Dr. Kirrily Freeman (centre) with MA (History) student Naomi Kent (left) and Pam Corell of the SMU University Art Gallery (right).
The Faculty of Arts is very pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Kirrily Freeman as its first Director of Outreach and Experiential Learning. The appointment is for a three-year term, effective September 1, 2022 through August 31, 2025, says Dr. Mary Ingraham, Dean of Arts.
“This position will assist us in recruitment and outreach to schools and community organizations, as well as support and enhance experiential learning opportunities for our students,” Ingraham says.
In her new role, Freeman will provide leadership and support to departments and programs in developing, expanding and promoting outreach programs and experiential learning opportunities.
“This new position is very exciting,” says the history professor. “This is an opportunity to build on our strengths as a Faculty in community engaged research, teaching and service. I’m really looking forward to supporting my colleagues in their outreach work, bringing a range of experiential learning opportunities to our students, and fostering community partnerships for the Faculty of Arts.”
Freeman brings a depth of experience to this work, having served for seven years as Coordinator of the Nova Scotia Provincial Heritage Fair, an annual event involving partnerships with schools, government departments and cultural organizations across the province.
She forged a new memorandum of understanding between the Faculty of Arts and the Association of Nova Scotia Museums (ANSM), which is building museum studies programming and research internships for Saint Mary’s students. She and students in a pilot Museum Fundamentals and Decolonizing Collections course were involved in community consultations across the province this summer as part of ANSM’s “Unlocking Community Museum Collections” digitization strategy.
In another recent project, Freeman collaborated with community leaders in creating a tribute to the No. 2 Construction Company, Canada’s “Black Battalion” in the First World War, which was a highlight in this summer’s Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo.
“Universities have a duty to serve the communities of which we are a part. Our professors and students in the Faculty of Arts are a great resource, and in turn we can learn so much from engagement and partnership with communities. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to help the Faculty of Arts enhance its efforts in this area,” she says.
An historian of modern Europe, Freeman focuses on the cultural history of western Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in her teaching and research. Her publications include The Town of Vichy and the Politics of Identity: Stigma, Victimhood & Decline (Palgrave Pivot, 2022), Reading the Postwar Future: Textual Turning Points from 1944 (Bloomsbury, 2019), and Bronzes to Bullets: Vichy and the Destruction of French Public Statuary, 1941-1944 (Stanford, 2009). She recently created two interactive web-based story maps, The Destruction of Bronze Statues in the Second World War and The Destruction of Church Bells in the Second World War.
Photo: Dr. Kirrily Freeman (centre) with MA (History) student Naomi Kent (left) and Pam Corell of the SMU University Art Gallery (right).