On March 23, former Radio-Canada reporter Norman Lester recalled the horrors of Robert Monckton, one of the deportation enforcers, in his column in the Journal de Montréal. Later in his text he allowed himself the following assertion: “The Université de Moncton is not alone in glorifying the memory of this heinous war criminal. »

Such comments border on intellectual dishonesty or blatant ignorance. It’s just not true. The university could have taken the name “Notre-Dame”, but the controversy arose when it was discovered that there was already an American university with the same name – Notre Dame Indiana – dating back to 1842 and run by the Holy Cross Fathers .

With time being of the essence and the institution needing a name in order to proceed with its formation, Premier Robichaud and others got to work and it took a long time to consider a list of possible names. It was named “Université de Moncton” to identify it with the place where it was to be founded. In the end, the Eudists and the Holy Cross Fathers agreed on the name.

You must be misinforming to imply that the Academic College wished to “glorify” Monckton by agreeing to identify with the place where its endowments would be established. This is a beautiful aberration that needs to be denounced.

The name of the place—city, province, or state—where the university institution does business is common throughout the world. No fewer than forty-four Canadian universities designate themselves as such. And since Jean-Marie Nadeau said in the opinion of a reader (03/27/23) that 200 American universities and colleges have changed their names without naming a single one, I have made a brief search for the main institutions of higher education in each american state.

In the case of Harvard, these institutions date back to 1636. The vast majority of these institutions, including several highly respected ones, identify with the state and city in which they operate. Most were founded in the 19th century, and I can find few that have changed names, except perhaps Vanderbilt University, which first became a Methodist Episcopalian institution in 1872. A year later, in 1873, when she had not yet started, she was transferred to Vanderbilt University to offer the courses. We wanted to honor Cornelius Vanderbilt, a very generous philanthropist who got the institution off to a more than solid start.

Harvard (founded 1636), Yale (1701), Princeton (1746), Notre Dame (1842), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 1861, Stanford (1885), Vanderbilt (1873) took other names and were always jealous. It has taken these institutions hundreds of years to build a history, an academic tradition, a name, fame, prestige and, in the case of several, a worldwide reputation.

Over the years, MIT has received 100 Nobel Prizes and Stanford 21. It would have been foolish to suggest a name change. Not only would they not have been received, the question would never have made it onto the agenda. They hold that reputation there like the apple of their eye and the holders of diplomas even more so.

The University of Moncton is young and vulnerable; it doesn’t have the big philanthropists supporting it, as there are many in the United States. It’s made a name for itself over the years, awarded 43,000 degrees, and suddenly that entity may no longer exist. It’s unconsciousness.

The more than realistic statements made by the Dean of Studies at the Shippagan campus, Yves Bourgeois, on the airwaves of Radio-Canada in September 2022 are still a cause for concern today, and at the highest level: “We feel a lot of fierce competition between universities. Acadians have smaller families. Parents are better off. People allow themselves to go anywhere and study.

It was automatic [que] But studying at the Université de Moncton is less and less a matter of course for us.”
And to think that the best thing we could do is change our name.

Could we function properly if we couldn’t count on foreign students who make up 30% of the student population? It’s not nothing. And if along the way it was necessary to give them a diploma from an institution that should no longer exist …

What about the top of the class from one of our secondary schools who has enrolled in university and would choose to go elsewhere if he found out the institution had to change its name? And this other one who enrolled at the University of Toronto because of the uncertainty surrounding the institution. He wants to come from an institution whose parchment stands the test of time. Because it matters.

This is where we should invest our efforts and energies.

Hector J. Cormier
Moncton