President’s Message

When Acadia launched its five-year strategic plan, Acadia 2025: Transforming Lives for a Transforming World, in March of 2020, we could not have predicted that more than two years later we would still be wrestling with the effects of a catastrophic worldwide pandemic that ravaged our planet and its people. As I write this message reflecting on the progress we’ve made toward implementing the plans’ goals and objectives, every country and economy is recovering from the seventh wave of the COVID-19 pandemic that has paralyzed global supply chains, overwhelmed healthcare systems, diminished human to human interaction, and distorted learning environments. New geo-political tensions and rising waves of refugees displaced by war exacerbate the globe’s fragile economy and its political stability.

The pandemic has underscored how delicate human life can be while at the same time demonstrating the value to society of an educated population that is willing to invest in research, reward innovation, and extend a compassionate hand to neighbours both near and far.

Of course, while the pandemic has raged, our institutions, both public and private, have carried on. At Acadia, I am reminded each day that we have a remarkable community that is focused on our core mission. The individual and collective efforts over the past two years are nothing short of extraordinary and it is worth reiterating my sincerest gratitude to our faculty, staff, students, and broader stakeholder community for the work done to keep our Acadia community safe. We have been very fortunate, but it has been because of our community’s dedication and discipline.

In 2022, we find ourselves in a new world. The aforementioned supply chains and healthcare systems have been altered permanently. Governments that have backstopped our economy, its institutions, and its workforce are establishing new short and long-term priorities to both recover and prepare for future growth. For our post-secondary sector, we face new challenges as waves of incoming students emerge from hybrid learning environments with academic interests shaped by this inflection point in human history and the long shadow it will cast on every conceivable aspect of prepandemic life from public policy to business investment to international cooperation.

When we chose the title Acadia 2025: Transforming Lives for a Transforming World we had no idea just how prescient it would be, but prescient it is. In a short period of time, our world has transformed. Our students have transformed. Our expectations have transformed. Indeed, to quote Yogi Berra once again, “the future isn’t what it used to be.” To be sure, we have not been standing still preparing for the future while dealing with the buffeting winds of the pandemic. The Acadia 2025 framework has proven to be a valuable tool for the Acadia community to use to prepare our academic core, our community stakeholders, and our physical plant for the future.

We are making progress toward achieving the goals we set out in Acadia 2025. We have reduced our carbon footprint, we have taken deliberate steps to make our campus more open, inclusive, and tolerant, our academic researchers are tackling some of our society’s most pressing problems, we have built new and lasting public and private-sector partnerships, and through the generosity of hundreds of donors we completed the largest fundraising campaign in Acadia’s history.

While this report marks the halfway point in our transformative journey it is important to emphasize that this is a brief moment in time during the history of an institution that has endured and thrived for almost 200 years. Indeed, the mission of Acadia today is the same as that of the Acadia of 1838:

To provide an unparalleled learning experience through a liberal education model based on personalized attention, expanding the boundaries of knowledge, experiential learning, community engagement, environmental stewardship and global citizenship, and engaged research and innovation delivered by a compassionate, dedicated and nurturing community within a beautiful and historic campus environment.

We stand on the shoulders of those that have gone before us, but we are not bound by their limitations. If the past twenty-four months have proven anything, it is that our role as a leading post-secondary institution is to encourage and foster unconventional thinking, intellectually curiosity, and concern for the future of our planet not just our neighbourhood is more valuable than ever before. Our responsibility then, is to be nimble enough to respond to new challenges and opportunities as they arise to ensure Acadia graduates continue to make a meaningful impact on our world and future generations. Looking ahead to the 2025, the most important work we can do is to ensure we have a solid foundation on which to build the next 200 years of Acadia’s legacy.

I want to again than everyone who has contributed to the progress we have made over the past two years and for their unfailing commitment to Acadia’s success.

Dr. Peter J. Ricketts President and Vice-Chancellor

Acadia and COVID-19

Given the enormity of the COVID-19 pandemic and it’s impact on every aspect of life and learning, it is important to reflect on how the Acadia community adapted to public health constraints and advice and contributed to broader efforts to end the pandemic.

When the campus was closed in March of 2020 it was as though clocks stopped while individuals heeded public health warnings and withdrew from normal day-to-day activities. With the end of the 2020 academic year in sight and students returning to their homes en masse, faculty responded quickly by moving to on-line teaching platforms with tremendous support from our technology services team. This almost instantaneous transition could not have been achieved without the single-minded concern for students that is the hallmark of the Acadia community.

In April 2020 a COVID-19 testing site was established in the University Club on Westwood Avenue. This testing site has been a permanent fixture of support for everyone in our community throughout the pandemic. In the spring of 2021, the parking lot of the Festival Theatre became a drive-through vaccination clinic augmenting the walk-in vaccination clinics that had previously been offered in the building lobby.

Tracking COVID-19 outbreaks and community spread has consumed public health resources and dominated news coverage for more than two years. Acadia faculty member Dr. Jennie Rand led a team of researchers to determine the levels of COVID-19 in municipal wastewater. It is hoped that this tool will become an effective method of detecting the virus in the community as an early warning tool for healthcare practitioners and policy-makers.