Will a little PDA keep the doctor away? Public displays of affection like hand holding, hugging, or smooching on the street corner are coming under the microscope at St. Francis Xavier University, where Karen Blair, an assistant professor of psychology, is trying to determine how they affect human health. “My overall hypothesis is generally that...
Wade Smith’s unfinished legacy: “It’s up to us…”
“For me to sit here and tell you why we need [an Africentric school] is for you to explain to me why we don't need it... I don’t understand why I’d have to explain to you why the enhancement of culture in the educational setting would be good. It’s about improvement, growth, it’s about self-esteem, all the things I thought education was about, for me personally.”
“Maybe we need to look at an all-black school or other alternatives.” It was April 2006 and Wade Smith, then the vice principal of St. Patrick’s High School in Halifax, was musing to former-student-become-CBC-journalist Maggie Rahr about a recently released report on the province’s progress — or lack thereof — in implementing the recommendations of...
Stephen McNeil probably can’t meet his preschool pledge
The Liberal's pre-election budget included $3.7 million to expand Early Learning Centres to 30 new locations by September, just four months from now, but the locations haven't been identified, there's no money to help daycares transition, and school boards have been given no direction on how to implement the program.
With election promises thicker than apple blossoms, one that sets the Liberals apart is the promise of an expanded universal, pre-primary program for four-year-olds. Eight Nova Scotia schools including Rockingstone Heights Elementary in Spryfield currently offer full day programs for four-year-olds taught by Early Childhood Educators (ECEs) in classrooms dubbed Early Learning Centres, once known...
Are we doing right by international students?
Nova Scotian universities value international students for their big tuition payments and the cultural diversity they bring to campus. How's that working?
Elias Galindo was walking down Spring Garden Road around sunset last November with a fellow international student from Mexico when a vanload of young men started following them. It was the day after Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States, largely on promises to wall off his country’s southern neighbour, clamp down...
Proposed university gift policy draws ire from Dalhousie profs
The policy was initiated in the wake of criticism of the university's deal with Shell Oil, but the Dal administration refused to let university senators have a say in drafting the policy, and now refuses to make that draft public (but we got it anyway).
Two years ago, a Dalhousie engineering student named Stephen Thomas started noticing the Shell Oil logo popping up all over campus, and so submitted a Freedom of Information request seeking the details of a $600,000 grant from the oil company to university. Thomas sent me a copy of the 2011 agreement; you can read it here. Some […]
Climate change puts seaweed and the fish that depend on it at risk
If the world doesn’t do anything to curb carbon emissions, seaweed off Nova Scotia could suffer, according to new research out of Dalhousie University. Kristen Wilson, who is earning her masters in marine ecology at Dal, presented her work Friday that projects range shifts of canopy-forming seaweed species in the Northwest Atlantic with continued climate...
Linda Moxsom-Skinner wants to build Halifax’s first public labyrinth
Also, other big changes are coming to the Atlantic School of Theology.
When Linda Moxsom-Skinner was pondering whether she should run again in the next provincial election, she turned to a labyrinth to find the answer. The New Democrat lost the Timberlea-Prospect riding to Liberal Iain Rankin in 2013 by more than 2,000 votes. She was working last year as a fundraiser at the Atlantic School of...
Engineering students show off their creations
Imagine a cross between and old-fashioned sewing machine and a tiny guillotine. That’s the blueberry stem cutter Aidan Blanchard and his teammates produced for Higbee’s Berry Farm & Nursery. In the process of cloning blueberry bushes to sell to other farmers, the woman who owns the New Ross operation was getting carpal tunnel syndrome and...
Prince as the “Dionysian Christian”
Eli Diamond was seven years old when he bought his first Prince and the Revolution album. It was Purple Rain. “And then I bought every single subsequent Prince album on the day it came out. So I’m a bit of a Prince geek,” Diamond, an associate professor of ancient philosophy in Dalhousie University’s Classics Department,...
Canada lagging on suits against tobacco companies
Other provinces ought to consider establishing funds like the pots of public money set aside in Quebec and Ontario to help fund class-action suits, says Dalhousie University’s top lawyer. “One of the things we learned from the US tobacco litigation story is just how hard it is when you don’t (have public financial support),” Dean...
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