A message from Dean Kim Brooks and Director Sandra Toze:

Over the last couple of months, we in the Faculty of Management have been preoccupied by twin pandemics: the coronavirus pandemic and a longer-standing racism pandemic.

We’ve been working hard to respond to each, because we believe that management education and research take ideas from inspiration to realization. A management education trains students to solve some of the world’s most vexing problems. To get where we need to be, to do what we need to do, to become what is needed today and tomorrow, our Faculty of Management community must reflect a diversity of lived experiences and perspectives.

We ask you to join us in supporting a new Promise Scholars program. The program builds from one originally recommended in 2015 in Dalhousie’s, “Report from the Committee on Aboriginal and Black/African Canadian Student Access and Retention: A Focus on Financial support” [PDF] (Recommendation 21).

The Promise Scholars program will assist students in all four of the Faculty of Management’s Schools, at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.

We commit to supporting Scholars in this program in three ways:

• financial support;
• paid work during their program; and
• wrap-around support specific to the student (ie. each student will be assigned a faculty, staff, peer, alumni and career advisor).

To qualify for the Promise Scholars program, a student has to be Black or Indigenous, with priority given to African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaq students. From within the qualifying pool, students who come from low-income families or who are the first generation in their family to attend university will be prioritized.

How to donate

We would love to have widespread support for the program from our community. If you are able to give (every contribution makes a difference).

• Donate to the Promise Scholars fund for the Faculty of Management’s undergraduate programs (BComm and BMgmt)
  
• Donate to the Promise Scholars fund for School of Information Management's graduate programs (MI and MIM)

Donations over $500 will be acknowledged with thanks in our promotional materials for the program. Remember that donations can be made by monthly contribution. If you’re interested in being a more substantial donor or creating your Promise Scholar Fund, please contact the dean at Kim.Brooks@dal.ca and our Development Officer, Lisa Doucette at Lisa.Doucette@dal.ca or (902) 220-7937.

What our students say

We embraced the Promise Scholars program at the urging of our student leaders. Here's why they think it's important:

We at the Dalhousie School of Information Management strive to embrace a fair and just agenda as information managers, librarians, and human beings, move towards healing past injustices, and amplify all voices (especially those that have been unrepresented and thwarted in the past—namely African Nova Scotians, and Mi’kmaq Indigenous peoples). With optimism for a bright future ahead, our commitment is strong and unwavering to build equitable relationships that empower students with access to knowledge and education that amplifies voices in transition from university to the workforce. —School of Information Management Student Association