Delivered by Peter O’Brien, Public Orator, October 7, 2026
Russell Grosse, DCL’26
Domina Cancellaria; praesento vobis Rosellum Grosse, ut admittatur ad gradum Doctoris in Jure Civili (honoris causa).
In a recent poetry collection, King’s Inglis Professor Sylvia Hamilton channels the ancestral voice of some of the first Black Nova Scotians. Heard from a ship carrying enslaved people from Africa to North America, this voice declares: “We had our own names / a past a present. / We worked we loved. / Sang songs to the wind / prayed to our Gods. / We did not know the future / would not be ours.”
For over 30 years, Russell Grosse has devoted himself to the protection, preservation, and promotion of Nova Scotian Black culture and history, at once affirming its present and ensuring its future. While his career of service began in his home community of Cherry Brook, the laboratory for much of his work has been the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia. Since taking up a summer student position there in 1994, Mr. Grosse has held multiple leading roles, culminating in his appointment as Chief Executive Officer in 2025. Under his visionary leadership, the Centre has grown into a hub of culture and heritage that extends beyond provincial borders, earning national recognition as a model museum and cultural centre of excellence. He has overseen the development of innovative multimedia platforms, including virtual museum experiences and hundreds of hours of content, which have significantly expanded access to Black history and culture.
Mr. Grosse has provided essential advice to King’s in its efforts to acknowledge the contributions made by African Nova Scotians over their 400-year history, and in making the College a more welcoming place for Black students, faculty, and staff. Under his guidance and that of President Emeritus Bill Lahey, the BCCNS and King’s announced a formal partnership in 2023, while King’s, Dalhousie, and the Black Cultural Centre were collaboratively co-hosting the Universities Studying Slavery Conference. More recently, the BCCNS cosponsored the African Nova Scotian Journalism initiative at King’s. At its 2025 launch, Mr. Grosse remarked that “Representation in journalism is critical—and this program helps ensure African Nova Scotian stories are told with authenticity and integrity, by those who live them.”
In addition to his contributions at the Black Cultural Centre, Mr. Grosse serves as a member of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, where he continues to elevate awareness of Nova Scotia’s Black heritage on a national stage. He played a pivotal role as co-chair and event coordinator in the Government of Canada’s National Apology to the descendants of the No. 2 Construction Battalion, an all-Black unit that served in the First World War. Mr. Grosse’s commitment to community, history, and culture has been recognized through numerous honours, including the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal and the King Charles III coronation medal.
Madam Chancellor, for his leadership and innovation in the preservation and celebration of Black Culture in Nova Scotia and Canada, I ask you, in the name of King’s College, to bestow on Russell Grosse the degree of Doctor of Civil Laws (honoris causa).
Inglis Professor Stephen Kimber, ONS, DCL’26
Domina Cancellaria; praesento vobis Stephanum Kimber, ut admittatur ad gradum Doctoris in Jure Civili (honoris causa).
On more than one occasion, Stephen Kimber has called himself an “accidental academic.”
Samuel Johnson, another eminent analyst of public mores in his time, as well as a weaver of fictional and nonfictional narratives, defined “accident” as “the property or quality of any being, which may be separated from it, at least in thought.” While it would be churlish to disagree with an honorand, at first blush it is hard to separate Professor Kimber from his 42-year career at King’s as teacher and academic leader—even in thought! Stephen has been part of our community since 1983, formally retiring only in 2025. He served three terms as Director of the School of Journalism and co-founded the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction program, thus helping to roadmap King’s Journalism, Writing and Publishing programs for the future.
On reflection, Stephen’s self-characterization is less surprising. His career as a journalist and writer is both longer than and coextensive with his academic endeavours. In books and columns he has both grounded the theoretical in gritty reality, and explored speculative themes in flights of imagination. Professor Kimber’s journalism spans print, radio, and television. For sixteen years he was a columnist for the Halifax Daily News, and until recently he wrote regularly for the Halifax Examiner and Atlantic Business magazine. His pieces have appeared in almost all major Canadian publications, as well as international ones, bringing Nova Scotia to local, national, and international audiences with clarity, depth, and a storyteller’s heart, something he instilled in his many students. His commitment to uncovering truth and speaking it to power has both increased accountability in our polity and made a strong case for the place of excellent journalism education in growingly fact-challenged and narrative-impoverished times.
Kimber’s appetite for sustained stories has produced some 13 books. His catalogue of 10 nonfiction titles in biography, history, crime, current events and political exposé is ornamented by three novels, including the forthcoming Traitor’s Game: A Mick Blackwell Mystery. He has received 23 Atlantic Journalism Awards and numerous individual prizes for his books, including the Evelyn Richardson Award for Alexa! Changing the Face of Canadian Politics in 2022. More telling than the tally are career-capping accolades like 2023’s Order of Nova Scotia and this year’s Legacy Award from the Atlantic Book Awards Society as well as induction into the Atlantic Journalism Awards Hall of Fame.
Madam Chancellor, while careers may begin in happenstance, collegial decisions to honour decades of premium journalism, creative fiction and nonfiction, as well as dedication to writerly education, are anything but accidental. I therefore ask you—with full intention—to bestow on Stephen Kimber the degree of Doctor of Civil Laws (honoris causa).