Sainte-Anne continues to hold its own
University well positioned to respond to vacancies in French schoolteachers and bilingual health-care workers
Founded in 1890, Université Sainte-Anne has a deep and illustrious history on the Acadian shore of Nova Scotia and key staff members predict it has an even brighter future.
Hughie Batherson, vicepresident of recruitment and partnerships, attended SainteAnne where he achieved several degrees before he worked his way through the ranks into a professor’s role, and more recently earned his current role. Batherson has witnessed many changes through the years at the campus, and he is very hopeful about the university’s future.
“Despite the aging demographic challenges and the depopulation of rural areas we’re seeing across Atlantic Canada, we’re holding our own,” Batherson said. “This year, we’re up one per cent in Canadian students over last year, and our enrolment in our seven college-level programs is up as well.”
He pointed out that according to his research there are now more than 35,000 Acadians in Nova Scotia, with a surprising 18,000 of those residing in Halifax.
“That’s kind of a weird statistic,” Batherson said. “French schools are closing in rural Nova Scotia and in Halifax they’re expanding. The tide is going the other way, as our population becomes more centralized in the cities.”
Batherson also raves about the university’s five-week spring and summer immersion programs that attract more than 500 participants annually. The uni- versity’s Halifax campus, where Batherson now has his office, has attracted more than 1,200 students to its French-language training programs through its continuing education department.
EXPANDED PROGRAMMING
Sainte-Anne’s main campus has even expanded its programming, this year introducing the integrated French immersion option for anglophone students who have attended a French immersion program secondary school. In its first year, the innovative program offers the opportunity for these students to become fully bilingual with the support of a bridge program that includes individual support to perfect their language skills and allows them to complete their degree in the same timeline as firstlanguage French speakers.
University president Allister Surette is in his seventh year leading the institution and, like Batherson, his enthusiasm for the school is very apparent.
“There is lots to love about Sainte-Anne,” he said at a reception held Nov. 4 honouring selected university alumni for post-graduate achievements.
WELL POSITIONED
Surette says the university is well positioned to respond to a reported crisis in the need for French- first language school- teachers in regional boards across the province and in bilingual staffing requirements in the province’s health-care field.
“We have recently recruited several new professors,” Surette said, “and they are not only interested in teaching, but also in community involvement. We are committed to not only working with the local community but to try and support the local community.” See ‘WE ARE’, page B2