Dr. Késa Munroe-Anderson (’98, ’00) believes in being the change she wants to see.

An associate professor in Acadia’s School of Education, she first came to Acadia as an international student from the Bahamas in 1995, earning a BA and an MA in English. “When I was a student at Acadia, I didn't have any faculty members who represented my racial background,” she says. “I'm happy to see a growth in representation of Black faculty at Acadia in recent months. It's important that Acadia is a place where Black faculty and students believe they can grow and develop. “

Today, Munroe-Anderson is well known as a community-oriented, social justice educator and change agent. She practises an Africentric, anti-racist, and Black feminist/Womanist approach to research, teaching, and leadership.

FIRST OF ITS KIND

She is also the driving force behind a new collaborative partnership between the Delmore "Buddy" Daye Learning Institute and Acadia University to establish an Africentric Bachelor of Education program. Scheduled to start in September 2024, it will be the first of its kind in Atlantic Canada.

“As a Black woman and an educator, I am particularly concerned about how we provide opportunities for representation and access, as well as opportunities to eliminate systemic barriers that continue to exist in Nova Scotian education for Black learners,” she says. “Africentricity has been a grounding philosophy for me, and its values and perspectives inform my work and my day-to-day life.”

The initial cohort of 25 students will be African Nova Scotian Student Support Workers currently working in Nova Scotia schools. They will receive financial support from Nova Scotia’s Department of Education and Early Childhood Development to complete this Africentric B.Ed. program and transition into a teaching career within the public school system.

LEADING A TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCE

Munroe-Anderson is leading the program development of the new partnership.

“My role is to foster and to lead a transformative education experience for those learners and for everyone engaged in this program on campus,” she says. “We hope the program will also be transformative for our wider African Nova Scotian and Black communities across Nova Scotia, in terms of demonstrating the importance of culturally responsive education.”
The founding philosophy of Africentricity indicates that people of African descent should be centred in any experience that relates to them, she explains. “In education spaces, that means that our knowledge, our lived experiences, our histories and cultures and perspectives and worldviews, and all issues we face should be centred in the discussion around anything we are involved in. It also means we should be represented as leaders and knowledge givers and knowledge makers in those processes. So, my work as coordinator of this program is to ensure that through and through, from beginning to end, this learning experience is Africentric.”

The program will incorporate Ubuntu, an African philosophy that emphasizes the importance of working in positive relationship with one another towards building successful and equitable communities. In these communities, everyone has an opportunity to succeed in the ways in which they define success.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for our university to grow and to learn,” she says, “and to demonstrate what it means to provide education that is transformed in an equitable manner, that promotes critical social justice, and that is informed by local knowledge.”