STRATEGIC PLAN PRIORITY 4
Globalize With a Difference
First Population Increase in More Than 20 Years
One of the key strategies identified to enable Cape Breton University to globalize with a difference was the attraction of students from many countries into a broad range of programs, thereby creating a diverse campus across which students, faculty and staff learn from each other and embrace differences. As a result of strategic recruitment investments, enrolment has grown to more than 5,000 students, with approximately 60 per cent of those students coming from more than 50 different countries.
In the 2019-2020 academic year, the impact of this increase was immediately felt on campus. Common areas and hallways were bustling with activity, food services shifted and expanded in response to demand and cultural observances and events proliferated. Throughout the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM), the increased student population was also visible. International students spurred the growth of local businesses and improvement of transit services, while fueling the housing market and filling labour market needs across the Island.
Photo taken prior to March 2020.
Most notably, our students disrupted a long-term trend of declining population on the Island – one that had been projected to continue well into the future, with some models estimating the island population would be reduced to 107,025 by 2036. After a downward trajectory for more than twenty years, in 2019, Cape Breton Island’s population increased from 133,359 to 134,850. Experts primarily attributed this growth to the influx of Cape Breton University’s international students in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.
In March 2020, Thomas Storring, director of economics and statistics for Nova Scotia's Finance Department, was quoted in a CBC News article, stating, “There was an increase of 2,249 in net non-permanent residents in CBRM and, just to put that in context, the increase in Halifax was 1,481, so it's a very large jump.”
CBU students celebrating Diwali at the event held at the Canada Games Complex on campus.
Photo taken prior to March 2020.
He went on to emphasize the significant impact of CBU’s international students in this regard, explaining, “That's how much this means to the overall population in Cape Breton, that that's actually pushing the population up.” At the same time, the unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since 2008.
Population growth is critical to the continued viability of the CBRM and the Island as a whole, as population size is tied to the maintenance of and investment in social and community services and infrastructure. As Cape Breton University continues to globalize with a difference and advocate for pathways and supports to facilitate immigration, there is hope that the declining population trend on Cape Breton Island will not only be disrupted but reversed.
CBU students attend a CBRM community event at Wentworth Park.
Photo taken prior to March 2020.