STFX IMPACT REPORT
FOR The people
An Idea is Born
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
A Vision Formed
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
Canso Bound
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
The Coady Years
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
The Extension Department
1920s 1920s 1930s 1940s
The Friends of StFX
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
Intellectual Bombing
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
The 'Movement'
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
Father Tompkins and the Library
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
Co-operative Housing
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
Co-operative Housing
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
An Idea is Born
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
A Vision Formed
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
Canso Bound
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
The Coady Years
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
The Extension Department
1920s 1920s 1930s 1940s
The Friends of StFX
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
Intellectual Bombing
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
The 'Movement'
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
Father Tompkins and the Library
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
Co-operative Housing
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
Co-operative Housing
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
FOR THE PEOPLE
STFX IMPACT REPORT
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President’s Message
One of my favourite things about StFX is our collective insistence on honouring traditions while looking ambitiously into the future.
These are challenging times that generate uncertainty and anxiety—but I hope that you will be comforted, as I am, by the work of so many Xaverians who devote themselves passionately to the improvement of others’ lives, especially Nova Scotians’.
This passion is not new; StFX faculty, students, and staff have long been teaching and learning from the people of Nova Scotia, committed to the principle that education is meant to be shared for the benefit of all.
Quite simply, investing in StFX generates compound interest, effecting positive change that spans generations. Please take a few moments to learn about the many ways that Xaverians are making an impact.
Thank you for your support,
Andy Hakin
Director of Development’s Message
When I think about StFX, I think about the people who’ve studied here, who’ve worked here, and who are part of the broader community surrounding campus.
This Impact Report, which we’ve named in honour of Father Jimmy Tompkins’ newspaper column that kickstarted the Antigonish Movement, is devoted to the many Xaverians who have made a difference in the lives of Nova Scotians.
It is important to understand the Antigonish Movement both in terms of its historical significance and its continued influence on the modern university. The Movement defined StFX as a university “for the people,” determined to share a reciprocal educational relationship with Nova Scotians, and we’re proud to show you just some of the ways in which the Antigonish Movement is alive and well today.
Step into the world of Service Learning, which offers StFX students extraordinary experiential learning opportunities in Antigonish community organizations and beyond, and learn about the ways in which our faculty members who hold endowed research chairs are working in such diverse fields as mental health, brain injury, and Canada-U.S. relations.
Follow along, too, with the story of how members of our staff made a quilt to raise awareness of Class Funds and how those funds directly impact current students. Take a walk with Julia Baniak as she shows you a bit of her daily life on campus, as a queer, Indigenous, student-athlete leader who spends time helping others.
Finally, explore the concept of planned giving and learn about the alumni and friends of the university who are increasingly considering StFX in their estate planning, supporting students and helping to maintain our beautiful campus.
As always, hail and health,
Wendy
Compound
Interest
Endowed Academic Chairs Leading The Way Towards a Better Canada
“It’s fairness,” Dr. Jill Murphy, the newly-appointed Research Chair in Mental Health and Addictions, says, when asked what motivates her. “Mental health has been marginalized in healthcare systems for decades, but there’s no reason why services shouldn’t be more accessible. I’d like to fix that. I want to help end suffering—unnecessary suffering.”
Dr. Murphy is one of a large handful of professors at StFX that occupy endowed chairs—that is, their positions are funded through donations and are aimed at contributing valuable research to some of the most pressing issues of our day. Although Dr. Murphy’s chair is attached to the yet-to-be-built Victor and Mona Dahdaleh Institute for Innovation in Health, StFX and its partners felt an enormous sense of urgency when fundraising for this crucial role.
In an example of cross-cutting collegiality, StFX worked closely with the QEII Foundation and the Province of Nova Scotia on this venture. In addition to $1m from both the Province and from the QEII Foundation, Medavie contributed $500,000 to the position; the remaining $2.5m must be fundraised to support Dr. Murphy’s work in perpetuity.
from the Province ($1M) and the QEII Foundation ($1M)
Medavie Contributed
additional funds needed to support Dr. Murphy's work in perpetuity
Typically, each academic department at StFX has a chair—a professor who takes a turn leading the department for a period of several years. They liaise with the Dean and the Academic Vice-President, representing the interests of the department within the university, and they manage the internal operations of the department, from staffing to course allocation to student queries and appeals. Their regular teaching duties are lessened—through “course release”—so that they have sufficient time to devote to the role.
An endowed chair is different.
This is a special position that is typically occupied by the same person for many years, and that professor is often hired or promoted from within, based on their significant contributions to scholarship. Like a departmental chair, the endowed chair is relieved from some—though not all—teaching duties, in order to have more time to devote to an ambitious research agenda.
At larger, more research-intensive universities, endowed chairs may not teach at all—but that is not the case at StFX, which places high importance on the inclusion of students in the research process. Through teaching, endowed chairs both transmit their research findings to their students and establish relationships that help them recruit top students for research internships.
It’s easy to imagine that a postsecondary education can feel very removed from the daily lives of average Canadians. There’s an increasing and dangerous misconception that what happens in the so-called Ivory Tower is self-serving and of little use to broader society.
Not only has that never been the case for StFX, it’s also truer than ever that our professors and students are engaging in research that has immediate, real-world impact. The university was established in 1853 to educate the sons of newcomers to this region, so that they could ascend into positions of power and responsibility. Those sons were taught by priests who cared deeply about the ambitions of new Nova Scotians and were invested in a common goal: progress.
You’ll read about the Antigonish Movement, during which the faculty of StFX stepped into communities throughout northeastern Nova Scotia and offered education, guidance, and support. The Movement led to the Extension Department, which has played a significant role in the development of this region for decades.
And in the current era, we have endowed chairs like Dr. Murphy and Dr. Erin Mazerolle, who is a Jules Léger Scholar in the Humanities and Social Sciences and a professor of psychology, with cross-appointment to the departments of computer science and biology. Unlike Dr. Murphy’s permanent position, the Léger Scholars hold their chairships for several years only, during which time they receive a partial release from teaching duties.
“The Léger Chair,” notes Dr. Mazerolle, “gives you the time that you need to supervise more students on their research projects and bring more students into the lab. And with the course release, I have more time to focus on my research, for which I’m grateful. In this way, the Léger Chair is really, really valuable.”
Dr. Mazerolle joined the faculty of StFX in 2020 but has made a significant impact on the university and the surrounding community in a short period of time. In the lab, she’s measuring vascular brain health using functional near infrared spectroscopy—a new way to measure brain health using a special, portable cap.
This technology has the potential to have enormous and positive impact on Nova Scotians living with brain injuries or dementia, who need regular monitoring but who cannot frequently travel to hospitals with MRI machines. It will cut down on wait times and reach a population that is often uncomfortable in hospital settings, greatly increasing accessibility.
“If we’re able to make this work, we can take our equipment around rural Nova Scotia, to remote areas, as a more accessible way to evaluate brain health in patients who really need it.”
Accessibility drives Dr. Murphy, too: “people who struggle with mental health and addictions,” she says, “do not exist on the margins. Mental health challenges are something most of us have experienced—or we know someone who has. There’s no reason why services shouldn’t be more accessible.”
Dr. Murphy acknowledges the Province of Nova Scotia in contributing funding to her Endowed Chair, and for taking steps towards implementing universal mental health care. Much of her work to date has focused on the service gaps in low resource settings for people dealing with mental health challenges; here in Nova Scotia, she will assess what community-based mental health and addictions care will look like in the context of the universal mental health care mandate.
She notes the importance of research in improving mental health care access and in informing policy and practice. Nova Scotia—more than any other province in Canada—collects copious amounts of health data, allowing Dr. Murphy to make fundamentally sound recommendations for system improvements.
Collaboration is the critical piece of Dr. Murphy’s position, in which she’ll link university-based research with community members, clinicians, and policy-makers across the province. And, just like the progenitors of the Antigonish Movement, who saw Nova Scotians as “Masters of their own Destiny,” Dr. Murphy’s work has and will continue to centre people with lived and living experiences, as well as their families, carers, and communities.
Dr. Mazerolle is also entrenched in the community, bringing brain literacy to various organizations, including schools. “We try to increase teacher awareness of the neuroscience of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,” she notes, in an effort to educate the broader
Accessibility drives Dr. Murphy, too: “people who struggle with mental health and addictions,” she says, “do not exist on the margins. Mental health challenges are something most of us have experienced—or we know someone who has. There’s no reason why services shouldn’t be more accessible.”
Dr. Murphy acknowledges the Province of Nova Scotia in contributing funding to her Endowed Chair, and for taking steps towards implementing universal mental health care. Much of her work to date has focused on the service gaps in low resource settings for people dealing with mental health challenges; here in Nova Scotia, she will assess what community-based mental health and addictions care will look like in the context of the universal mental health care mandate.
She notes the importance of research in improving mental health care access and in informing policy and practice. Nova Scotia—more than any other province in Canada—collects copious amounts of health data, allowing Dr. Murphy to make fundamentally sound recommendations for system improvements.
Collaboration is the critical piece of Dr. Murphy’s position, in which she’ll link university-based research with community members, clinicians, and policy-makers across the province. And, just like the progenitors of the Antigonish Movement, who saw Nova Scotians as “Masters of their own Destiny,” Dr. Murphy’s work has and will continue to centre people with lived and living experiences, as well as their families, carers, and communities.
Dr. Mazerolle is also entrenched in the community, bringing brain literacy to various organizations, including schools. “We try to increase teacher awareness of the neuroscience of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,” she notes, in an effort to educate the broader society about brain health. Her research team does further outreach with frontline housing support workers to provide recommendations for making their clients’ lives easier.
society about brain health. Her research team does further outreach with frontline housing support workers to provide recommendations for making their clients’ lives easier.
“More than 50% of people experiencing housing instability have a history of brain injury, and once you are housing unstable, your risk of brain injury increases as well.”
Dr. Mazerolle hopes that her work, supported by the Jules Léger Endowment for the Faculty of Arts, will have real-world effects, such as simplifying the forms for applying to public housing or teachers shifting their approach to students with ADHD.
Plus, her annual Brain Bee, a neuroscience competition for high school students, is designed to get teenagers excited about the brain and brain research careers—and hopefully, one day, increase diversity among neuroscience researchers. High schoolers come to campus for a day in late March to learn about the brain from faculty across a wide range of disciplines and compete in the Brain Bee; winners can go on to the national or even international Brain Bee!
Dr. Asa McKercher joined the StFX faculty in 2024, as the Steven K. Hudson Research Chair in Canada-U.S. Relations. A trained historian, Dr. McKercher’s appointment is prescient (given the current state of geopolitical affairs)—and reassuring. He’s a sought-after expert who’s given numerous interviews these past few months, often from the Mulroney Institute of Government’s purpose-built media studio.
In a time of acute stress for Canadians, Dr. McKercher reminds us that nothing is ever truly new, historically speaking: “Most American presidents throughout history have had a negative view of Canada. It’s only from the mid-century onwards that we’ve had a lot of Canadian prime ministers and American presidents trying to work together to build a very cohesive relationship.”
Like Dr. Murphy and Dr. Mazerolle, Dr. McKercher’s endowed chairship means he’s got the time and resources to engage deeply with his research—to the benefit of all Canadians. Regarding tariffs, he reminds us that “this isn’t the first time we’ve faced these kinds of threats,” before noting that the free trade agreements of 1989 and 1994 that mitigated those threats were some of Prime Minister Mulroney’s most important work.
Through his teaching in the Public Policy and Governance program and by enveloping students in his research projects, Dr. McKercher hopes to build empathy. “We live in a very polarizing world with a lot of stresses and strains, and it’s hard to see other people’s perspectives. The broader mission of universities—and of the humanities, especially—is to look at the way people in the past have viewed and solved problems.”
Dr. McKercher says that the endowed chair “is a dream come true. This is the perfect kind of institution: supportive faculty, helpful administration—and very, very good students.”
Canada will need those students in the coming years, as we face many unknowns. The looming issues of climate change, employment, housing, debt, technology, and polarity can only be addressed through diplomacy and dialogue, and Dr. McKercher and his colleagues are committed to training Xaverians to be part of future solutions.
“As a Canadian,” he says, “I’m very interested in the history of our country, in the future of our country, and in the present of our country. I want to ensure that we have a citizenry that is aware of how lucky we are in some ways—but that is also committed to ensuring that continues.”
“University allows you to look at the world through other eyes.”
Drs. Murphy, Mazerolle, and McKercher are among a growing group of faculty members at StFX who hold endowed chair positions.
Like their colleagues, they engage in work that has immediate and long-term impact on our local community, our province, and the country—and they are enveloping students in that work at every step.
The university is grateful for the financial support of existing Chairs—and actively seeking out further opportunities to support faculty and student research of great consequence.
A DAY
in the
LIFE
Ask any StFX student to describe their average day on campus and they’ll probably say, “Busy.” But Julia Baniak ‘25 spent her four years here finding extra hours in the day and more days in the week, sharing her brain, her athleticism, and her culture with the StFX community.
And this spring, Julia invited university photographer, Warren Robertson, to share a day in her life.
Julia Baniak is a Cree (Nêhiyāw) woman from St. Albert, Alberta, but her home reserve is the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. She graduated on May 4th with a Bachelor of Science degree in Human Kinetics—with honours.
Over the past two years, Julia volunteered with Jack.org, a student mental health organization that helps create awareness and challenge stigma. Julia explains that in Cree culture, the Medicine Wheel provides a holistic view of health and includes physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental well-being.
As President of the Indigenous Student Society for the last two years (and vice-president for one before that), Julia has been a leader of and a voice for Indigenous students at StFX. “I am the product of intergenerational trauma,” she wrote in an open letter in 2022. “I live with the consequences of [residential schools] every day.”
Her grandmother was a residential school survivor whose trauma carried over to her son, Julia’s father. The impacts of residential school on Julia’s family are myriad but deeply affected their relationship with their Cree culture, from which they felt disconnected.
“We did not have any heroes to save us, and we still don’t. We are our own heroes.”
As a person of mixed heritage, Julia wrote of feeling as though she did not belong anywhere. “My journey and my truth as a mixed Indigenous person are my reconciliation,” she avowed, noting that each person’s path to reconciliation is unique and personal. Her work with the Indigenous Student Society encompassed supporting other students while exploring her own Indigeneity.
At a ceremony honouring Truth and Reconciliation in September of 2023, Julia urged attendees to listen to and learn from Indigenous people—not just on special occasions but every day. “In order for true change to be made,” she said before a rapt audience, “we must never, ever let the conversation die down.”
“As a community, we stand together to make the world a better place for the next generation of Indigenous youth.”
In the summer of 2024, Julia worked with the Indigenous Women in Community Leadership (IWCL) program. Participants undertook a water ceremony, which Julia points to as a highlight. She found it “empowering”—indeed, she says the “most powerful lesson” of her internship is “that we are all important. We all have a voice that deserves to be heard.”
During Red Dress Week, which honours the lives of missing and murdered Indigenous women, Julia spearheaded the Moose Hide Campaign. She recruited friends, teammates, and other varsity athletes to raise awareness for the campaign, which encourages boys and men to become active participants in the fight against gender-based violence.
A high school football player, Julia joined the StFX X-Women’s rugby team in the fall of 2021 and quickly established herself as a dominant prop and hooker—key front-row positions that require the player to use their strength in scrums, rucks, mauls, tackling, and line-outs.
She was also a member of the StFX Varsity Athlete Leadership Academy, which provides training and opportunities for students to develop their unique leadership styles.
In addition to her many other roles on campus, Julia served as a sports performance intern within the Department of Athletics. With a team of peers, Julia helped oversee the varsity weight room and worked with other varsity athletes to guide their strength and conditioning programs and provide athletic therapy.
Smudging is a ceremony sacred to Indigenous people across Turtle Island. The four fundamental elements (water, earth, fire, and air) are represented by the shell (water) holding the sacred plants—cedar, sage, sweetgrass, and tobacco (earth)—which are lit (fire) and produce smoke (air).
Being washed in this smoke–smudging–is in aid of purifying the soul of negative thoughts and cleansing the mind, heart, and body. The ashes are generally disposed of on bare soil, so that the earth can absorb any negativity the ashes have collected.
University writer Katie Edwards shares the deeper story behind the Legacy Quilt.
the quilt
Last summer, Shannon Rice popped across the hall and asked if she could bend my ear for a few minutes. We’re colleagues in the Advancement Department and often seek each other out as sounding boards when we’re working through ideas or problems.
She’d been tasked with coming up with a plan to raise awareness about Class Funds. The parameters were loose, but she had a $300 budget and the trust of our Director.
Shannon explained her idea: using the chief phrase from the university’s Strategic Plan—“the fabric we weave together”—she envisaged a patchwork of posters that offered information about Class Funds and glimpses into the lives of students who are supported by those funds.
She pressed pieces of paper to my bulletin board, to show me what she was imagining. “We’ll have it ready in time for Homecoming,” she said, “and display it next to a screen displaying videos of students, thanking alumni for their support.”
I considered it. Then, before I thought it through, I blurted:
“
What if we made a real quilt?”
Shannon paused. “YEAH!” she said, gleefully. “A real quilt!”
We shared a long moment of quiet. I can’t tell you what Shannon was thinking, but my own mind was embroiled in an argument against itself: while I grew up watching my mother make many, many quilts, I’d never actually made one myself. I didn’t even really sew.
But I liked the idea of creating something tangible. Something unexpected. Something eye-catching and unusual.
I also liked the thought of making something that marked our past, but that left space for our future. Soon, our dreamy dream overtook our caution. We began to plan, to try and figure out how we’d actually do this.
“
What if we made a real quilt?”
We needed to think about how a quilt could tell a story—particularly, the story of Class Funds. At the time, there were 29 Class Funds, with a wide range of current values and an even wider range of initiatives they support, from student bursaries to Immersion Service Learning.
We wanted to celebrate those existing Funds … but we also wanted to call attention to what didn’t exist (namely, the alumni classes without Class Funds). We guessed (accurately as it turned out) that many alumni didn’t realize their class didn’t have a fund, or more generally, what Class Funds are and do in the first place.
By this point, we’d drafted Michelle White to our little team. We sketched out a 10×10 grid, creating a quilt square for every graduating class between 1950 and 2049. We got hold of a ream of brown paper and a couple of rolls of old Christmas ribbon, and spent a few hours on hands and knees, mocking up the design on the floor of Alumni House. We were conscious of the time it’d take to create the quilt, so forewent any notion of cutting out 100 individual blocks and sewing them together. Instead, we planned to have a main front piece, a wide border, a binding, and a backing. We’d sew the grid onto the front piece and, we thought, tie-quilt it to save time.
Our Director, Wendy Langley, was on board—with two stipulations: we had to make the quilt during work hours and on campus. After a quick trip to buy fabric and other supplies in New Glasgow, and recruiting other colleagues to the team, we set up camp in Room 123 of Xavier Hall and got to work. Michelle brought her sister’s sewing machine and her own sewing box. I brought my mum’s gear: scissors, cutting mat, rulers, tape measures, rotary cutters, thread, and her tweed pincushion that evokes endless childhood memories.
Shannon borrowed a Cricut machine and spent a few hours learning how to make the perfect cuts. Each square on the grid would have a little gold banner with that class’s year, and even though using a Cricut to cut out the banners was less arduous than hand-cutting would’ve been, it was still finicky. Luckily, Dawn Bekkers (who’s in charge of our calling program) has the patience of a saint, and devoted herself to ensuring that every banner was perfectly cut, trimmed, and ironed on.
Shannon Rice, Michelle White, and
Katie Edwards select the perfect fabrics.
The plan was fairly straightforward (we told ourselves): we’d cut the front piece and cut the border pieces and cut the backing and cut the batting and cut the binding and then … sew it all together. Somehow.
We had a massive To-Do list written on the whiteboard, which mapped out the process and divided up the labour.
Soon we hit our first roadblock: the quilt had to be larger than king-sized in order to achieve our vision—and a king-sized quilt is bulky. So, we teamsewed: I held the fabric and Michelle operated the sewing machine. Beth MacNeil-Cameron came down for a few holding shifts, too.
I should say here that this is the moment at which Michelle and I realized that virtually all of our cultural knowledge was the same: she from Monastery and me from Church Street Extension, united over lyrics to 90s country music and the occasional Disney song. For a very happy day, we sewed and sang … and sewed some more. The front piece was joined to the borders, and to the batting, and to the backing. Somehow, despite our novice sewing ability, the seams came out mostly straight and the measurements were almost perfect.
There were high fives and hoots.
RELIEF
We moved on to the grid, a painstaking process of measuring and then sewing cloth ribbon on to form squares. And remember when we thought we’d tiequilt the intersections? We threw that plan out and I rushed home to fetch my mother’s button collection.
After Mum died, all her sewing gear had come to me. I remembered sorting those buttons a few years ago, and was confident I had enough to festoon the quilt with one at each intersection of the grid. I called my sister: “Why did Mum have so many buttons?” I asked. She said that not only was Mum a button-hoarder, Mèmére had been, too. Dear reader: the StFX quilt likely contains buttons older than any of our living alumni. I felt good sewing them on, knowing Mum would be delighted that the buttons had come to good use.
Our team had decided that any alumni class that already had a fund would have a special pocket sewn onto its square, and that inside that pocket would be two laminated cards, outlining the value of the fund and how that fund is administered. If sewing the larger pieces of the quilt was cumbersome, sewing the pockets was tedious. Luckily, our little project had garnered some attention by this point, and we had colleagues drop by to help hand-sew. Cathy Fraser ironed every piece of material in that quilt (and even learned how to “cut” fabric by ripping it, to her delight).
Ann Arsenault popped down and learned how to make tassels out of embroidery floss, because we had the bright idea to mark an “X” into the grid with gold thread.
Every day we worked on the quilt, the custodian of Xavier Hall would stop by, smoothing his hand over the fabric and exclaiming, “This is a pile of work. A pile!”
We made Starbucks runs and sipped tea and munched on muffins. We talked. I mean, we really talked. I discovered things about Shannon and Michelle and Dawn and Cathy that you just can’t learn over the lunch table or during work meetings.
For me, making the quilt those days in September was deeply emotional. My mother died in 2020 and I hadn’t been able to bring myself to use any of her sewing gear. It was such an enormous part of her life and even picking up her scissors or slipping her pins into fabric made me miss her in a way that was visceral and agonizing. But I’d said it—“What if we made a real quilt?”—and so I had to do it.
The truth is, I needed it. I think we all needed it. Every person knows that our work lives ebb and flow; there are wins and losses and successes and setbacks. During COVID, we’d had a rash of excitement. We were busy all the time, thinking of ways we could support students and the university. But after COVID? Things settled back into a more usual pace, and by the time the idea for the quilt rolled around, we were ready for something exciting.
We debuted the Legacy Quilt at Homecoming. We stood sentinel next to it and spoke with countless alumni, who seemed both interested and excited. There were two typical reactions: “I’m so glad my class has a pocket!” and “Why doesn’t my class have a pocket?!” Younger alumni, surprisingly, spent the most time engaging with the quilt, running their hands over the buttons and diving into the pockets to read about each Class Fund.
Since Homecoming, four more Class Funds have been established and more than $50,000 has been contributed to existing ones.
Cathy Fraser’s in chats with even more Life Officers, who are thinking through the steps of setting up their own funds. We’ve sewn on those four new pockets, including that of the Class of 2025.
Of the 100 squares on the quilt, 33 now have pockets, representing endless support for the students whose university lives are bolstered by the alumni who’ve contributed to those Class Funds.
4
more Class Funds have been established
$50K
has been contributed
33
out of 100 squares now have pockets
StFX and the Antigonish Movement that transformed Nova Scotia
NON SIBI
(NOT FOR ONESELF)
Economic depression. Outmigration. A housing crisis.
The stressors of Nova Scotians in the 1920s are eerily familiar, as we again navigate difficult times and respond to global events. While the causes of our challenges are particular to the current moment, the stressful effects of economic uncertainty are not.
Postsecondary education was rare for Canadians one hundred years ago. In the years following the First World War, most working-class people in this province battled extreme poverty, as fish merchants and mining companies controlled wages, housing, and retail goods, creating cycles of constant debt.
90% of Nova Scotians did not even attend high school.
The names “Moses Coady” and “Jimmy Tompkins” are familiar to most Xaverians—but how much do we really know about the impact these men had on StFX, Nova Scotia, and the world?
And, how much of the modern university exists because Coady and Tompkins fundamentally changed the way StFX conceived of itself, from a university that taught the classics to a powerful force for public education?
Coady and Tompkins, both alumni of StFX and then members of the faculty, were cousins from Cape Breton who felt strongly that the solutions to common problems lay within education and cooperation. But the two men could not have been more different: Tompkins, the elder cousin, was physically slight and although extraordinarily dogged in his devotion to the people of Nova Scotia, preferred to work in the background, plotting and organizing.
Coady, who’d followed Tompkins to StFX and then the priesthood, was a fiery orator who could whip a crowd into a frenzy and a network-builder who traversed the province (and beyond) for decades, convincing people that they could all become “masters of their own destiny.”
In 1918, Tompkins began writing a column called For the People for the local newspaper, kickstarting a movement that made StFX and Antigonish the epicentre of global development for the remainder of the twentieth century.
A Brief Timeline of the Antigonish Movement
An Idea Is Born
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
An Idea Is Born
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
Father Tompkins attends the Congress of the Universities of the Empire in England, sparking an idea for how StFX could lead adult education in Nova Scotia.
Tompkins starts the Educational Conferences for priest-leaders, wherein they discuss rural education and the labour strife plaguing Nova Scotians. These diocesan conferences occur annually until 1929.
A Vision Formed
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
Tompkins publishes Knowledge for the People: A Call to St. Francis Xavier’s College. His vision calls for StFX to play a major role in reversing economic depression and out-migration; he encourages StFX faculty to ask Nova Scotians: “How can we be of service to you?”
“Men and women everywhere are clamoring for the equal opportunity that education and intellectual training give.”
- Jimmy Tompkins
A Vision Formed
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
Tompkins organizes the first People’s School at StFX; 50 men and 1 woman—miners, train conductors, farmers, fishers, merchants, and clerks—attend the 10-week program and learn about biology, animal husbandry, literature, and economics.
The Learned-Sills Report is released, calling for the merger of all Maritime universities in Halifax; Tompkins and most of the faculty support the recommendation.
Canso Bound
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
The StFX Board of Governors votes down the plan to merge and Tompkins, who had been an administrator of StFX for 15 years, is reassigned to Canso. He spends the next few years ministering to and earning the trust of the people of Guysborough County.
Tompkins helps organize a large meeting of fishermen in Canso to publicize their desperation and poverty; the meeting made national headlines (mostly because Tompkins called the newspapers himself!).
The Coady Years
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
After sustained pressure from the Scottish Catholic Society and the Alumni Association, StFX forms the Extension Department and appoints the Rev. Dr. Moses Coady as its first director. Coady spends the first year traveling widely, searching for models of other Extension departments in North America, just to realize that StFX is the only one of its kind.
Coady is appointed to organize the fishermen of the Maritimes into a cooperative union; this enormous and complex project helps build his network and cements his reputation as a strong leader.
Coady is appointed to organize the fishermen of the Maritimes into a cooperative union; this enormous and complex project helps build his network and cements his reputation as a strong leader.
The Extension Department
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
The Extension Department receives an annual budget of $10,000 from StFX, which is used, partly, to create mobile libraries and educational materials for use in Study Clubs.
The purpose of Extension was “the improvement of the economic, social, educational and religious conditions of the people in eastern Nova Scotia,” so that they could live “a full and abundant life.”
- Moses Coady
The Friends of StFX
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
The Carnegie Corporation (a friend of StFX via Father Tompkins) supplements Extension’s budget with a further $10,000 annually.
“In the strange ways of Providence, the wealth of a paradigmatic American capitalist would be used to promote economic justice and community uplift in eastern Nova Scotia.”
From Jim Cameron’s For the People: A History of St. Francis Xavier University
Kay Thompson (Desjardins)—a “dedicated social reformer, superb journalist, and skillful organizer”—is hired as Rev. Coady’s assistant. She and other women, like Zita O’Hearn, Ida Delaney, and Sister Marie Michael MacKinnon will prove essential to the success of the Antigonish Movement.
The first farmers’ co-operative is set up in Antigonish County. Farmers bulk buy fertilizer, flour, and seed.
By 1932, there were 207 Study Clubs, totaling more than 1500 participants, as well as 9 credit unions and 8 co-operative lobster factories.
Intellectual Bombing
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
Coady and his assistant, Fr. A.B. MacDonald, travel widely, stirring up excitement and establishing study clubs. Some called Coady’s work “intellectual bombing runs,” meant to rouse and inspire people into joining co-operative organizations.
At Study Clubs, people read and learn about credit unions, co-operative methods, home economics, farming and fishing techniques, or any other subject that was pertinent to their daily lives. Extension Department fieldworkers provide educational materials and often bridge the literacy gap for participants.
Extension staff can hardly meet the demands for their services: they start publishing The Extension Bulletin as a platform for debate, discussion, and news; initiate a “School for Leaders” to try and increase capacity; and offer the first 4-6 week short course, akin to the earlier People’s School.
The Sisters of St. Martha begin social work, and the first women’s-only Study Clubs are formed, examining topics such as home economics, health, and handicrafts.
The 'Movement'
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
The now so-called “Antigonish Movement” garners international attention, and people begin visiting and seeing for themselves the power of adult education and co-operation.
There are now 25 mobile libraries, and Extension also mails educational materials to people in rural areas.
Five short years into its existence, Extension is called the “most innovative and dynamic department at StFX; its staff was imbued with an evangelical sense of mission.”
Father Tompkins and the library
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
By 1935, there were 940 Study Clubs (300 of which were women-only) and 45 credit unions in Nova Scotia. The students at StFX set up their own Study Club on campus.
After 13 years in Guysborough, Fr. Jimmy Tompkins is sent to Reserve Mines, where he soon opens the People’s Library—the first library in Nova Scotia to have a full-time, paid librarian.
Co-operative Housing
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
Mary Ellicott Arnold and Mabel Reid, a couple from New York with extensive experience in organizing affordable housing, come to Cape Breton.
At a Study Club in Reserve Mines, a co-operative housing project is enacted, and Mary Arnold works with 11 families over the next two years to design and build new homes. This is the first example of co-operative housing in Nova Scotia, and the work of Mary Arnold and the families of Reserve Mines serves as an example for many similar projects throughout the twentieth century.
By 1938, there are 1110 Study Clubs with more than 10,000 participants, and 242 credit unions. Many women were presidents and treasurers of these credit unions, well before women were legally allowed to hold bank accounts in Canada.
Moses Coady’s seminal text, Masters of Their Own Destiny, is published.
With support from the Carnegie Corporation, and based off the work of Fr. Tompkins and Extension, the Nova Scotia library system is created.
By 1940, there are
30,000
participants in Study Clubs
355
Credit Unions
42
co-operative stores
34
fishing
co-operatives
Intellectual Bombing
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
The furious pace of the work of StFX’s Extension Department during the 1930s resulted not only in the direct improvement of the economic situations for tens of thousands of Nova Scotians, it also—fundamentally—altered the ways in which people viewed themselves and their opportunities.
Through education and co-operation—and with the support of indefatigable fieldworkers and leaders like Moses Coady and Jimmy Tompkins—the people of this province cast off the shackles of victimhood and became masters of their own destiny.
Crucially, the Antigonish Movement established StFX as the home of development practices that gathered steam as they became better known around the world. The years following the Second World War witnessed the revitalization of western capitalism and the introduction of supermarkets and chain stores—and the emergence of the modern welfare state. With better civic structures in place as social safety nets and the improvement of the economic conditions in the province, much of the work of Extension was no longer required—at least, not in its original format. Study Clubs and fieldwork gave way to research, data collection, and policy-making; as it approaches its 100-year anniversary in 2028, Extension continues to play a vital role in Nova Scotia, coordinating and supporting initiatives in public housing and community engagement.
Thanks to the Antigonish Movement:
Xavier Junior College was established in Sydney in 1951, an expansion of the summer schools that Extension had conducted. XJC served working-class (often mining) families and offered lots of weekend courses, which were particularly popular with women. XJC became the University College of Cape Breton in 1982, and later, Cape Breton University.
The Coady International Institute—which now encompasses Extension, too—was created in 1959, following the death of Moses Coady. The Coady Institute formalized and internationalized the techniq ues of the Antigonish Movement, bringing Asset-Based Community Development to hundreds of communities around the world. Over the past 66 years, more than 10,000 participants from 154 countries have come to Coady to learn from each other and from Coady faculty, generating significant positive impact.
In 1966, X-Project began, using the model of the Antigonish Movement to send StFX students to Indigenous and African Nova Scotian communities for educational support. X-Project remains a vital part of StFX and has expanded greatly over the years with support from the Windsor Foundation, offering both in-community and on-campus educational and recreational activities for children.
The Adult Education program at StFX has, for more than fifty years, offered Masters degrees to mature students whose work marries theory with lived experience. The thesis-based program in Adult Education and Health is a key component of advancing best practices in many vital fields in Nova Scotia, when healthcare is at the top of everyone’s mind.
Since 1996, Service Learning has richened StFX students’ educational experiences by bringing what’s learned in the classroom into the community. You’ll read more about Service Learning later in this report.
In the modern age, most universities have simple missions: to educate all those who earn admission, attend classes, and work towards a degree. Often, the image of an Ivory Tower creates the impression of elitism and inaccessibility.
Perhaps that reputation could be ascribed to the StFX of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but former professor of history at StFX and author of For the People: A History of St. Francis Xavier University, James Cameron, argues that the Antigonish Movement fundamentally changed StFX.
The university “expanded its mandate,” he notes, “to include the uplift of the entire region through adult education and economic cooperation; in so doing, the college became ever more deeply rooted in the affections of its constituency… [permanently altering] the character of the college.”
In Nova Scotia and across North America, universities are fighting to define—and redefine—themselves against an onslaught of conservatism that increasingly devalues education.
At StFX, “For the People” is not simply lip service: Father Jimmy Tompkins’ prescient advice helped the university transform, from a ‘storehouse’ of knowledge into a ‘powerhouse’ of social and economic change on behalf of the people of Nova Scotia.
Without the men and women of the Extension Department and of StFX proper, this province would undoubtedly be a very different place.
From libraries to schools to social programs to housing to fisheries—the Antigonish Movement forever altered the path of Nova Scotians for generations to come.
SHaPING
souls
Thirty years of Service Learning
In the early 1990s, Ann Bigelow got a call from her sister-in-law, then a dean of Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. “Come with us,” she said, referring to a Service Learning trip to Nicaragua…
“It’ll change your life.”
Dr. Bigelow, now Professor Emeritus following a four-decade career in the StFX psychology faculty, remembers hiking up to a mountain village where she and the other westerners stayed with an indigenous group for several days. “They taught us this game that was sort of like baseball,” she remembers. “They didn’t have a ball. And then at night, they would educate us. These were the most in-depths talks I’ve ever had about foreign aid and how the World Bank works—all with a barefoot farmer.”
More than forty years later, Dr. Bigelow remembers the experience made her confront her own biases: “They were right there in my face. Our group was a mix of students, faculty, and administrators, ages 17 to 62. But our differences didn’t matter; we were all learning and out of our comfort zone.”
She returned to StFX, determined to introduce Service Learning to the university. With the support of Dr. Sean Riley, she invited personnel from Gettysburg to visit Antigonish and assess the university’s suitability for hosting a Service Learning program of our own. Impressed with StFX’s history of community involvement—and particularly the Antigonish Movement—the Gettysburg contingent encouraged StFX to move forward with the project.
“These were the most in-depth talks I’ve ever had about foreign aid.”
ISL vs. CBSL
Dr. Bigelow’s trip to Nicaragua is one type of Service Learning—Immersion—wherein students travel to another country or a unique community within Canada for cultural exchange and education. You’ll read more about Immersion Service Learning (ISL) in the next issue of the Impact Report, but for now, our focus is on the type of Service Learning that’s practiced here at home: Course-Based Service Learning (CBSL), which is attached to the existing framework of classes in which StFX students are enrolled.
By 1996, Dr. Bigelow had gained the support of other faculty members and of the StFX administration and launched Service Learning—the first program of its kind in Canada.
Often referred to as the “pioneer” of Canadian Service Learning, Dr. Bigelow juggled the demands of creating a new program alongside her existing teaching and research responsibilities (she was also one of the earliest Canadian researchers of skin-to-skin contact for new mothers and babies).
Still, she said it wasn’t until 2000 that Service Learning really took off, when the university received a significant grant from the McConnell Foundation. “And that,” she says, “changed everything.” Suddenly, there was money for faculty to develop their courses around Service Learning, to go to conferences, and to collaborate with other academics across the country.
What is
Course-Based
Service
Learning?
Course-Based Service Learning (CBSL) crosses disciplines and embraces a wide variety of community partners. Each year, more than 800 StFX students participate in CBSL, with the co-operation and support of their professors, the staff of the Service Learning department, and community organizations.
Dr. Bigelow explains:
“A nutrition student might volunteer at the local food bank,sorting shelves and filling baskets—and then write a paper on the nutritional value of the average bag that clients receive. An economics student might look at the financial aspects of food banks, while a philosophy student might be interested in the ethics of a community food bank.”
The core of CBSL is that students gain real-world experience that they can apply to the theory they learn in the classrooms, making for a richer, fuller educational experience.
Dr. Joel Garrod, a newly-minted professor of sociology at StFX, was fresh to Service Learning when he took over a course in social inequality from seasoned Service Learning veteran, Dr. Norine Verberg. He calls CBSL a “tangible, on-the-ground experience” of the course material, which often requires students confront inequality in race, gender, sexual orientation, indigenous status, and class.
“In many cases,” Dr. Garrod explains, “it’s a revelatory experience. There is a fundamental difference between reading about something in the classroom and experiencing it personally.”
When he arrived at StFX, Dr. Garrod was “amazed” that Service Learning existed—and that it was so embedded in the curricula of a wide variety of departments. “We’re often stuck in the classroom, but I think most academics will tell you that things really get interesting and fun once you’re in the real world. This is a program that I have not experienced at other places I’ve worked or attended university. It’s really special.”
He attributes some of the success of Course-Based Service Learning to the dozens of community partners that work with StFX and the strength of the Antigonish community as a whole.
One of those community partners is the Red Apple Children’s Centre, a licensed childcare facility in Antigonish. Owners and operators Haley Jordan and Brigette Forrestall, welcome more than a dozen StFX students to their premises every week.
Ms. Forrestall raves about their contributions: “they have a variety of talents and gifts that they bring to our program,” she says, “and are exceptional, extra hands that are always needed.”
Parents, she notes, are often surprised by the Service Learning students—or rather, that they’re part of a university-based program. Ms. Jordan adds that the same parents are often delighted to hear that hundreds of StFX students volunteer each year in the Antigonish community, in organizations ranging from the Heritage Museum to the Pictou-Antigonish Regional Library to the walking program for seniors living with Parkinson’s.
One phenomenon that the staff of the Red Apple have noticed over the years is the StFX students’ discovery of their own talents. “Sometimes,” says Ms. Forrestall, “they have talents that they don’t think are talents—and are apprehensive about sharing those talents. But kids are so non-judgmental. They love you no matter what. You could play the guitar completely out of key and they’d still think it was the coolest thing in the world.” Even though the StFX students are there to help the staff of the Red Apple, they’re equally as likely to have their own confidence boosted through their interactions with children.
Sometimes, the students who’ve volunteered at the Red Apple through Course-Based Service Learning return as volunteers—and some even go on to become employees. One aspect of CBSL that Ms. Forrestall and Ms. Jordan especially appreciate is the introduction of diversity and new culture to the children of the Red Apple. “Antigonish is a small town,” they note, “and being able to interact with people from different places is invaluable to the children. They are so curious, about everything from language to food.”
“We had one Service Learner from the Bahamas who was excellent with the children. We hired her as a substitute teacher after her placement was finished–and then as a full-time member of staff. Now she has her own kids and is still in contact with us. Service Learning builds relationships that we never thought we would have.”
Ashley Hilling found one of those relationships through Service Learning, too. She took a course in the Health program from Dr. Christina Holmes in her first year at StFX that included Service Learning, which took her to L’Arche for the first time. L’Arche Antigonish is a place where people with and without intellectual disabilities “share life,” and while Ms. Hilling, who grew up in Antigonish, knew of L’Arche, she didn’t quite know what to expect during her first visit in 2018:
Ms. Hilling spent two hours each week that year at Dixie House, then journaled about her experiences as part of the Service Learning requirements for Dr. Holmes—a practice she found uncomfortable at first, but deeply memorable. Her interest in societal perceptions of disability persisted throughout her time at StFX and beyond: after graduation, she worked full time at L’Arche, then earned her Master’s degree in Social Justice at Lakehead University. “For me,” she says, “it all started with that interaction with Donny.”
Joined in her interview by L’Arche Core Member, Eileen Garvie, Ms. Hilling reflects on “what care and what love look like. Before L’Arche, I thought that people provided care for people with disabilities, and that’s where it ended.” But, she notes, “L’Arche has really taught me that care can look like so many different things. I provide care for Core Members, but they provide care for me, too—and for so many other people.”
Ms. Hilling now coordinates all five of the L’Arche houses in Antigonish, overseeing the care of 21 Core Members—including their annual plans and personal goal-setting. She plans to enroll in a PhD program in the future, continuing the work that was sparked by her first-year Service Learning experience more than seven years ago.
Dr. Asia Van Buuren ‘14 is a pediatrics resident at the British Columbia Children’s Hospital who credits Service Learning for helping her connect authentically with patients and parents—and for setting her up with her husband, Liam Elbourne ‘18.
She’d traveled to Guatemala for an Immersion Service Learning trip in her third year at StFX, and the journey was so impactful that upon her return she become one of the program’s student leaders, took a Service Learning theory course, and volunteered with the art therapy program at L’Arche called Hearts and Hands.
Dr. Van Buuren had entered StFX as a science student and quickly distinguished herself as one of the university’s top students. But towards the end of her degree, she was “feeling a little bit lost.” This period of uncertainty coincided with Friday mornings at L’Arche, where she discovered a new side of herself. “I think it helped me rewire my achievement-driven, productivity-focused mindset,” she notes, “and reminded me of the importance of slowing down, of being present and creative.”
“At Hearts and Hands, I didn’t have to show up a certain way. I could just be myself. There’s so much joy there.”
After graduating from StFX, Dr. Van Buuren became one of the inaugural recipients of an OceanPath Fellowship (now called the Pathy Foundation Fellowship), which supported Fellows’ community development projects. L’Arche wanted to expand their art program, so Dr. Van Buuren spent a year working with L’Arche to further develop the sustainability and community outreach structures for Hearts and Hands.
That year “totally changed my life,” Dr. Van Buuren claims. “I think L’Arche has that effect on people.” Her years with L’Arche taught Dr. Van Buuren that she had much “to offer, beyond [her] achievements on paper. Just spending time with someone is so appreciated and valued—and I try to carry that into my practice now as a pediatrician.”
But what does Service Learning have to do with romance? When Dr. Van Buuren was a student leader with Service Learning, her office happened to be across the hall from Professor Marlis Lade’s Intro to German classroom—and Frau Lade had a very keen student in Liam Elbourne. He found excuses to drop by Dr. Van Buuren’s office for a chat, but she presumed he was only interested in finding out more about Service Learning.
The summer she began her OceanPath Fellowship, she ran into Mr. Elbourne on campus and they started dating. Dr. Van Buuren happened to be spending that fall living with Lisa Leuschner, a member of L’Arche whose parents were traveling. “I had all these preconceived notions about relationships,” Dr. Van Buuren says, “and didn’t want to seem too eager.”
“Call him,” she remembers Ms. Leuschner saying. With a laugh, Dr. Van Buuren remembers that Ms. Leuschner would “take my phone and call Liam. ‘What are you up to? Let’s hang out. Let’s watch a movie.’”
Ms. Leuschner’s strategy worked. Van Buuren and Elbourne are now married, with a baby son.
“Liam and I talk about that,” Dr. Van Buuren says. “If I hadn’t followed the thread of Service Learning, I would have prob ably gone down a more traditional path. And maybe I would have been happy doing that, but then I wouldn’t be here watching my baby nap while I talk with you. I think my life would have looked really different.”
As we approach the 30th anniversary of the establishment of Service Learning at StFX, it’s important to reflect.
Thousands of Xaverians have engaged in experiential learning and made an impact on the Antigonish community via CBSL—and have gained invaluable confidence, insight, and skills as a consequence. StFX is known as a leader in this space; following our introduction of Service Learning in 1996, dozens of other programs have been implemented in universities and colleges across Canada.
As for Dr. Ann Bigelow, the pioneer of Service Learning? She’s retired now, but still making an impact. A developmental psychologist throughout her career, she’s newly focused on aging: “Most people have about twenty years of reasonably good health after they retire—but we’ve got to be active. We’ve got to be socially engaged.”
So, she started a new program: Keep Well Antigonish is a hybrid online and in-person initiative that includes both accessible exercise (like chair yoga) with social pieces like community cafes, lectures, and a newsletter of events in Antigonish that might be of interest to seniors.
And the best part? Each session of Keep Well Antigonish includes Service Learning students as volunteers.
A Beautiful Life
The Friendship of
Alex Beaton ‘48 and Taryn Greig ‘13
Alex Beaton 1928-2019
They met only once, briefly, in the Ottawa airport. She was in her very early twenties and he in his very late eighties. Their visit was brief, as she needed to catch her connecting flight back to Nova Scotia—to StFX—and in their rush, they forgot to take a picture.
Their friendship, conducted almost entirely via e-mail, was an unlikely one: Taryn Greig was a student at the Schwartz School of Business and Alec Beaton was a member of the StFX class of 1948. He’d established the A.P. Beaton Scholastic Awards to provide financial assistance to outstanding scholars, and Greig ‘13 was one of the first recipients of that support during her time at StFX.
Typically, students write letters of thanks to the donors who support their scholarship or bursary. It is less typical for those letters to turn into decade-long correspondences. “He was just very curious about me,” notes Greig, who now lives in British Columbia, “And I was also quite curious about him.
Who is he and why did he make this gift?
In 2006, Mr. Beaton set up an endowment fund, allowing it to accrue until there was enough capital to support two business students per academic year.
In 2006, Mr. Beaton set up an endowment fund, allowing it to accrue until there was enough capital to support two business students per academic year.
At that point, Mr. Beaton was 76 years old and putting some thought into his end-of-life planning. A native of Saint Ninian, in Inverness County, Mr. Beaton was educated at home until attending high school in Antigonish and then matriculating to StFX in September of 1944.
His early career is pocked with unusually adventurous travel: he trained as a meteorologist in the early 1950s and then spent summers in the Canadian North, providing ice forecasting in communities like Frobisher Bay, Churchill, and Cambridge Bay. After stints in Edmonton and Halifax, Mr. Beaton settled in Ottawa and was Chief of Environment Canda’s Ice Centre until his retirement in 1987.
Endlessly curious, Mr. Beaton travelled widely, volunteered extensively, and had a passion for his Scottish heritage that extended to a love of square dancing. And when Ms. Greig entered StFX, he wanted to get to know the student that his scholarship supported. He struck up an e-mail correspondence that lasted nearly a decade, wherein Mr. Beaton served as a mentor to Ms. Greig. “He was a cheerleader,” she says, “always in my corner.”
Ms. Greig was a star student: top of her class and a recipient of the Frank H. Sobey Award for Excellence in Business Studies.
She was President of Enactus StFX, which led to an internship in South Africa with KPMG and being awarded the prestigious HSBC Woman Leader of Tomorrow honour in 2013. She became an accountant following graduation from StFX and is now on the faculty of the Melville School of Business at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, as well as a certified mindfulness and meditation teacher.
She reflects on her journey through StFX and beyond: “The funding I received while I was a student gave me the capacity to engage in lots of extracurriculars, which really enriched my experience at StFX. I connect my role now—as an educator—to my community involvement in my undergrad, because that element of service is so present.”
After a very busy four years of university, Ms. Greig pivoted and took a gap year to travel through Asia and undertake yoga teacher training. “I do recall some classmates being surprised,” she says, “and I was feeling the weight of others’ expectations.” It was at this juncture that Mr. Beaton was particularly supportive of Ms. Greig: “He was very encouraging. He travelled extensively throughout his own life, and knew how important it was to him and to his development.”
She has spent the years since graduating from StFX contemplating some of life’s biggest questions: What does it mean to be successful? What is an education really for? What does it mean to be happy?
Ms. Greig, now the mother of one-year-old June, avers that:
“the giving of care between us as humans can make a beautiful life. Alex demonstrated that. He was giving, and he made a real impact on my life. It was quiet. It wasn't something that had to be broadcasted, but it was certainly meaningful to me—and I think meaningful to him, as well.”
Following Mr. Beaton's death in 2019, StFX was the recipient of a portion of his estate, which ensures that the A.P. Beaton Scholastic Awards can be granted to students in perpetuity—although current and future undergraduates will never have the relationship with him that Ms. Greig did.
What is planned giving?
There is no one-size-fits-all description of those Xaverians who include StFX in their estate planning. The average gift is about $30,000 and donors work with Maria Hartery, Planned Giving Officer in the Advancement Department at StFX, to structure their pledge; gifts (like Mr. Beaton's) can come in the form of stock, life insurance policies, or cash, and can be directed to any area of the university.
Predominantly, donors choose to set up funds, bursaries, or scholarships that are deeply personal to them, bearing their own name or that of a beloved family member. Recognizing StFX in one's estate is often the crystallization of a legacy, after a lifetime of support for the university that was so impactful to so many.
Acknowledgements
Content ................................................................................... Katie Edwards
New Photography & Video ................................ Warren Robertson
Art Direction & Design ....................................................................... Urban Orange
Web Build ....................................................................................... 3 o'clock
Content
Katie Edwards
New Photography & Video
Warren Robertson
Art Direction & Design
Urban Orange
Web Build
3 o'clock
To learn more, tell us about other stories of the impact our donors make, or to make a donation, please
email Katie at kedwards@stfx.ca
