Université Sainte-Anne

André Roberge sits in his office high above Saint Mary’s Bay, gazing at Digby Neck on the horizon.
 
It’s one of the few quiet moments this busy university president takes, because operating the Université Sainte-Anne campus at Church Point, with its 440 full-time students, plus campuses in Halifax, Tusket, Cheticamp and Petit-de-Grat, with another 1,050 part-time students, is no easy task.
 
“I love the natural beauty here, with the network of trails and view of the water, and students who are committed to education yet have a wonderful campus life, too,” says the man who has been president for eight years, after serving as vice-president academic in Francophone Affairs at Laurentian University in Sudbury.Après avoir goûté à un choix limité de cours au secondaire, voilà que s'ouvre devant vous toute une gamme de cours et de programmes offerts dans une multitude de collèges et d'universités.
 
Half of the students at Church Point are in the Bachelor of Education program or working on a Bachelor of Arts leading to Education.
 
“We also offer degrees in business, general arts and natural sciences,” says Roberge, noting all five campuses are connected for class teleconferencing. “Next year, we’ll offer a two-year Bachelor of Education simultaneously on all campuses.”
 
Roberge beams about an initiative that places his small institution at the forefront of all universities in Canada.
 
“Because we’re small and in a wooded area, we can do what no other university can—eliminate greenhouse gases from its system,” he says. “We are a Green campus”
 
Green initiatives include replacing the oil-burning furnace with a wood chip one and efficiently reducing greenhouse gases by close to 100 per cent, installing 100 solar panels to heat water in the residences—a move Roberge says, “will provide half the hot water we need”—and adding wind power. Roberge says, “We will soon have one or two windmills on campus to produce 10 to 15 per cent of the power we need. Our heating cost will be cut by half.”
 
The university will use this as a recruiting tool, developing new courses in environmental science to be used across the curriculum.
 
The Green seed was planted back in 2002 when Roberge came to the campus and worked on a capital campaign with a focus on wind energy. Then in 2004, Roberge and campus officials visited an Austrian town that called itself the centre of renewable energy.
 
 
“That gave us the inspiration for a biomass furnace here,” he says. The idea evolved and with funding of $2.5 million from federal and provincial governments construction is ready to begin.
 
Students are jumping on board, too. Rose Madden, a fourth-year business student from Tusket, has been in residence throughout her university years, and is enamoured with the small class size and personal instructor attention.
 
Knowing the teacher-student ratio of about one to 10, Madden emphasizes. “We’re not just a number. We have great rapport with the teachers and other students. We’re members of a family.”
 
Being in a small, isolated community enables students to become immersed in campus life and through that, develop great leadership skills. Take Madden’s involvement in Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), an extra-curricular program that organizes events and projects to demonstrate entrepreneurship.
 
“We’ve competed at regionals and nationals,” she says. “Last spring, we were one of six Canadian universities in a pilot competition project, For the Greener Good Challenge, which taught emerging business leaders to make environmental sustainable decisions.”
 
It has made her more environmentally aware and prouder of what the university is doing in its renewable energy program.
 
Roberge says Université Sainte-Anne is one of only three universities in Atlantic Canada with an increase in enrolment in each of the last three years.
 
“When I arrived, there were 300 students and we’re now at 440. In three years, we’ll be over 500. That will fill our residences but our classrooms can handle 600. If we get there, we’ll build more residences.”
 
The university attracts Francophone students from the Atlantic provinces, but not many Anglophones. The latter, formerly in French Immersion, sense they have enough French to get along, Roberge notes, but following their first degree, they then come to Sainte-Anne for a French education degree.
 
There’s also been growth in international students, mainly from Africa and the Middle East.
 
A “job guarantee” program is another attraction. “Most of our students have no problem getting jobs. They are bilingual and in demand,” says Roberge. “But if they can’t find a job, we’ll offer free education if they come back. So far no one has come back.”

Feature story written by Joel Jacobson