Editor’s Note: As we celebrate African Heritage Month in February, we’re proud to spotlight some of our own people, Black culture, contributions and history. Here we step into the Dr. Agnes Calliste Academic and Cultural Centre.
A place to belong and flourish: StFX’s Dr. Agnes Calliste Academic and Cultural Centre
On a sunny winter Wednesday, light pours through the windows of the Dr. Agnes Calliste Academic and Cultural Centre. Plants soften the windowsill. African drums rest nearby. Tables are positioned to invite conversation, and couches to linger.
“The centre is a real place for students to come,” says the centre’s manager, Lorraine Reddick. “The atmosphere is relaxing. Students enjoy it. They feel like family when they come. Especially when Antigonish is not home, it’s a substitute of how we would be in our living room, able to be together, as a family.”
“It’s a home away from home,” agrees Black Student Advisor Akua Amankwah-Poku, who notes that the centre is designed to offer services, supports, and something quite intentional: belonging.
Open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with evening hours supported by a student ambassador, the Dr. Agnes Calliste Centre is a dedicated space where Black students can study, connect, or just simply be.
“You don’t have to come for services,” says Ms. Amankwah-Poku. “You can come just to sit.”
That openness is central to the centre’s mission. Its four pillars include academic success, belonging, healing, and community.
Ms. Reddick says a lot of her focus is on community, helping students, and even prospective students, to see their potential and the potential they have at StFX.
“Sometimes students don’t realize what they can accomplish.”
Having a space like this on campus helps students see themselves represented and that’s important, Ms. Amankwah-Poku says.
Since the Dr. Agnes Calliste Centre opened in Mount St. Bernard Room 204 a year and a half ago, Ms. Amankwah-Poku says engagement has increased. Students drop in for advising, but also just to sit and talk, to spend quiet time in a space that feels safe.
The centre offers access to academic guidance, peer mentors, and practical supports. Ms. Amankwah-Poku’s office helps students navigate university life from learning how to find and apply for bursaries to connecting with academic to mental health supports. Faculty, library staff, and academic support professionals also drop by to connect with students. A small kitchen is on site with snacks, and through partnerships with Kevin’s Corner Student Food Resource Centre, students can access groceries such as milk, eggs, and vegetables.
Each September, a mixer helps set the tone for the upcoming school year. Programming throughout the year runs from resource fairs and movie nights to academic workshops and cultural events. The centre’s staff have also planned the university’s first Black Community Recognition Dinner and continues to play a role in educating the wider campus about the history and contributions of people of African descent.
Ms. Reddick says she believes students are proud of the centre. She notes her personal pride, especially its name.
The centre honours the late Dr. Agnes Calliste, a trailblazing scholar, activist, and mentor who spent nearly 30 years on faculty at StFX. As a sociologist, Dr. Calliste’s research explored race, gender, labour, and migration, including groundbreaking work on African-Canadian railway porters and Caribbean-Canadian nurses. As an advisor, she was a tireless supporter of Black students and a fierce advocate for equity.
“Dr. Calliste would have liked this space,” says Ms. Reddick, who was a close friend. “She was so supportive of students. She was a believer and a fighter and this is a great legacy for her.”
Ms. Amankwah-Poku says what excites her most is being able to connect with students, to laugh with them, to support them, to be a friendly face to them.
“And to see them cross the stage at the end and think of all the good things they will do, it makes it worthwhile and it makes it enjoyable, knowing you can support someone’s success.”
The Dr. Agnes Calliste Centre is important both for the services and programming it provides, they say, but also because it is a space where students don’t have to change who they are. It’s a place where they can build confidence and feel like they belong.
