Collège de Hearst 60 9th Street, Postal Bag 580 Hearst, Ontario P0L 1N0 Background information on the Collège de Hearst 1. Our History The Collège de Hearst is an Ontario public institution whose mandate is university education and research and community involvement. In 1971, it was recognized by the Ontario government as a public academic institution and since then has been included in the list of Ontario universities. As such, the Collège de Hearst receives its funding directly from the province. Founded as the Séminaire de Hearst in 1953, it was incorporated under the name Le Collège de Hearst in 1959 so that it could deliver university education. The business name Collège universitaire de Hearst was adopted in 1972, when it was recognized and funded by the province of Ontario as a public academic institution. At that time, it stopped offering secondary school programs, since they had become accessible throughout the region when the Ontario government established French-language public high schools. From 1953 to 1971, the institution was managed and funded by the Diocese of Hearst. Under affiliation agreements reached with the University of Sudbury in 1957 and Laurentian University of Sudbury in 1963, the programs and degrees of the Collège de Hearst are sanctioned by the Senate of Laurentian University. The agreement with Laurentian University was renegotiated and updated in 1986. Laurentian University supports the present application for consent to use the name “Université de Hearst”. 2. Structure Like every other university in the province, the Collège de Hearst is an independent institution led by a Board of Governors and a Senate. The Board of Governors, as a board of directors, is responsible for the direction and general administration of the institution. Under the delegated authority of the Board, the Senate takes responsibility for all academic affairs, always bearing in mind that under its affiliation agreement, the Collège de Hearst is required to abide by the academic regulations of Laurentian University. Furthermore, the institution is recognized as a university by the other universities of Ontario and Canada. The Collège de Hearst is a full member of the Consortium des universités de la francophonie ontarienne (CUFO) and the Association des universités de la francophonie canadienne (AUFC). It is de facto a university, an important centre for the development of the Ontarian and Canadian Francophonies, and its name should clearly reflect that. 3. Programs and Influence The Collège de Hearst is one of the jewels in Ontario’s university system. For 60 years, it has provided university education services to a population that, while small in number and living in small communities scattered across a vast expanse, benefits immensely from the complete undergraduate degree programs that it offers on the Hearst, Kapuskasing and Timmins campuses. It is the only French-language university institution in the province, and it is the only university institution in Northeastern Ontario north of the Highway 17 corridor (North Bay, Sudbury, Sault Ste Marie); it is the only university designated under Ontario’s French Language Services Act (July 2013). The Collège de Hearst provides a solid undergraduate-level education in the humanities, social sciences, business administration and translation. The addition of a master’s program in the humanities is expected over the next few years. Its graduates, 1,031 since 1961, are very well prepared for the work world, specialized studies or studies at the master’s and doctoral levels at universities in Ontario, other parts of Canada or other countries. More than 80% of its graduates choose to remain in the North or return there after completing their education, which makes the Collège de Hearst an institution of paramount important to Northern Ontario’s economic and social development. The impact that these graduates have on the businesses, agencies and all the institutions and communities of Northern Ontario is substantial. 4. Outlook for the Future To be able to provide such services with limited resources over such a vast territory, the Collège de Hearst has always managed to innovate, and this will continue in the coming years. In fact, beginning in September 2014, we will become the first university institution in Ontario to offer all its courses in a block-scheduling system, which involves intensive instruction over a shorter period than the traditional semester. New interdisciplinary programs for the study of human and social issues will be added, and a master’s program is in development. Experiential learning, with the addition of compulsory work placements, and an international focus are also part of the new face that the Collège de Hearst will have in just over a year. 5. Damage Caused by an Incorrect Name Since the 1990s, we have noticed that the presence of the word “Collège” in our name is causing serious harm to the institution, its students and its graduates, because the name is invariably confusing. For the institution, the damage is due to the fact that it is often not seen for what it is – a university and not a college – which hinders it from achieving its goals. This ambiguity makes it that much more difficult to promote and enhance university education in a region where enrolment rates are lower than elsewhere and the tradition of university education is not yet well established. The damage is especially glaring since students have been demanding a name change for years, so that they will not have to explain, time and again, that the college they are attending is actually a university. The fact that the institution that makes it possible for them to pursue a university education is not called a university leaves them puzzled and makes them wonder whether this will have a negative effect on the value of their degree. Even if it very quickly becomes clear, when one studies elsewhere, that the education delivered by the Collège de Hearst compares favourably with that provided by other universities in the province, this situation undermines our efforts to promote university education in the region and to strengthen a sense of pride among our students and in the population as a whole. Since the introduction of colleges of applied arts and technology in Ontario in the 1960s, the word college has been associated almost exclusively with that type of institution in people’s minds. When the French-language colleges were established, especially Collège Boréal in 1995, we were asked why the region needed another college, as it already had the Collège de Hearst. Since then, the confusion has worsened in Hearst and Timmins, where Collège Boréal and the Collège de Hearst share services and facilities. Even after more than 15 years of co-existence, when people come to our institution, they are surprised to learn that the Collège de Hearst and Collège Boréal are two very distinct and different institutions, a reality belied by the word “college” appearing in both names. What’s more, with the many agreements to facilitate student transfers between universities and colleges of applied arts and technology, it is becoming more critical for our institution to have the correct name, so that people will know clearly and unequivocally that the Collège de Hearst offers programs that are very different from those offered by colleges. We believe that the Ministry will also see the value, for the fulfilment of its own objectives regarding the promotion of French-language university education in Ontario, of eliminating this kind of ambiguity. Lastly, it is our view that a designation such as “collège universitaire” would not be satisfactory, and for that reason, we are arguing strongly for permission to use the word “université” in the institution’s name. In the French-language tradition, the word “collège” does not have the same meanings as the word “college” in English-language school systems. In addition, the term “collège universitaire” does not have the same connotation as the term “university college”, for the simple reason that in French, the word “collège” comes first and captures the attention, which generates the confusion that we want to eliminate by using the name Université de Hearst. 6. Conclusion The Collège de Hearst currently offers only undergraduate degree programs, though we are planning to introduce our first master’s program in the near future. Nevertheless, this state of affairs should not prevent our institution from using the name Université de Hearst. Several universities in Ontario do not meet the criteria suggested by the Postsecondary Education Quality Assessment Board for the range of programs that an institution should offer to qualify as a university. Huntington University, the University of Sudbury and Thornloe University do not offer a wider range of programs than the Collège de Hearst. Algoma University offers only undergraduate degree programs, and Nipissing University offers only a master’s degree in education above the undergraduate level. Université Sainte-Anne in Nova Scotia and the Université de St-Boniface in Manitoba offer college programs in addition to their university programs, yet they are called universities. The Collège de Hearst offers only university programs, and under the affiliation agreement with Laurentian University, they are subject to the same standards and the same quality assessment process as the programs of the province’s other universities. Affiliation with Laurentian University also brings with it significant advantages in terms of preservation of student records, sharing of documentary resources and collaboration in selected programs, which is why we have no desire to change anything except our institution’s name. The Université de Hearst will preserve the current organizational structure of the Collège de Hearst and will remain affiliated with Laurentian University. Appendix to the presentation of the Collège de Hearst for the application for ministerial consent to use the name “université” The following are our comments regarding the Postsecondary Education Quality Assessment Board’s criteria for the use of the name “university” in Ontario.