Cape Breton University

When Cape Breton University president John Harker arrived at his current post in 2003, the school’s average entry grade was 73 per cent. Today that grade has increased to over 84 per cent.

“That tells me, only because we’re not turning people away, that we have become more of a place where the very best students see that it’s an appropriate place to come,” Harker says. “They are attracted by the fact that they can get a small class size education and, especially in sciences, an opportunity to do hands-on research.”

Cape Breton University, or CBU, is most definitely not turning students away. In fact, in 2007 it reported the strongest student enrollment increase in all of Atlantic Canada. Yet it still boasts an excellent student-faculty ratio. What are especially fascinating about these increases are the students behind the numbers.

In large part, Harker explains, the enrollment increase comes from innovative international partnerships developed in the last few years. Ten per cent of CBU’s student population comes from abroad—from 44 countries, with significant numbers from Egypt and China. As well, the Canadian International College (CIC) Cairo campus, CBU’s partnership campus in Egypt, opened in 2004. The 950 students enrolled there can complete their four-year CBU degree at the CIC in Cairo or transfer to Cape Breton at any time during their program.

CBU’s student population is dynamic in other ways too. The school recently saw a 38 per cent increase in students with disabilities. It is also the university of choice for Aboriginal students in Atlantic Canada. In 2004, Harker says, CBU became the first post-secondary institution in Canada to hold a convocation ceremony in a First Nations community when graduates received their scrolls at Wagmatcook First Nation.

“We’re very much a part of this community,” Harker says. Cape Breton University is committed to offering opportunities for a quality post-secondary experience to all qualified students who apply, and to making sure CBU gives back to the community. “It is interactive. We rely so much on the community to help us get where we need to be. You can’t get that great support if you operate in isolation from the everyday reality of the community.”

Much care is put into developing this relationship, and the rewards come back to benefit CBU. “There is a realization that if the community knows what you’re about, you’ll be stronger for it,” Harker says.

The examples are numerous. The university makes one of its art galleries available exclusively to local artists, and each spring hosts an exhibition for local school children to display their art. CBU partners with the local chamber of commerce each year to put on a dinner to raise funds for CBU business school scholarships. CBU sports teams are cheered on by the entire region, not just the student population. It can be difficult, Harker says, to find seats at basketball or soccer games. (As an aside, Harker notes that most of the top athletes are also among the school’s top students.)

Of course, the university hires hundreds of local people as staff, and all of the degree committees have members of the community on them.

“And when we hire faculty,” Harker says, “they contractually undertake that they will teach, of course, they’ll do research, but they’ll also have to show a record of community service.”

That isn’t too much of a sacrifice for faculty members, he says, as there are many benefits in return for taking a post at CBU.

“They know they can generally attract research money and we do our best within our resources to ensure that they have a good opportunity to do research as well as teach,” he says. “That really matters to them, but those with young families have also made it clear to me that it’s really nice to come to a place where there is such a warmth and an opportunity to explore and enjoy the richness of the whole island.”

This is one factor why CBU is seen as an especially attractive place for good, fairly new PhDs to begin their career. At the heart of it, Harker says, if faculty didn’t feel that they could teach small classes and also do their research with encouragement rather than hindrance, they might not feel so enthusiastic about becoming part of the CBU community.

“They would perhaps then just want to come and get their ticket, if you will, and then parlay that into somewhere else. I haven’t seen that. I’ve seen them wanting to come here and get on with making a difference.”

It’s not just about small classes, either, Harker says. It’s about innovative teaching models.

“The essence of what became our Bachelor of Arts in Community Studies degree was that students would do much of their learning in small groups, broken into what Harvard Business School calls ‘syndicates.’ They would spend their semester or academic year focused on a local problem and try to come up with ways of responding to it. All of this is under the guidance of faculty and in fact puts a burden on the faculty to be mentors and guides in a real way, not just somebody who gives a lecture. This has proven to be one of the most innovative things a university could do.”

The content of other programs illustrate innovation too.

“If you study our business degree, you’ll find that half of your courses are in arts and humanities because we believe in really rounding out the individual at the same time as sharpening the skills they’ve got to put to use,” Harker explains. “The nursing program contains mandatory study of a couple of philosophy courses.”

Cape Breton University is not locked, he adds, in some sort of struggle between the theoretical and the practical.

“We see the need to be good at the whole picture.”

With its alumni voting CBU as number one in Canada in the 2006 Maclean’s Graduate Satisfaction Survey, it appears that need is being adequately met.