at Dal, the SLPK represents students from five universities across Halifax: the Nova Scotia […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
School violence is up, reporting is weak, majority of teachers at ‘high risk’ of harm, finds audit
In the past seven years, schools across the province have reported a 60% increase in violence. What’s more, weaknesses in what is reported are making it impossible for the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development–EECD–to know the full extent of violence in schools. That’s according to the latest from Nova Scotia’s auditor general, Kim […]