Champlain Regional College

Champlain Regional College
Established April 7, 1971
Type CEGEP
Students 5,224 (Fall 2013 - at all 3 campuses combined) [1]
Location Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada
Campus Locations Lennoxville, Saint-Lambert, Quebec City
Affiliations ACCC, CCAA, QSSF
Website admin.crc-sher.qc.ca
Brandmark and crest images © Champlain Regional College

Champlain Regional College was founded in 1971 and has three campuses located in Saint-Lambert, Quebec City and Lennoxville. The College offers post-secondary pre-university (Collegiate) as well as technical, and training programs in three distinct regions of Quebec. The college was named in honour of Samuel de Champlain, the first governor of New France

History

The college was named after Samuel de Champlain and traces its origins to the merger of several institutions which became public in 1967 with the creation of Quebec's CEGEPs and the collegiate system.

According to the College's website, "Champlain Regional College is a public, English-language, post-secondary institution that provides pre-university and technical college-level education and training, primarily in English, to learners in both Regular Day and Continuing Education programs."[2]

Champlain College Values

According to its website, the College values:

The College's vision statement includes the following elements:

It's slogan is "Together we transform lives and open opportunities for brighter futures!"

The general college profile

Champlain Regional College is one of only two colleges in the Québec college network referred to as "Regional Colleges", and the only college with campuses in three different administrative regions. Despite its name, however, Champlain is not a regional college under the definitions given in the Quebec Colleges Act.[4] Rather, its administrative structure is legally closer to that of a Cégep with only one campus, or a main campus with one or more sub-centres. (The only truly regional college under Québec law is the more decentralized Cégep régional de Lanaudière, which has three affiliated constituent colleges rather than three campuses and a central administration). The Government of Quebec thus regards the college as a single corporate entity, and the Board of Governors deals with issues of governance and finance as if the campuses were a unified whole. Financial reporting indicates that the College has proposed a balanced budget for the 2014-15 academic year. The central offices in Sherbrooke are subsidized by the campuses, as necessary, from budgetary surpluses.

The three campuses of CRC are: Champlain College Saint-Lambert,[5] located in the Montérégie (16); Champlain College Lennoxville,[6] in the Estrie (05); and Champlain College St. Lawrence,[7] in the Capitale-Nationale (03) area of Québec City. As a result of these geographic differences, each Campus has developed a distinct culture with varied needs and expectations. The administrative offices for the college are located apart from the campuses in the city of Sherbrooke. The regional and cultural differences between the campuses have led to a debate over the value of the multi-regional structure of the college: many members of the college community argue this structure limits campuses' ability to respond to their local communities' needs, while others argue that regional diversity creates opportunities for "synergy" across multiple regions of Quebec.

The college's relationship, representation, and communication with the Ministère de l’enseignement supérieur, recherche et science (MESRS), the Commission d’évaluation de l’enseignement collégial(CEEC), and the Fédération des cégeps are said by the College administration to be positive and respectful. A few members of the faculty and management staff actively participate in these organizations’ committees and other initiatives to the benefit of Champlain and the college system as a whole. As one of the five English public colleges in Québec, some of its personnel also actively participate in committees specifically dedicated to the provision of educational services to the English speaking population.

Given the vast distances between the campuses, it is uncommon for members of the faculty and staff of the various campuses to interact directly with each other. However, some contact is facilitated by participation in college-wide bodies such as the Commission of Studies.

Campuses

Located in Quebec, Canada, Champlain Regional College is a public, English-language, educational institution which is composed three campuses with their administrative offices in Sherbrooke:

Champlain College Saint-Lambert

The St. Lambert campus is located 148 kilometres from the College's Head Office,[8] on the border between the municipalities of Saint-Lambert and Longueuil on the South Shore of the Island of Montreal. It offers pre-university and technical DEC programs, as well as AEC programs and an extensive range of other continuing education services (including Recognition of Acquired Competencies or RAC) on and off campus. The campus is situated within Administrative Region 16 (Montérégie), which also includes six other public Francophone cégeps.

Champlain College Lennoxville

The Lennoxville campus is located only seven kilometres from head office,[9] in the borough of Lennoxville, part of the agglomerated municipality of Sherbrooke, where it shares grounds and facilities with Bishop's University. It offers pre-university and technical DEC programs on its main campus as well as AEC programs and other continuing education services at a Sherbrooke location. The campus is situated within Administrative Region 05 (Estrie), which also includes one public Francophone cégep and one private Francophone college.

Champlain College St. Lawrence

The St. Lawrence campus is located 227 kilometres from the Sherbrooke office[10] in the borough of Ste-Foy, adjacent to the City of Québec. Originally an independent Classical College affiliated with Université Laval, this campus offers primarily pre-university DEC programs, one technical DEC program, and one AEC program. The campus is situated within Administrative Region 03 (Capitale-Nationale), which also includes three other public Francophone Cégeps and five private Francophone colleges.

Distinct culture and traditions

In part due to the regional disparity of the three campuses and the fact that the Administrative Offices are not located in the same city as any of them, each campus has, over time, developed its own distinct culture and traditions, and each tends to be treated as a separate English-language college even though each is a campus of the larger institution.[11] Contributing to this is also the fact that union contracts apply to each campus rather than to the college as a whole, so that there is a separate teaching, professional and support staff union for each campus.[12] Meetings of college-wide bodies are often held in the city of Drummondville, which is more or less equidistant from each of the three campuses and the Sherbrooke administrative offices.

Since 2014, a movement has developed among many faculty and staff of the Regional college, in favour of creating three colleges from the campuses and eliminating the Sherbrooke regional administration offices, which they consider a drain on resources and potentially detrimental to the campuses' continued success. This movement began at the St-Lawrence Campus, which had been an independent institution prior to the formation of CRC. There, all three unions (faculty, support staff and professionals) have been working together since early in 2014 to make their campus an independent college, in part as a response to a management crisis involving their campus and central administration, which was considered to be a symptom of ongoing problems with the regional structure.[13]

In separate General Assemblies in the Fall of 2014, the faculty union of the St-Lambert Campus took a position in favour of St-Lawrence independence, and subsequently voted to support independence for St-Lambert. In December 2014, the Fédération Nationale des Enseignantes et Enseignants du Québec (Quebec Teachers' Federation, or FNEEQ) passed a unanimous motion at its Federal Council in favour of the two teachers' unions' move for independence of the campuses. Support Staff at Champlain St-Lambert also voted to seek independence for their campus in March, 2015.

In February 2015, a campaign in support of the St-Lawrence Campus' independence was officially launched[14] with support from FNEEQ,[15] a supporting web page,[16] and student-created video.[17] A formal petition was also sponsored at the Québec National Assembly by the Official Opposition Critic for Higher Education, Véronique Hivon (Parti-Québécois).[18] Teachers at the St-Lambert Campus started making public statements in support of the St-Lawrence independence bid, stating their hope that this will also lead to independence for their own campus.[19] Some of these were in attendance at the launch of the campaign[20] in Québec City.

This movement, and the claim that a management crisis occurred, were initially dismissed by administration officials in Sherbrooke,[21] but are now considered a matter of "deep concern." [22]

See also

English-language Colleges:

References

  1. ↑ http://admin.crc-sher.qc.ca/wp-content/themes/champlain/pdf/projects/report_2014/CC7-SRH-149_EnglishProof-A.pdf
  2. ↑ http://admin.crc-sher.qc.ca/about-us/
  3. ↑ http://admin.crc-sher.qc.ca/about-us/
  4. ↑ http://www2.publicationsduquebec.gouv.qc.ca/dynamicSearch/telecharge.php?type=2&file=//C_29/C29.htm
  5. ↑ http://www.champlainonline.com/champlainweb/contact-us/
  6. ↑ http://www.crc-lennox.qc.ca/contact-us/
  7. ↑ http://www.slc.qc.ca/contact-us
  8. ↑ https://www.google.ca/maps/dir/900+Rue+Riverside,+Saint-Lambert,+QC+J4P+3P2/1301+Boulevard+de+Portland,+Sherbrooke,+QC+J1J+3P6/@45.5738137,-73.8941348,8z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x4cc91b1845b1285d:0xf78ddc407870acc5!2m2!1d-73.5204085!2d45.5165566!1m5!1m1!1s0x4cb7b371efb0963d:0x3b8469b4db339aff!2m2!1d-71.9089426!2d45.4039239!3e0
  9. ↑ https://www.google.ca/maps/dir/2580+Rue+College,+Sherbrooke,+QC+J1M+0C8/1301+Boulevard+de+Portland,+Sherbrooke,+QC+J1J+3P6/@45.3833028,-71.9136785,13z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x4cb7b2aa5e1fa589:0xd5eaf805a4c010b0!2m2!1d-71.8447599!2d45.3662323!1m5!1m1!1s0x4cb7b371efb0963d:0x3b8469b4db339aff!2m2!1d-71.9089426!2d45.4039239!3e0
  10. ↑ https://www.google.ca/maps/dir/790+Avenue+Nérée+Tremblay,+Québec,+QC+G1V+4K2/1301+Boulevard+de+Portland,+Sherbrooke,+QC+J1J+3P6/@46.0898185,-73.1004927,8z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x4cb896ddfb92f25f:0xfaeb7b9a9a98de9f!2m2!1d-71.2819887!2d46.7882434!1m5!1m1!1s0x4cb7b371efb0963d:0x3b8469b4db339aff!2m2!1d-71.9089426!2d45.4039239!3e0
  11. ↑ Évaluation institutionelle, Champlain Regional College. Québec: Commission d'évaluation de l'enseignement collégial, 2004. pp 6-7)
  12. ↑ Convention collective, Fédération nationale des enseignantes et enseignants du Québec (FNEEQ-CSN), Annexe I-5
  13. ↑ http://www.cbc.ca/player/AudioMobile/Breakaway/ID/2522563808/
  14. ↑ http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1490277/independence-for-the-champlain-st-lawrence-college
  15. ↑ http://www.fneeq.qc.ca/fr/accueil/communiques/communiques_2015/cegep/comm-001.html
  16. ↑ http://stlawrencehome.org
  17. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPpCrqOjNrI
  18. ↑ https://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/exprimez-votre-opinion/petition/Petition-5135/index.html
  19. ↑ http://globalnews.ca/video/1875234/champlain-college-separation
  20. ↑ http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1489739/-r-e-p-e-a-t-notification-to-the-media-st-lawrence-must-become-an-independent-cegep-un-cegep-a-part-entiere
  21. ↑ http://www.cbc.ca/player/AudioMobile/Breakaway/ID/2524121035/
  22. ↑ http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1490983/champlain-is-deeply-concerned-by-the-call-for-independence-by-the-unions-at-our-st-lawrence-campus

External links