Acadia students wouldn’t want to go to an ordinary university, and Acadia wouldn’t want to be one. It’s a fact that the University’s 28,000 alumni understand very well, and they are perfectly positioned here at home and around the world to share their enthusiasm for Acadia to students considering post-secondary education.

Historically, Acadia has distinguished itself in a highly competitive market by specializing in the provision of a premium undergraduate education, offering a diverse assortment of degree combinations in four faculties – Arts, Pure and Applied Sciences, Professional Studies, and Theology – framed in the context of an increasingly rare and personal educational experience. That is exactly what prospective students are looking for. They want to make a difference, forge an incredible future, and Acadia has a long history of making that happen.

The University recently adopted ‘grow exponentially’ as its tagline. Because we are partners in our students’ education and we inspire each other, the sum is far greater than its parts; the outcome of our high quality, high engagement style of university that educates the entire person sets our students up for far more than a career. It sets them up for life.

The sky is the limit, and members of our alumni community are proof of that. They attest regularly to the value of their Acadia experience in our monthly e-Newsletter, the Bulletin magazine, and at alumni events locally, nationally and internationally.

Since 2003, Maritime university enrolment overall has declined by 4.1 per cent. Between 2013 and 2023, the university-aged population in the Maritimes is expected to decline by 15 per cent, and competition for students is fierce. Since 2009, Acadia has been defying the Maritime enrolment trend, growing its full-time undergraduate enrolment by 27 per cent. Recent figures from the Association of Atlantic Universities, however, indicate that as of October 1, 2015, university enrolment in all Atlantic Provinces has declined system-wide, and this includes Acadia, which showed a full-time undergraduate decline of 4.6 per cent over last year. Although Acadia continues to lead all Atlantic universities in percentage growth in the 2009-15 period, its enrolment needs to revert to the fall 2014 level and that is our objective.  

President Ray Ivany, in a broad message to all members of the Acadia community, recently urged faculty, staff, administration and alumni to participate in and contribute to the University’s enrolment efforts. He said, “we have an outstanding faculty who display an incomparable dedication to their students; our staff provide a range of services to our students that enrich and deepen the overall experience; our colleagues who work at the interface between the University and the broader community make Acadia relevant in the lives of many external partners; and, finally, friends and alumni of Acadia have been extraordinarily generous with their philanthropic support…. Donors are making important projects happen and, at the same time, allowing internal budgets to be devoted to our academic priorities.”

Few know more about the value and promise Acadia delivers than its alumni. Your support in word and deed has been and continues to be key elements of the University’s success, and no one has the capacity to tell Acadia’s story like you.

“Make no mistake – this is a call to action,” says Associated Alumni President Doug Jackson (’99). “Acadia is one of the most amazing universities in Canada and we must take ownership of it in a very real way by sharing Acadia’s story everywhere we go: encouraging future students to attend, bringing them out to recruitment events, providing referrals to our recruitment team, helping to open doors to our many networks, identifying alumni high school teachers, and more. We stand on the shoulders of those who have come before us, and have a commitment to build that legacy for generations to come. I urge every member of our Association to speak up, extol Acadia’s virtues and help recruit students to share in the experiences we all enjoyed when we were at Acadia.”

To learn more and see why so many prospective students fall in love with Acadia, check out this video.

If you want further information about specific recruitment initiatives or how you can assist in referrals, please visit: our Future Students webpage (http://www2.acadiau.ca/future-students.html); encourage prospective students to contact one of our recruiters in their area (http://recruitment.acadiau.ca/our-team.html), or take a campus tour (http://recruitment.acadiau.ca/visit_campus.html). To apply, please visit: http://www2.acadiau.ca/apply.html. Share these links regularly.