Campus Notre-Dame-de-Foy

Institues Overview

It was during the period from 1950 to 1965 that the communities of educator brothers experienced their greatest expansion. With regard particularly to the pedagogical formation of their members, each community possessed, financed and directed one or more Scholasticates-normal schools.

Around the same time, the project of grouping together the human and financial resources of the communities of brother educators haunted the minds of some avant-gardists. The Lesage government, for its part, declared itself ready to partially subsidize the formation of future religious, on condition that the communities come together for this purpose. On December 20, 1961, Mr. Jean-Marie Martin, Deputy Minister of Youth and Director of Higher Education in Quebec, met with thirteen provincial brothers to inform them of the government's intentions. It is under this double thrust that the Campus Notre-Dame-de-Foy was designed and built.

Three years of talks, steps, studies of pedagogical specifications and construction plans resulted in the concrete realization of three post-secondary education campuses in the perspective that the Parent Report was to describe later under the title " Institut ". These three campuses were: the Central Scholasticate of Montreal (later known as the College Marie-Victorin), the normal school of Notre-Dame-de-Foy and the Séminaire Saint-Augustin. These last two were erected on neighboring land, along the St. Lawrence River, in the municipality of Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures.

Campus Notre-Dame-de-Foy was founded thanks to the combined action of five religious communities: the Brothers of the Christian Schools, the Marist Brothers, the Marianists, the Brothers of Christian Instruction and the Brothers of the Sacred Heart. . It was designed before what came to be known as the Quiet Revolution , but when it opened in 1965 it was reaching its peak. Moreover, to the turmoil of the Quiet Revolution was added the enormous movement unleashed by Vatican II. The suddenness and the radical character of the socio-cultural transformations of Quebec during this period fully justify the name of Quiet Revolution. We now know that the educational reform confiscated the bulk of the ideological and financial investments of the Quiet Revolution.

The Campus Notre-Dame-de-Foy has therefore had to constantly adapt to the movements of our society. This can be seen by considering the profile of the study programs offered today.

The Campus Notre-Dame-de-Foy constitutes a unique reality in the field of Catholic education throughout the world. As far as we know, in fact, it is the only inter-community achievement of this magnitude.

It must also be recognized that the men who built the Campus Notre-Dame-de-Foy showed vision in the choice of the site and the architectural design. Long before ecology became fashionable, the Brothers demonstrated their concern for the environment. As it stands, the Campus is an achievement of which Quebec can be proud.