About Jeannine Deveau

An extraordinary legacy

The late Jeannine Deveau, StFX Class of 1944, was a person who saw injustice and refused to accept it. Her extraordinary legacy continues to envision a better world and impact the lives of countless people at StFX.

Ms. Deveau, who passed in July 2022, three weeks shy of her 99th birthday, was the force behind the Jeannine Deveau Educational Equity Endowment Fund, established at StFX to help remove barriers to postsecondary educating facing Mi'kmaq, Wolastoqiyik and African Nova Scotian students. The fund has contributed a total of over $22 million to StFX, supporting various programs and initiatives to close the educational gap for students who face barriers. Her latest gift supports the creation of the Deveau Centre for Indigenous Governance and Social Justice and the Black Student Success Centre.

Ms. Deveau enjoyed a successful career as a nutrition professor in Montreal. She leveraged a private passion for investing in the stock market into a remarkable public good; her gift remains the largest single donation from an alumnus to the university. 

The Deveau Fund has awarded nearly 800 scholarships and bursaries to date. Ms. Deveau has also supported myriad initiatives such as X-Project, the Circle of Abundance, the Elder-in-Residence program, and the McKenna Racial Justice Leadership grants.

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