Future King's Campaign Priority Projects

Campaign Priority Projects View of the newly renovated accessible entrance to Alex Hall.

Photo by Elizabeth Foster

“Welcome” is, in many respects, why we are here.

Welcome is a word that marks an ushering in, a broadening of perspective to acknowledge and include others. I have always viewed undergraduate education as a welcome into adulthood and into a life infused with ideas and debate crucial to our role as citizens in a prosperous, equitable, democratic society.

Welcome is the word we chose to reflect our work on a new campaign for King’s. The future we envision is a King’s that welcomes students, faculty and staff from all backgrounds and celebrates individuality and the diversity of thinking and opinion that is the lifeblood of higher education.

Each time we create a new pathway into King’s, our community grows in strength, vibrancy and inclusiveness—and we’re all richer for it.”

—President William Lahey

LEFT: Outgoing Board of Governors Chair Doug Ruck, BA’72, KC, Jane Smith, Dr. Kathryn R. Burton, BA’98, DCL’23, Chancellor Debra Deane Little, President William Lahey and Robert Little.

Photo by Paul Adams MIDDLE, TOP TO BOTTOM: Halifax Mayor Andy Fillmore, Board Chair of the Black Cultural Society of Nova Scotia Mervyn Broome, President William Lahey and Kathryn Lassaline. Photo by Paul Adams.

Guests gathered for the Ottawa launch.

RIGHT: President William Lahey addresses guests at the Toronto campaign launch.

ON NOVEMBER 21, 2024, the President’s Lodge was packed as President William Lahey publicly launched Welcoming: The Future King’s, a campaign to pave the way to a more inclusive and diverse future.

King’s goal is to raise $15 million to help the university advance its vision and offer space for underrepresented people, so they can see themselves reflected in the faces on campus and ideas in the classroom.

At the heart of this work, which builds on President Lahey’s mandate, is a new Academic Plan that outlines the educational priorities for King’s students with a vision that ensures equity, accessibility, inclusiveness and the university’s work toward reconciliation.

“Inclusion must be a focus and not an ancillary element of our educational mission. If we just focused on getting students in the door but did not embrace the goal of inclusion in the whole of their educational journey, inclusion would fall short of fostering a true sense of belonging,” says President Lahey.

At the launch events in Halifax, Ottawa and Toronto, President Lahey explained that to embark on this journey of transformation and include a range of voices and perspectives, the university has been working

closely with partners and advisors from the Mi’kmaw and African Nova Scotian communities, including the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia and the Mawaknutma’tnej, the Indigenous advisory circle at King’s.

Support for the campaign has already reached $11 million.

Projects funded so far include the creation of the Deane Little Community Support Centre; restorations that protect and preserve our historic residences while improving them with modern amenities and building systems, and new common rooms; an endowed chair in the history of healthcare and health equity; and new scholarship and bursary initiatives to make King’s possible and attractive for students with a love of learning who may not have previously had access or felt welcome.

“This campaign is not just about the future of King’s, but our collective future,” said President Lahey at the Halifax launch, addressing the room guests, including donors, alumni, faculty, staff, the Board of Governors and students. “And we are buoyed by the vision of working with you to get there.”

Now, King’s is accelerating the pace of its progress to fund the remaining priority projects:

CAMPAIGN PRIORITIES WELCOME FUND Goal: $500,000 General funds raised in previous King’s campaigns continue to steward the university today. Much of what has been accomplished at King’s in the past decade has been assisted by these unrestricted (internally restricted) legacy investments. Unrestricted funds are vital for King’s sustainability and provide direct student financial assistance and necessary seed funds for future program innovation. This campaign’s Welcome Fund builds on the tradition of collective campaign giving, where King’s alumni, parents and friends come together to continue the tradition of generosity from one generation to the next—the future King’s.

COCHRAN BAY RESTORATION Goal: $1,400,000 Marked as urgent and placed as ‘top priority among priorities’ by our students, Cochran Bay needs loving attention. Known to graduates before 1960 as the ‘original’ Alex Hall (then a women’s residence), this 100-year-

old building is now the only King’s residence that is not restored and modernized. Above all, our students call for this work to be done so that all students in residence may enjoy comparable living spaces that combine their original charm (including the unique hybrid rooms) and important amenities (modernized washrooms). From our students’ perspective, this will be among the most impactful campaign priorities.

EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING Goal: $250,000 King’s is a teaching-intensive university— providing excellent learning opportunities is our first and most important goal. Faculty renewal has advanced, including five new tenure-track professors, to make our faculty more reflective of the diverse community King’s aspires to be. Still, King’s falls short in the number of faculty members from equity-deserving groups. Programs also require additional expertise in key areas needed to diversify program content. To include a broader range of voices and perspectives,

this fund will allow us to welcome visiting scholars to King’s and support current faculty scholarship and professional development beyond the university.

MI’KMAW AND INDIGENIZATION INITIATIVES Goal: $400,000 To build upon the $600,000 investment already made by King’s, this fund will continue to advance King’s specific and unique contribution to reconciliation by providing: direct financial support for Mi’kmaw and Indigenous students; programming at the Mawio’mio’kuom, King’s Indigenous Students Centre; expand activities offered by the full-time Indigenous Support and Outreach Coordinator; and maintain and expand our unique courses in journalism and the Indigenization initiatives underway or planned in other programs. As with all Indigenization efforts at King’s, advice is provided by the Mawaknutma’tnej, King’s Indigenous advisory circle.

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING & HUMANITIES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE (HYP) Goal: $290,000 Particularly in our journalism program, King’s has long been a leader in “learning by doing.” This fund will build on that leadership and the accomplishments of recent years in creating highly successful pilot projects in co-curricular experiential learning by enabling King’s to both emphasize and develop the experiential element already present across our programs and add new for-credit and co-curricular opportunities in this growing field of learning in the liberal arts. This fund will provide program innovation for our work on experiential learning in journalism, creative writing and the humanities, including through our Undergraduate Fellowships in the Public Humanities, and other workintegrated learning programs. Similarly, we will expand Humanities for Young People (HYP), our highly successful summer program for high school students, to ensure more young students understand why education in the humanities and journalism has never been timelier and more salient.

TUTORING SUPPORTS Goal: $100,000 This will provide dedicated tutoring support to assist students who may otherwise struggle in our programs, including those who may have been disadvantaged in their earlier education. All King’s students in need of academic support will benefit from advice and encouragement as they learn how to balance their academic and extracurricular commitments, which are essential to the enrichment of their college life.

LEARNING BEYOND THE QUAD Goal: $500,000 King’s offers for-credit field courses in Europe (Florence and Berlin) and in Mi’kma’ki (Eskasoni) with aspirations to develop more. This fund will expand and enrich these offerings and ensure their accessibility by providing financial assistance to deserving students who could not otherwise participate. Additionally, the fund will support select class outings and, when needed, provide financial assistance for students to attend and present their papers at national and international conferences.

This fund will support an increased number of land-based programs and off-campus excursions and curb inequities in our students’ ability to experience the fullness of what King’s has to offer.

MASTER OF FINE ARTS IN SCRIPT WRITING Goal: $200,000 King’s is developing an MFA in Script Writing program that builds on the success of the two existing MFA programs in creative nonfiction and fiction. Created in partnership with the local film industry, this program will facilitate the growth of a body of creative writers who wish to create for television, film, online productions or games. With this seed funding in place, the script writing program would welcome its first cohort of graduate students in June 2027. By 2028, enrolment will include two full cohorts, with a cohort size of approximately 20 to 25 students, and will then be self-sustaining.

PODCASTING CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE Goal: $160,000 Podcasting has become an important platform for journalistic and creative storytelling, including for voices from communities that have been underrepresented in the media. As the podcasting industry matures, producers focus on improving creative and production standards, putting pressure on podcasters to elevate and upgrade their skills or partner with people who have audio expertise. This need for expertise creates a unique opportunity for King’s journalism program. This fund will provide the necessary lift to enhance our existing podcasting offerings by launching a Centre of Excellence in Podcasting that will become self-funding in its second year.

FIRST GENERATION RENEWABLE BURSARY Goal: $300,000 This fund will create a fully endowed bursary to support students who are the first in their family to attend university. It will create an annual, renewable bursary valued at $3,000 per year. The bursary will give preference to Nova Scotia students from rural communities.

GORDON EARLE SCHOLARSHIP FOR AFRICAN NOVA SCOTIAN STUDENTS Goal: $450,000 Trailblazing African Nova Scotian Dr. Gordon Sinclair Earle, BA’63, DCL’22, was the first recipient of the Prince Scholarship, originally named for pioneering sociologist Dr. Samuel L. Prince. When it was first established in 1959, it was the only scholarship dedicated to African Nova Scotian students offered by any university in the province. Discontinued in the 1970s due to a lack of funding, it was reinstated by King’s in 2018 and renamed in Dr. Earle’s honour in 2023. It is now an annual, renewable scholarship valued at $6,000 per year. Today, $150,000 has been raised to support this award, and our goal is to fully endow it to ensure a scholarship can be awarded annually for perpetuity.

RESTORED A&A FOYER Goal: $350,000 Our welcome to everyone includes rejuvenating the foyer of the Arts and Administration Building into the grand ‘entranceway’ to our Collegii Regalis and into higher learning that Architect Andrew Cobb intended it to be.

ARTWORKS Goal: $100,000 The ambiance of King’s has an important role in our welcome to everyone, as it helps to convey an embracing sense of place and belonging. To complement our beautiful architectural heritage, particularly in our foyer and dining hall, we will purchase and commission new works of art that provide a contemporary visual representation of the diversity of perspectives within our community.

If you are looking to support the campaign and do not see your interests reflected in these projects, there are additional ways to contribute. The three campaign pillars— Empowering Student Success & Access, Expanding and Diversifying the Educational Experience, and Enhancing Excellence and the Cultural Life of King’s—leave ample room for conversation.

“Through this campaign, with the help of donors and partners, the living and learning community at King’s will be strengthened and enriched in all its dimensions.

The King’s that emerges will provide an even more transformational education to its students that better prepares them for fulfilling consequential lives beyond King’s, giving them a long view of the complexities of the twenty-first century—a gift to the students and, in turn, a gift from our students to the world.”

—President William Lahey

TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: Dr. Gordon Earle, BA’63, DCL’22, and guests in Halifax. President William Lahey in Ottawa.

BOTTOM: Guests at the Toronto launch.

welcoming: the future For more information about the campaign, its priorities and ways to give, contact Adriane Abbott, Director of Advancement at adriane.abbott@ukings.ca or visit ukings.ca/future-kings-campaign.