Outreach
Community Outreach Projects
Loyalist Connections, left to right: Dr. Kirrily Freeman, Director of Outreach and Experiential Learning, Faculty of Arts; Dr. Patricia Matsumoto, Wicked Problems Lab; Laurice Gabriel Downey, Shawn Smith and Graham Nickerson, Loyalist Connections Creative Society and SMU alumni; and students Itai Kuwodza (MA Atlantic Canada Studies) and Matthew Downie (BSc Physics).
The Faculty of Arts is involved in the following community outreach projects. We welcome faculty and student participation in each of them. For more information, contact Dr. Kirrily Freeman, our Director of Outreach and Experiential Learning.
Loyalist Connections
The Faculty of Arts, the Wicked Problems Lab, and undergraduate and graduate students at Saint Mary's are collaborating with the Loyalist Connections Creative Society. We're working together on a series of initiatives dedicated to highlighting the significance of the Black and African Nova Scotian experience, and its legacy for Canadian history, society and culture:
- Loyalist Connections Podcast; read more in this feature story in the Maroon + White alumni magazine;
- Atlantic Canada's Hidden Histories Geotour; read more in this Feb. 16, 2023 announcement; and
- A live podcast (winter 2024), hosted at Saint Mary's and dedicated to the International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024).
- Coming up on August 10, 2024, the inaugural Black Loyalist Academic Conference of Knowledge! It's taking place at the Black Loyalist Heritage Centre as part of the annual Journey Back to Birchtown events. Register here and head over to our @smuarts page on Instagram to learn more about the program.
Kingsburg Barn Project
The Faculty of Arts and the Wicked Problems Lab are partnering with the Kingsburg Community Association on a project to research, map, and document existing and vanished barns in this coastal community near Lunenburg. The first phase of this initiative, which began as a student project in a Community Histories course in 2021, saw SMU students research the history of barns in the area and create a map in GIS. The project continued in 2023 and 2024 with students and faculty creating virtual tours and 3D models of Kingsburg’s barns, documenting barn-related community events, and building an interactive story map. Explore the story map, titled Kingsburg Historical Barns: A Living Archive.
“Wild” Islands: The Eastern Shore Archipelago
This CLARI-funded project—a collaboration between the Eastern Shore Archives, the Lake Charlotte Historical Society, the Wicked Problems Lab, and the Faculty of Arts at Saint Mary's—documents the rich history of the “Wild Islands” off the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia. Dr. Sara Spike (Fellow of the Gorsebrook Research Institute) and Saint Mary's student Alexis Vickers are bringing new research on the Eastern Shore Archipelago to the public. Visit the storymap, A History of the Eastern Shore Islands.
Memory Lane Heritage Village
Students in the Public Humanities and Heritage (IPHH) program worked with the SMU Wicked Problems Lab and Memory Lane Heritage Village to produce an interactive story map of the museum. Explore the 1940s on the Eastern Shore here: https://arcg.is/0mXXre.
Building Bridgewater’s Living Archive
How can a community archive preserve its collections and make them more accessible? The Faculty of Arts, the Wicked Problems Lab, and Saint Mary's students are contributing to the Des Brisay Museum in Bridgewater’s Living Archive project, which aims to digitize and preserve the museum’s archival collection in an open-access, interactive platform.
Preserving the Acadian Past
The Faculty of Arts is collaborating with the Musée des Acadiens des Pubnicos to help digitize documents in their research centre and to edit and publish an English translation of Clarence J. d’Entremont’s Histoire du Cap-Sable.