Université de Hearst receives 5.7 million dollars from the Ontario and Canada governments  

The Université de Hearst release is as follows.   

Hearst, March 28, 2022 – Université de Hearst received confirmation today of very substantial financial support from both levels of government in Ottawa and Toronto. It is a sum of slightly more than 5.7 million dollars that will be granted over the next three years. This joint funding from the federal and provincial governments is intended to support two crucial projects that will allow UdeH to continue its mission of teaching in French, as well as its significant growth in recent years.  

The first step will be to spend just over $3 million to strengthen and enrich the programming currently offered to its student body. This will make it possible to improve course offerings and evaluate the possibility of new programs. These funds will also be used to consolidate various client support services and to implement new services in order to better serve an ever-growing and increasingly diverse student population.  

The other part of the funding announced will be used to complete a major project to modernize the teaching and learning spaces at the Hearst campus. Our enrolment growth over the past eight years, our pedagogical signature, our use of technology and the addition this fall of our first graduate program, the Graduate Diploma in Psychotherapy, made it imperative that we rethink our physical learning facilities at the Hearst campus. We will therefore create workspaces that offer optimal conditions for our academic community. This will significantly increase our capacity to accommodate larger cohorts.  

“Université de Hearst welcomes the very significant additional financial support announced today by the federal and Ontario governments. Université de Hearst has been offering French-language programs in Northern Ontario for nearly 70 years. On April 1, it will cross a new threshold by becoming a fully autonomous university. Today’s announcement comes at the right time. It will soon benefit our entire university community, as well as our communities in the region from Hearst, to Kapuskasing and Timmins where our three campuses are located.” (Luc Bussières, President of Université de Hearst). 

The Minister responsible for Official Languages, Ginette Petitpas Taylor, rightly points out that it is important to “(…) continue to invest in our post-secondary institutions in official language minority communities. That is why, during this Mois de la Francophonie, we are proud to support projects such as those proposed by the Université de Hearst.  We recognize that Université de Hearst has shown exceptional growth over the past several years, thanks to its innovative programs and its appeal to the Canadian and international Francophone communities.”   

Meanwhile, Ontario’s Minister of Colleges and Universities, Jill Dunlop, testified that “The Government of Ontario knows that Université de Hearst plays an important role in enabling the population to study in French in Northern Ontario. That is why we have recently taken steps to make Hearst an independent degree-granting university. We are proud to continue to support Hearst by funding work to modernize its facilities, which will enable collaborative and innovative learning, and by supporting mental health projects that will help students succeed in their studies.”