Battle royal over Gaelic College name

[Dixiecat]

As a point of information, the Gaelic College in question teaches Kilt making, Gaelic language, fiddle, pipes, Highland dancing, step dancing, spinning and other elements of Scottish Gaelic culture. It is a marvelous institution that attracts students and from all over the world.

The current CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of the Gaelic College, Rodney MacDonald who was quoted in the article is also the former Premier (provincial first minister) of Nova Scotia and is a pretty darn good Scottish fiddler and dancer in his own right.

Actually Nathan, the Gaelic College tried to remove highland dancing and bagpipe instruction from it's curriculum a couple of years ago now. It caused quite a controversy in it's own right when the decision was made to do that. At the time, the College said that highland dance and piping was not traditional enough, that since highland dance in the form that it is now, did not come over with the Scottish immigrants, and that competitive piping was not the aim of the College and plenty of venues exist locally in which that avenue of piping could be pursued.

I believe competitive piping is still off the curriculum there, but it's nice to see that highland dance is back.
my original post, some links are extinct:
http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...-scotia-71516/

It seems that the Gaelic College is finding the road to their new image to be bumpy indeed and while I have no opinion regarding the new name, I think that this gives evidence that the administration is not thinking of the big picture of Cape Breton's Scottish heritage.