Father Donald Campbell Founder Award

Award Description:

This award recognizes an individual(s) whose legacy in the creative arts has developed connections to academia and/or the larger community. The recipient has produced a considerable body of work in the fine arts or in support of the same for their community. A natural leader with a proven commitment to the preservation of higher learning, the Father Donald Campbell Founder Award recognizes the work of accomplished individuals possessing foresight, dedication and perseverance in collaborating with diverse stakeholders to maintain the creative arts in our community.

About Father Donald Campbell:

Rev. Dr. Donald F. Campbell, affectionately known as Father Donnie, returned to Sydney to become the principal of Xavier Junior College in 1964. He became deeply involved in the movement to establish a university on Unama’ki-Cape Breton. When the University College of Cape Breton (UCCB – now Cape Breton University) was formed, he became its founding president, serving two terms before returning to the classroom as a psychology professor. His tenure as president marked a period of rapid growth, during which he set a clear mandate to support creative arts on campus, establish a community of practitioners, work to advance artistic capacity and build awareness of and respect for creativity in the community.

Dr. Campbell believed that an institution of higher learning on Cape Breton Island required the expertise and the infrastructure to inspire creativity in all pursuits. Under his leadership, UCCB saw significant expansion, including the establishment of several key institutions that continue to shape arts and culture today. His vision laid the foundation for:

• The Boardmore Playhouse, which produces four mainstage productions and two theatre festivals annually, providing hundreds of students and community members with opportunities in acting, playwriting, stagecraft and directing.  
• The CBU Art Gallery, the first and only public art gallery on the Island, which has been a hub for visual arts activity since 1970, fostering arts appreciation, visual literacy and critical scholarship.
• The Beaton Institute, the official repository for historically significant records of Cape Breton University, which also serves as a cultural heritage archive dedicated to preserving the social, economic, political and cultural history of Unama’ki-Cape Breton.

Without Father Donnie’s vision, advocacy and action, initiatives like CBU’s Creative Campus would not exist today. Thousands of staff, students and community members now engage in and benefit from the arts and creativity-based programs which Father Donnie valued so highly. Father Donnie’s example reaches from those early days when his guidance, passion and dedication drove our institution forward, to today when his legacy to us remains an unwavering belief in the power and necessity of art and of creation.