Early mentors

Perhaps the most fundamental of all her early mentors were her parents, Mizpah Munroe and Earnal Munroe. Munroe-Anderson grew up in Freeport, Grand Bahama in the Bahamas. Her mother taught for 49 years and during her early years, her father was a school principal, so Munroe-Anderson was familiar with and naturally understood the value of education. It was also a Christian home, and church activities very much shaped her culture and self-perception. She interacted with people to whom she could aspire and saw her own reflection in their faces. She was proud of that and it helped to develop her personal identity. The home, school, church and community environments were inspirational and nurturing, and when Munroe-Anderson left the Bahamas at the age of 18 to attend Acadia, she felt like she could do anything. The original post-secondary plan was to attend school in the United States, but Evelyn Pinder-Dames and her husband, Ron Dames (’82), an Acadia alumnus, encouraged her to consider Acadia. Uncle Ron would tell stories of wonderful, golden days on the Acadia campus and, to humour him if nothing else, Munroe-Anderson applied. The more he talked, however, the closer she looked because Uncle Ron was a trusted voice who had enjoyed many positive experiences in Wolfville. Munroe-Anderson came to campus in January 1995 and says that “God orchestrated my steps to be here.” She stayed in Cutten House all four years of her undergraduate degree and recalls arriving on an icy night, walking into the residence and seeing a student from Bermuda working the main desk. “She looked just like me,” Munroe-Anderson says. “She said ‘Welcome!’, we talked about church, and she invited me to come to church with her.” It was a pivotal moment. From there, she met students from other islands and places such as Uganda and Kenya. She joined the International Gospel Choir, served as its president, and found a faith community that became like family to her. They ate and hung out in McConnell Dining Hall, talking and chatting and supporting one another. “It was crucial to my success,” she says, “and gave me a feeling of inclusion.”

Defining moments

A defining moment that would inform her future occurred in Dr. Donna Smyth’s first-year English class. That’s where Munroe-Anderson encountered Fire on the Water, edited by Dr. George Elliott Clarke (’12 HON). The book included writing on the history of Africville and introduced Munroe-Anderson to African Nova Scotian history, teaching and Africville itself. She says, “I came alive and felt a connection to this place (Nova Scotia) like never before! I realized Black people had been here for hundreds of years, and I was super excited. It was a connection to my people I didn’t know I had, and it’s no coincidence that all of my work since can be linked to the African Nova Scotian community, fighting for equity, advocating for representation and social justice.” It was life-altering and she immediately felt part of something bigger. Discovering a curriculum that spoke to all students was a revelation, but Munroe-Anderson realized also that enslavement existed here in Nova Scotia and was connected to anti-Black racism that she herself experienced personally. However, the support of mentors like Dr. Lynn Aylward (’86) in Acadia’s School of Education and Dr. Susan Brigham at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax provided sustenance and encouragement. Aylward told her, ‘You’re better than what’s happening to you,” and Brigham, whom Munroe-Anderson has known for 16 years and who supervised her PhD thesis, nurtured and empowered her. In acknowledging Brigham in her thesis, Munroe-Anderson describes Brigham as “an othermother and a Seba in the academy to me. You have mentored me in more ways than you realize. I will always be grateful for the many doors you opened for me. If I am half the professor that you are, I will be outstanding!” Munroe-Anderson’s thesis also includes a poem she wrote entitled, ‘Dear Ugly Duckling’. Riffing on themes of metamorphosis and change, Munroe-Anderson says she wasn’t seeing herself and others reflected in her educational experiences. There are historical inequities, and the poem suggests how crucial it is for people of African descent to be reflected in every aspect of our being. We need to continually ask: what do the leaders and teachers look like? Who is missing, and why are they missing? “I’ve seen exclusion,” she says. “We need to be conscious of who has been left behind, and to have spaces, voices and lived experience at the table. They have so much to offer, and if they are not represented, it means someone believes they don’t exist, we don’t value their existence.”