Welcome to Community Development
Lead, Learn, Transform
The Bachelor of Community Development at Acadia University equips students with the skills, knowledge, and experience to contribute to ethical, inclusive, and transformative community change. Through interdisciplinary education, experiential learning, collaborative partnerships, and critical reflection, we prepare students to integrate theory and action, analysis and imagination. We recognize the complexity and uncertainty of the world students are entering—and we support them to think critically, lead with care, and act with courage and humility. Our graduates are prepared to work across sectors and scales, building relationships and co-creating strategies with communities to advance equity, sustainability, and collective well-being—while helping shape diverse and thriving futures.
Our program is here to help you become a thoughtful, skilled, and courageous changemaker—ready to meet a world that’s complex, uncertain, and in need of care. At Acadia, you’ll learn to connect big ideas with real action—through hands-on projects, interdisciplinary learning, and deep community relationships. We’ll support you to think critically, lead collaboratively, and stay grounded in values like belonging, collaboration and sustainability. You’ll graduate ready to work across sectors and communities, not with all the answers, but with the clarity, curiosity, and tools to help shape more just and desirable futures.
At Acadia, Community Development isn’t just something you study—it’s something you live, lead, and create. Here’s what you’ll be ready to do when you graduate:
- Turn Ideas into Real-World Action
- Lead with Purpose
- Make Change That Lasts
- Build Relationships That Matter
- Do Research That Makes a Difference
- Become an Engaged Global Citizen
- Create & Deliver Community Projects
- Think Across Boundaries
- Know Yourself as a Changemaker
- Plan, Fund & Grow Big Ideas
The Acadia Community Development program seeks to build stronger community-university partnerships with and among diverse communities, Indigenous peoples, African Nova Scotians, newcomers, and historically white settler communities. We foster civic engagement and mobilize for social and environmental justice in the classroom and community. Please visit our Land Acknowledgement page.