Rural Education

This week’s Annapolis Valley Register included two articles on education.

What attracted my attention was that Avery plans to start his Acadia University M.Sc in Geographic Sciences in September 2022. The first year is at COGS, and the second at Acadia. This took me back to 2009 when I co-authored a paper with Ian Spooner, Defining the Applied Geomatics Research agenda: joint graduate degree collaboration between the Nova Scotia Community College and Acadia University, Geomatica 2009 (63) p.156-161.

Here we are thirteen years later, and a local student recognizes the opportunity from this collaboration.

How many students have followed this path?

It builds on the one-year technology diploma at COGS and allows the graduate to apply their technical skills to a significant problem at Acadia University in the second year.

This is not dissimilar to the original one-year diploma at COGS in the 1980s. In that case, it was a three-semester program, culminating in a cooperative project.

Avery’s example shows that post-secondary education is available in a rural setting. If we are to change the relationship between rural and urban Canada, we need more examples where students can learn and apply their skills in a rural context. This was well understood by Major Church and JB Hall. It does require a willingness for collaboration between the community college and the universities.

Many of today’s global issues occur in a rural setting, whether agriculture, forestry, fisheries or planning, within the context of climate change, changing demographics, transportation, and new employment models.

A simple first step would be to provide a list of graduates from this institutional collaboration. What type of projects did they complete for their thesis? Where are they now?

Clearly, the Register article on Avery Jackson illustrates the recognized potential for these graduates in rural Nova Scotia, and beyond.

Acknowledgements

Appreciation to faculty at COGS and Acadia who have kept this option alive. Edward added the graphics. Anne Crossman expressed her interest in our historic infrastructure.

Postscript

From David Colville. After tomorrow’s graduation, I think there will be about 32 students that have completed the MSc Applied Geomatics program.  A few more are somewhere along the completion process.

References

Annapolis Valley Register, Thursday, May 5, 2022 ’Generational Duty’ by Jason Malloy.

Annapolis Valley Register, May 5, 2022, Anne Crossman, Valuing Education: Nova Scotia has deep history with providing training.

R.V. Maher and Ian Spooner, 2009, Defining the Applied Geomatics research agenda: joint graduate degree collaboration between NSCC and Acadia University, Geomatica 63. p.156-161.