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The Dalhousie Faculty Association (DFA) originated in 1951 as an informal alliance of professors primarily concerned with low salaries and their mistrust of the university’s senior administration. By the mid-1970s its officers represented senior faculty members from across the disciplines and the association had established the Dalhousie Faculty Club, in which it held its meetings.

In 1978 the DFA proposed that the Board of Governors grant the association the right to collective bargaining by voluntary recognition. Rejected by the Board, the DFA moved to apply for certification from the Nova Scotia Labour Relations Board under the Trade Union Act, and in November 1978 the DFA was officially certified as the union representing the interests of all Dalhousie professors and professional librarians in the matters of employer-employee relations.

The DFA is affiliated with the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT). Currently the union represents more than 900 faculty, professional librarians and counselors working at Dalhousie University in both Halifax and Truro, Nova Scotia.

Dalhousie Faculty Club was incorporated in August 1971 under the Societies Act of Nova Scotia. In 1972 the club took over the main floor of its current premises, a 1922 building designed by Andrew Cobb and built to house the Law School, but used variously by the administration, the library, the English and maths departments, and the computer centre. The club eventually expanded to absorb the building’s Great Hall as well as its basement, which became the Earl of Dalhousie Pub.

While the club did not incorporate until 1971, an accounts ledger for 1932-1959 indicates that an association called the Dalhousie Faculty Union collected membership fees, charged for lockers, magazines, tea services and the use of a squash court, and incurred expenses for catering and office supplies, but there is no indication where its members met. In 1952—one year after the founding of the Dalhousie Faculty Association (DFA)—the name begins to appear in the ledger as the Dalhousie Faculty Club, although the only notable difference in the accounts is the new and regular occurrence of “steward’s services” and "snooker balls and equipment" among the disbursements.

In the late 1950s and 1960s, the DFA socialized and held its meetings on the top floor of the Arts and Administration Building, while a Dalhousie Faculty Club Committee was appointed and charged with establishing a club. A decade later, in 1971, President Hicks offered the committee the former Law Building, along with $20,000 from the Board of Governors in matching funds for the building's renovation as a club house for faculty and senior administrators. The seven members of the Faculty Club Committee formed the club's first Board of Directors to govern the association, which was was a legal entity both separate from the university and independent from the DFA, although founded primarily for its members.

By the late 1970s financial considerations had prompted a change in the club’s by-laws to broaden membership eligibility to include clerical, secretarial, library and technical staff, and in 1984 the club changed its name to the Dalhousie University Club. In 2014 membership access further expanded to include all employees and retirees of Dalhousie and King’s universities, along with graduate students, postdocs, grant-paid employees, professional students and alumni. The club continues to be privately managed under the auspices of its Board of Directors.

Dalhousie Legal Aid Service is a community-based office in the north-central neighbourhood of Halifax, Nova Scotia. It also is a clinical program for law students operated by the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University. Its funding is provided by the Schulich School of Law, the Nova Scotia Legal Aid Commission, the Law Foundation of Nova Scotia and clinic alumni, friends of Dalhousie Legal Aid Service and special events.

Dalhousie Legal Aid Service has been in operation since 1970, when it began as a summer project out of the former Halifax Neighbourhood Centre. It was the first legal Service for low-income communities in Nova Scotia and is the oldest clinical law program in Canada. In fact, it is the only community law clinic in Nova Scotia. The Clinic is a unique partnership of community groups, law students, community legal workers and lawyers working together.

In addition, Dalhousie Legal Aid Service does community outreach, education, organizing, lobbying and test case litigation to combat injustices affecting persons with low incomes in Nova Scotia. Community groups and community based agencies with mandates to fight poverty and injustice may apply for legal advice, assistance, and community development and education services. The Service offers advocacy workshops and legal information sessions, and works with other groups to lobby the government on social assistance policy and other policies negatively affecting persons with low incomes.

Dalhousie Library and Information Alumni Association was founded in early 1974, being approved by the school's alumni and accepted as a legitimate entity by the Dalhousie Alumni Association. Its founding members included school director Norman Horrocks, John Murchie, who was appointed chairfellow, Elaine Rillie as chairfellow, and Bernie Coyl as secretary.

The Associated Alumni meet on a regular basis and sponsor social gatherings and professional workshops to advance the interests of the library profession, particularly education for librarianship; to promote the best interests of the Dalhousie School of Information Management; and to promote the professional objectives and interests of its individual members.

The Dalhousie Medical Alumni Association (DMAA) was founded in 1958 with a mandate to address alumni concerns and affairs within the medical school. Initially funded through membership dues, in 1966 the university established an operating grant to facilitate the association's activities, which ranged from organizing reunions to commissioning portraits of medical school deans. The same year, the DMAA began publishing its own alumni magazine, VOXMeDal, now known as MeDal. Several longstanding awards were created, including the Honorary President Award, granted annually to an outstanding accomplished senior alumnus/alumna, and the Gold and Silver D's Awards, given to current students who display exemplary leadership qualities and positive attitudes.

The DMAA's operations were disrupted in the late 1980s when Dalhousie withdrew its financial support, due in part to disagreements over who should control the association and its activities. In response, the DMAA began to solicit funds from Medical School alumni, requesting at the same time that the university refrain from doing so. This provoked challenges from other departments, resulting in the DMAA being prohibited from fundraising. By 2001, Dalhousie had discontinued all funding to the association, which had a direct and negative impact on the DMAA's capacity to support many of the student projects and activities that it served. Subsequent negotiations re-established a revenue stream that enabled the DMAA to resume its work, and new initiatives and projects were undertaken, including the creation of The Young Alumnus of the Year Award (2001) and Family Physician of the Year Award (2007). By 2017 the DMAA was able to contribute a substantial annual sum to the Dalhousie Medical Students Society to support extracurricular activities and health advocacy initiatives.

The Dalhousie Staff Association (DSA) was formed in 1971 to unite clerical, technical and non-professional library employees at Dalhousie University in an effort to improve staff communications with the university administration. As a voluntary organization, it achieved several primary objectives: the establishment of a job evaluation program, standardized working hours and vacations, and a committee to air common concerns and complaints.

Despite pressure from the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) to organize the university’s non-academic employees, on 5 September 1974 university staff voted in favour of the DSA as their exclusive bargaining agent. The DSA applied for and received a voluntary recognition agreement from the university, which was signed on 23 January 1975. The first collective agreement between the DSA and the Board of Governors took effect on 9 May 1975.

In 1991 the DSA decided to merge with a larger union to gain the advantages of greater resources and a stronger bargaining position. Talks were initiated with the Nova Scotia Government Employees Union (NSGEU), and a merger agreement was signed in the spring of 1994, retroactive to 1 July 1992. In the interim, the DSA negotiated a final contract on its own, covering the period from 1993-1997.

The Dalhousie Student Union (DSU) has its roots in student-led associations dating from 1863 that provided services to and represented the interests of Dalhousie students. In 1899 the General Students’ Meeting became known as the University Students’ Council, continuing to organize social events, publish The Gazette (for which they had accepted ownership in 1869), and operate the reading room. By 1912 the council was also nominally in charge of student discipline and administering funds for student clubs and organizations.

By the late 1950s there was a movement to establish a permanent facility for student activities; in 1957 Dalhousie students voted $20,000 to establish a student union building fund, and in 1960 they voted in favour of a $10 fee increase to help pay for its construction. On 8 November 1968 the Student Union Building (SUB) was opened.

The Dalhousie Student Union has been associated with a number of larger student organizations, including the National Federation of Canadian University Students (later known as the Canadian Union of Students), the Atlantic Federation of Students, and the Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations. The DSU is supported through student fees and revenues generated via food and other services, investments and contracts. The union’s executive and council are elected annually and have the authority to approve and implement budgets and expenditures on behalf of the student body.

The union represents students to external organizations and governments and is granted three seats on the Dalhousie Board of Governors and six seats on the Senate. By tradition, a member of the executive takes one of these seats, while the remainder are filled by elected students, each of whom who also holds a seat on the DSU Council.

As part of its mandate the DSU supports and funds over 250 student societies and hosts numerous events, campaigns and programs. It facilitates services such as health and dental plans, student legal counsel and student advocacy, and employs and manages both full- and part-time staff to operate the SUB, the campus bar, research, communications and reservations for building facilities.

In the 1970s and early 1980s Dalhousie Cultural Activities referred to the department responsible for operating the Dalhousie Arts Centre and the university program of arts related activities it oversaw.

Senate Standing Committee on Cultural Activities

The department originated from a Senate Standing Committee on Cultural Activities created in 1964 to coordinate arts events on campus. The committee worked with three arts advisory sub-committees (one each for music, art, and theatre) and was Dalhousie’s first coordinated approach to cultural activity planning on campus. In addition to organizing specific events such as concert series, exhibitions, and workshops, the committee pressured senior administration to build a university centre for the arts which would house teaching and office space, an auditorium, a theatre, and a gallery.

General Committee on Cultural Activities

The Senate dissolved the committee two years later in favour of creating a formal university committee with a similar mandate. In 1966 President Hicks selected the members of the new General Committee on Cultural Activities which would be directly responsible to him. This committee continued to work with subcommittees who were allocated their own budgets and who were responsible for programming in specific areas: art, music, and theatre (a film subcommittee was also added in 1969). Members of the general committee included the chairmen of the sub-committees, students, alumni, representatives from the theatre and music departments, faculty, and other members from the community.

In addition to developing and overseeing a well-rounded, university wide, cultural activity program on campus, the general committee was also involved with the development of the Dalhousie Arts Centre. The committee provided input on layout and design, set priorities for completion, and helped determine how the new facility would be managed. The committee played a pivotal role in securing a coordinator for the centre and professional director for the gallery. John Cripton was hired to be the university’s first coordinator of cultural activities while Dr. Earnest Smith was appointed director of the gallery.

Dalhousie Cultural Activities

The committee evolved again with the opening of the Arts Centre in 1970. Both administrators were given seats on the general committee as ex-officio members and the department now became known collectively as Dalhousie Cultural Activities. Still responsible for providing a rounded cultural program, the general committee now also determined the policies of the Dalhousie Arts Centre and oversaw the activities of the coordinator. The new coordinator was responsible to the general committee and for administering the arts centre with the teaching programs in mind; cooperating with similar organizations in the community; preparing activity programs for the approval of the general committee; negotiating bookings for visiting performers; managing the daily activities of the centre and its staff; preparing budgets for committee approval; and publishing event calendars.

Although an executive committee was formed in 1976 to help manage the affairs of the centre, the committee structure began to break down by the 1980s. Many of the sub-committees, the general committee, and the executive committee were meeting rarely and lacked enthusiasm, in part due to severe budget cuts and the growing complexity of operating the department. As a result, in 1984 the general committee was dissolved and the coordinator of cultural activities became directly responsible for the Arts Centre, liaising with the Art Gallery and other departments, and reporting to the vice president, finance and development.

Dalhousie Arts Centre

In 1985 Dalhousie Cultural Activities formally changed its name to the Dalhousie Arts Centre. As of 2006, the department continues to be responsible for the administration of the arts centre and remains one of four autonomous departments (the others being the Art Gallery, and the music and theatre departments) within the facility, responsible for managing the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium and three reception rooms. Thirty-five years after opening, the centre maintains a vibrant arts program for the university and greater Halifax community.

Chief Officers

Known chairmen of the General Committee of Cultural Activities include C.B. Weld (ca. 1966-1968), Malcolm Ross (ca. 1969-1971), George Nicholls (ca. 1972-1974), Rowland Smith (ca. 1975-1976), and Sonia Jones (ca. 1976-1980).

Coordinators of the Arts Centre include John Cripton (1970-1973), Erik Perth (1973-1984), John Wilkes (1984-1987), Murray Farr (1987-1988), Robert Reinholdt (1988-1989), and Heather McGean (200?).

The Board of Governors is responsible for the overall conduct, management, administration and control of the property, revenue and business of Dalhousie University.

On 11 December 1817 Lord Dalhousie made a submission to his Council proposing the establishment of a college in Halifax, naming an interim Board of Trustees made up of the lieutenant governor (himself); the chief justice, the Anglican bishop; the provincial treasurer; and the Speaker of the Assembly (later adding the minister of St Matthews Church).

Two years later, in the face of mounting building debt, it was expedient to incorporate the governors of the college, which comprised Lord Dalhousie (now the Governor General of North America); Sir James Kempt (the current Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia); the Anglican Bishop of Nova Scotia; the chief justice; the treasurer of the province; the Speaker of the Assembly; and the president of the college (who was yet to be named). The 1821 Act was passed, incorporating the governors of Dalhousie College and beginning Dalhousie’s legal existence.

By August 1838, due to deaths, resignations and absences, the board was reduced to three: the lieutenant-governor, the treasurer of the province and the Speaker of the House. Despite disagreement and opposition, the board appointed three professors for the college’s first term, including Thomas McCulloch as president. In 1840 the Dalhousie Act reconfigured the board established by the Act of 1821. The Governor General of North America, the chief justice and all other ex-officio members were dropped, with the exception of the lieutenant governor and the president of Dalhousie College. Twelve new members were named and it was decided that future vacancies would be selected by the Legislative Council, with two members chosen by the Assembly and one by the Council. If cumbersome, the new 17-member board was more representative across political and religious spheres than earlier renditions. In 1842 the board drew up rules of governance, including age of admission and requirements for the Bachelor of Arts, and laid down principles of liberality with regard to religious affiliation. They reduced professorial salaries and tried to clarify their rights to the Grand Parade. Despite their renewed efforts, Dalhousie closed its doors in 1844 following the death of Thomas McCulloch.

The 1848 Dalhousie Act reduced the Board of Governors to between five and seven members to be appointed by the governor-in-council, and William Young, Joseph Howe, Hugh Bell, James Avery, William Grigor, Andrew MacKinlay and John Naylor were named to the board. Their efforts to make Dalhousie useful and solvent included opening it first as a collegiate school, then as a high school, and finally as a small university in union with Gorham College in Liverpool, England. None of these was successful and by 1862 the Board was down to four members and had not met in two years.

Three new appointments were made to the board along with amendments granting it greater authority, and in 1863 a new Dalhousie College Act was passed that gave the board power to appoint all college officers, including the president and professors, and, while internal governance was the responsibility of an academic senate, their rules were subject to board approval. The college was reconstituted as a university, conferring bachelors, master and doctoral degrees. In November 1863 Dalhousie College opened under the new board.

For over fifty years the Dalhousie Art Gallery has been offering a diverse program of exhibitions, films, lectures and artists' presentations, serving as a cultural resource to the university and its community.

Prior to the establishment of the physical gallery, the University Art Group was formed by faculty members and administers in 1943. Housed in an ad-hoc space in the science department, the group sponsored exhibitions, screened films and loaned out its small collections of art reproductions. They also joined the Maritime Art Association, which enabled them to host travelling exhibitions from the National Gallery as well as to promote Maritime artists across other regions of Canada.

The Dalhousie Art Gallery was officially opened in October 1953 in a single room in the Arts and Administration Building, run by a volunteer committee of faculty members. The same year marked the beginning of the annual Student, Staff, Faculty and Alumni Exhibition, which both showcased Dalhousie’s talent and firmly identified the Gallery as a university facility.

During the 1950s and 1960s the University Art Gallery underwent rapid expansion in its collections and programming. In 1963 Classics professor Mirko Usmiani served as Honorary Curator, succeeded the following year by Evelyn Holmes, who was appointed as Acting Curator. Since 1972 the gallery has employed a series of professionally qualified directors, curators and registrar-preparators, assisted by part-time staff and volunteers and guided by an advisory committee of individuals from across the university and community.

In the early 1970s the Art Gallery held exhibitions in the Killam Library, but in November 1971 it moved into its current home in the newly built Dalhousie Arts Centre. The permanent exhibition area and work and storage spaces enabled the gallery to establish itself as a credible cultural organization, able to meet international standards for displaying and handling works of art. The move also allowed for the expansion and care for the gallery’s permanent collection.

The University Senate officially approved the gallery as an Academic Support Unit in 1985. In 1994, threatened with closure due to funding cuts, the gallery was saved by a donation from Dalhousie alumnus, John Scrymgeour. Currently the gallery’s operating budget is paid by the university and supplemented by an endowment fund. Additional financial support for programming is achieved through provincial and national grants.

The Faculty of Architecture was established on 1 April 1997 with the merger of the Technical University of Nova Scotia (TUNS) and Dalhousie University. It was the outgrowth of the first school of architecture in Atlantic Canada, which opened at the Nova Scotia Technical College in 1961, sharing a building on Spring Garden Road with the Nova Scotia Museum of Science. During the 1960s the professional architecture program began, consisting of two years of engineering at one of seven Maritime universities, followed by four years at the School of Architecture, leading to a BArch degree. In 1969 the engineering prerequisite was changed to two years in any university subject.

In 1970 the School of Architecture took over the entire building and initiated the trimester system and co-op work term program. In 1973 the architecture portion of the professional program included a two-year pre-professional degree (later called Bachelor of Environmental Design Studies) and a two-year professional BArch degree. The BArch program was validated by the Commonwealth Association of Architects and a one-year, post-professional Master of Architecture program was offered. In 1976 the NSTC Faculty of Architecture was established, with the School of Architecture continuing as a constituent part of the Faculty. The main floor of the building was renovated, including the addition of a mezzanine for faculty offices. The Master of Urban and Rural Planning program was first offered in 1977. In 1978 the Department of Urban and Rural Planning was established within the Faculty of Architecture, becoming the School of Planning in 2001.

In the early 1980s, after the Nova Scotia Technical College had become the Technical University of Nova Scotia, the building's studio level was renovated and mezzanines were added. In the mid-1980s the professional program was transformed, leading to a two-year MArch (first professional) degree with a thesis component. The school began to participate in overseas activities with the International Laboratory for Architecture and Urban Design (ILAUD) and external adjuncts and examiners were appointed. In the late 1980s the Faculty opened a publishing department, Tuns Press, to produce architecture and planning publications. An arrangement with Apple Canada introduced an initial fleet of computers for student use. In 1989 a one-year, non-professional Master of Environmental Design Studies degree was offered.

In 1993, following an international design competition, the first phase of a new addition designed by Brian MacKay-Lyons was built in the rear courtyard of the existing building. In a second phase in 2002, upper floors for studios were added inside the addition. In 1994 the School's professional architecture program became the first in Canada to receive full accreditation from the Canadian Architectural Certification Board. Full accreditation was granted again in 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2015. In 1997, a decision by the Nova Scotia government to amalgamate universities led the three faculties of the Technical University of Nova Scotia (Architecture, Engineering, and Computer Science) to become part of Dalhousie University. In 2001 the Faculty of Architecture was renamed the Faculty of Architecture and Planning.

The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences was established on 1 July 1988, composed of humanities and social science departments within the former Faculty of Arts and Science. The restructuring of the Faculty began in 1986 with the establishment of a committee to consider its future direction. The Smith Report, drafted in 1987 by Rowland Smith, McCulloch Professor of English and Acting Dean of Arts and Science, recommended the division of the Faculty, which was followed by a faculty-wide referendum resulting in marginal favour of the decision.

The earliest university calendar lists only a Faculty of Arts. However, to obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree, students were first required to pass matriculation examinations in classics, mathematics and English, while subsequent classes included rhetoric, logic and psychology, natural philosophy (experimental physics), modern languages, metaphysics, chemistry, ethics, political economy, and history. MA degrees were granted on completion of a thesis on a literary, scientific or professional subject.

In 1878 a Department of Science was established in connection with the Faculty of Arts, and in 1880 the university calendar lists a Faculty of Science. By 1906, the university calendars refer to a single Faculty of Arts and Science, a title which lasted until the administrative division in 1988.

The Department of Music had its origins in an affiliation between the Halifax Conservatory and Dalhousie dating back to 1889. The Conservatory offered a licentiate diploma and a Bachelor in Music degree, as did the Maritime Academy of Music, founded in 1934. The association with Dalhousie continued after the two music schools amalgamated in 1954 as the Maritime Conservatory of Music and, from 1949 until the mid 1960s, elective music appreciation classes and ensemble groups at Dalhousie were organized by Harold Hamer.

The Dalhousie Department of Music was established in 1968 and began offering practical instruction and theory: instrumental lessons and voice coaching were expanded in 1975 under the leadership of Peter Fletcher. While the initial aim of the department was to produce students of a high practical ability, by the late 1970s the department's mandate was to train prospective professional musicians, performers, composers and critics. The 1971 opening of the Dalhousie Arts Centre greatly enhanced teaching and performance capacity, as the new building offered performance halls, practice rooms and a piano lab. Imported instructors were replaced with both part-time and full-time faculty, and the department sponsored both professional and community ensembles such as the Dalhousie Chorale, the Dalhousie Opera Workshop and Musica Antiqua.

Beginning in 1977 the department offered four-year Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Music Education degrees and a five-year integrated degree program. Further academic programs included a pre-baccalaureate foundational studies program and a B Mus curriculum in organ and church music in collaboration with the Atlantic School of Theology and the community churches of the RCCO. Other programs were offered in collaboration with Henson College and the Department of Theatre.

In 2014 the Department of Music became a program in the Fountain School of Performing Arts.

The 1863 appointment of James Ross to the newly created Chair of Ethics and Political Economy marks the early beginnings of the teaching of politics at Dalhousie University. While funding for the chair ended with Ross’s death in 1886, in 1891 George Munro established a Chair in History and Political Economy, which was held by John Forrest, who taught two political economy classes a year until his retirement in 1911. Over the following decade there were no politics classes offered, although constitutional history and economics were taught by series of associate professors of history and political economy.

The study of contemporary political science at Dalhousie began in 1921 with a $60,000 endowment made by the parents of a former Dal student killed in action at Vimy Ridge during World War One. In addition to funding the Eric Dennis Memorial Professorship of Government and Political Science, Senator Dennis gifted $1000 to start a library collection and another $2020 to fund an annual series of Eric Dennis Special Lectures.

Henry Frazer Munro was the first appointed Eric Dennis Memorial Professor, and the 1921-1922 University Calendar lists six courses under the heading of Government and Political Science. In 1926 Government was dropped from the department's name and in 1927 Robert Alexander MacKay became the second Eric Dennis Memorial Professor. He remained the only professor in the department until he left in 1948, although Lothar Richter, who founded the Institute of Public Affairs, served as an occasional Special Lecturer. James Aitchison was hired in 1949, and political science largely remained a department of one until the 1960s; Aitchison was named its first head in 1964.

The Department of Sociology and Anthropology was established in October 1966 after hiving off from the Department of Economics and Sociology. The creation of an independent department was the initiative of sociology professor John Graham, with the support of H.B.S. Cooke, Dean of Arts and Science. The department grew rapidly from 1969-1972, with an increase in teaching staff from six to 22.

It was renamed Sociology and Social Anthropology in December 1977 following a departmental review that articulated the divergences and tensions between the sociologists and anthropologists in terms of disciplinary interests and resource allocation. The change in name from anthropology to social anthropology was seen as an affirmation of the department’s intellectual coherence and unity. The department continues to draw on the strengths of both disciplines—sociology and social anthropology—by recognizing their distinct intellectual and methodological heritages, while emphasizing how they complement each other.

The Spanish Department was established in 1973 and in 2010 its name and teaching mandate expanded to include Latin American Studies.

As early as 1843, the Dalhousie Board of Governors hired a professor of modern languages—French, Italian and Spanish. However, the newly appointed Lorenzo Lacoste met an untimely death shortly before Dalhousie College itself floundered and shut down. When the college reopened in 1863, only French and German were offered under the heading of modern languages. Spanish 1 first appears as a course in the 1921/22 university calendar, although a lecturer in Spanish was hired the year before. It remained a singular course for some time: Spanish 2 was added in 1928/29 and Spanish 3 in 1932/34. Around 1930 the university calendars started to group Spanish along with German and French—and later Russian—under the Department of Modern Languages, which in 1957/58 became the Department of Romance Languages, a department not recognized officially by Senate until 1970. Soon after that a proposal to organize Spanish as an independent department was passed by Senate and the Department of Spanish is first listed in the 1973/74 calendar.

Dalhousie's Department of Theatre developed out of the Dalhousie Drama Workshop, which was formed in 1963 by then recently appointed Professor of English John Ripley, who offered it as an adjunct to his English 9 (History of Drama) class. The following year, Susan Vallance was hired as an instructor, working jointly for the Education and the English departments and teaching Child Drama, the first credit course in any performance-based class. In 1965 theatre historian Lionel Lawrence came to Dalhousie, and in 1966 four credit courses in theatre were offered in the newly established Drama Division within the Department of English. In 1967/1968 a BA in Drama and Theatre was offered, and in 1968 the Senate agreed to separate the study of drama from the Department of English, and Alan Andrews left alongside to serve as the inaugural chair of the new Department of Theatre.

In its first few years, the department's offerings were largely theoretical and not designed to train students for the professional theatre, but with the 1971 opening of the Dalhousie Arts Centre, the capacity for offering practical instruction changed. The new building included a designated wing for theatre studies that housed the James Dunn Theatre, two teaching/performance studios, and costume and set workshops. In the 1973/1974 university calendar, the department description emphasized the nature of theatre as a performing art and offered its first degree credit classes in acting. The department began to develop collaborative relationships with local theatres, including Neptune, and teaching faculty included Canada Council Artists-in Residence such as Fred Allen and Nancey Pankiw (1974) and Robert Doyle (1977).

In 1975 the department began to offer a BA Honours degree in three streams—general, acting and scenography—and by 1976 all theatre students were expected to be involved regularly in either acting or in other areas of production work. With the support of Robert Doyle, in 1976 the department launched a three-year diploma program in Costumes Studies, which in 2005 started to be offered as a four-year Honours BA in Theatre (Costume Studies).

The Department of Theatre, along with the Department of Music, became a program within the Fountain School of Performing Arts in 2014.

In 1975 the newly formed Dalhousie Women’s Organization proposed the establishment of a women’s studies program. It was 1982 before such a program was approved by Senate, and it was further delayed by the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Council (MPHEC), as similar courses were already being offered at Mount Saint Vincent and Saint Mary’s universities. Women's studies classes were first offered at Dalhousie in 1988, with Susan Sherwin as program coordinator and only three enrolled students. Judith Fingard took over as program coordinator in 1989 and introduced classes in science, political science and economics.

By 1992 Dalhousie had an active Women’s Studies Student Society, and the program was gaining attention through its lecture and seminar series. The program was not without detractors, particularly in the wake of the École Polytechnique massacre in 1989, and exams were written with security personnel present after some faculty received death threats.

In 2005, the program adopted a new name in an effort to be more inclusive, and officially became the Gender and Women’s Studies program.