Notre histoire

Sparing no effort to ensure its activities were open to the world, the University set up an international cooperation bureau. In 2000, given the proliferation of projects with foreign organizations and so as to deal with the University’s internationalization priorities more efficiently, the bureau was replaced by a directorate of international relations. The directorate has the general mandate to coordinate the international relations and exchanges of the University’s departments. With over 5000 foreign students, UdeM is one of Canada’s most cosmopolitan universities.

Long buried in the gloomy basement of the Lionel-Groulx Pavilion, the arts and humanities library, the University’s largest, moved into the Samuel-Bronfman Building in 1987. With 9500 m² spread over seven stories, the new pavilion has over 1000 study spaces and provides access to all the electronic resources needed for research in the human sciences. In 2002, the library had over 2 million documents in its stacks, including 800,000 books and 500,000 periodicals. Its rare book and special collections have over 80,000 documents, including several incunabula.

Pasteur said: “There is no such thing as basic research andapplied research - there are only research and applications of the findings of research.” In 1987, the UdeM created a bureau responsible for bridging basic research and private enterprise. The enterprise-university liaison bureau helps professors go from the laboratory to the market. It facilitates professional contacts with major companies and guides technology transfer projects based on discoveries made at the University. It also assists researchers in obtaining patents and registering copyrights.

On January 4, students and employees were able to get to the University by subway for the first time. The extension of Line 5 to Snowdon improved the public transit network by adding three new stations to serve the campus: Édouard-Montpetit, Université-de-Montréal and Côte-des-Neiges. There are 1432 metres between the Édouard-Montpetit Station, near the CEPSUM and Faculty of Music, and the Côte-des-Neiges Station, close to the Jean-Brillant Pavilion and HEC’s former building on Decelles Avenue. In 2002, 2.4 million passengers went through the Université-de-Montréal Station alone.

On that day, a man with a semi-automatic weapon in his hand entered the École Polytechnique and savagely murdered 14 people before committing suicide. Thirteen students and one employee. All women. Fifteen people were also wounded. Since that day, a foundation commemorates the tragedy at the École Polytechnique on December 6 every year. The victims’ names are engraved on plaque on the outside wall as a permanent monument to them, and the 6-décembre-1989 Square at the corner of Decelles Avenue and Queen-Mary Road is a reminder of the reality of violence to women.

With the CRTC’s approval, UdeM’s first student radio station, CISM-FM, began transmitting on FM 89.3. CISM-FM is considered the largest student radio station in the French-speaking world: 10,000 watts of power, a range of 60 kilometres, a team of 275 volunteers and 80 shows per week. The station has been a veritable incubator for talent in electronic media: it is where Véronique Cloutier and Pierre Vachon learned the ropes. CSIM-FM rents its frequency to the Montréal Jazz festival, and since the fall of 2003, it has been providing live coverage of UdeM’s football games.

UdeM’s ethnic research centre (CEETUM), was inaugurated in 1992 so as to create a home for the Chair in Ethnic Relations that was established thanks to collaboration between the Ministère du Multiculturalisme et de la Citoyenneté and the Université de Montréal. The Centre is linked with many study groups on ethnicity, and, after establishing numerous partnerships, has become an inter-university centre. Under its leadership, the Québec Metropolis Centre was founded in 1996 to do applied research on the integration of immigrants. The CEETUM also participates in implementing UdeM’s strategy for adapting to pluralism.

Launched in 1993 after the collapse of Continuum, Quartier libre renewed links with the spirit of its ancestor, Le Quartier latin, and proudly proclaimed itself “the newspaper of UdeM students.” Independent from the FAECUM, and funded by student fees and advertising, the fortnightly newspaper is written, laid out and managed by students who want to get a taste of journalism without necessarily choosing it as a career. It has a circulation of 15,000, and is distributed free of charge on campus. A number of media and literary personalities learned their craft by working on the newspaper, including the editor of the culture section of Le Devoir, Jean-François Nadeau.

The École des Hautes Études Commerciales, which had been located on Decelles Avenue since 1970, moved to Côte-Sainte-Catherine Street, not far from Jean-de-Brébeuf College. The new ultramodern building, with an area of 25,000 m2, has semi-circular classrooms, a 420 km network of fibre-optic cables and over 7200 network access points so that students and professors can be linked to the Internet at all times. Large windows provide natural lighting for an exceptional environment. Architects Dan S. Hanganu and Jodoin, Lamarre, Pratte and Associates were honoured with an award of excellence for the building.

The 1990s were marked by an unprecedented reduction in government funding to universities. In order to deal with the imminent crisis, UdeM set up a committee to reflect on the institution’s priorities. Its mandate was to find ways for the University to handle cut-backs totalling $60 million. The committee’s report was presented in fall 1996, and its conclusion came like a bolt from the blue: administrative staff and the professorial corps had to be reduced by 20% for the University to survive. Some 500 UdeM employees took advantage of the voluntary leaving program.

No more butts. Like most public institutions, UdeM became officially non-smoking. Under the Act respecting the Protection of non-smokers, security guards have to issue tickets. Those caught smoking where it is prohibited have to pay an automatic fine of $20, while repeat offenders have to pay fines of up to $200. While cigarettes were tolerated in restaurants and cafeterias for a few years, they are now completely prohibited on campus. The only smoking areas are now rooms in residence.

The plan to create a Université de Montréal hospital dates back to the 1920s. It was not until 1996 that a university research and teaching hospital opened its doors to the public. Born out of the merger of the Notre-Dame, Saint-Luc and Hôtel-Dieu hospitals, UdeM’s hospital is the largest in Canada, with 900 doctors, 300 interns, 250 researchers, 1200 beds, and over 700,000 outpatients and nearly 200,000 emergency room patients every year. In 2000, the government of Québec announced that the CHUM would soon be moving to a new building where all the hospital’s operations would be housed together.

The Faculty of Urban Planning inaugurated a new exhibition centre that meets museum standards for ventilation, humidity, temperature control, security and lighting. The centre is a meeting place for art and science, and a showcase for work by the Faculty’s graduating students. It also displays the University’s various collections. In August 2003, to commemorate 125 years of patronage of the arts, the centre held an exhibition of some 780 works by Riopelle, Borduas, Pellan, Ferron, Leduc, Lemieux, Fortin and Laliberté from UdeM’s permanent collection.

Lawrence C. Smith and his team in the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine managed to clone the famous Holstein bull, Hanoverhill Starbuck, who was the father of some 200,000 cows. Starbuck II was not only the first cloned calf, but also the first clone produced from adult cells, which were taken from the original animal a month before his death. Dr. Smith, who had worked on the nuclear transfer technology used for Dolly, employed technology that greatly reduced the number of attempts required. At birth, Starbuck II weighed 54.2 kg and, according to witnesses, was very noisy!

This was the theme chosen by the Université de Montréal for its last fund-raising campaign. The goal: $125 million. Co-chairs André Caillé, President of Hydro-Québec, and Robert Brown, then President and CEO of Bombardier launched the campaign, the goal of which was to turn the University and its affiliated schools into a world-class university complex. The funds were used for 150 research projects and construction of new buildings on campus. Three years after its launch, $200 million had been raised. It was an unprecedented success for a Francophone university in Québec.

The UNESCO Institute for Statistics moved into the former École des Hautes Études Commerciales building. Created in 1999, the Institute chose Montréal for its headquarters over Paris, Birmingham and The Hague. The Institute’s mission is to gather data on topics of public interest, such as education, science and technology, culture and communications, and to create databases for public decision-makers in UNESCO’s member states. For Montréal’s universities in general and UdeM in particular, the Institute arrived at the perfect time because the demand for social statistics is growing constantly everywhere in Canada.

On August 28, 2002, the Carabins had a rendezvous with history. After 30 years, the University’s football team finally returned to the league. The comeback was part of the renewal of UdeM’s elite sports program, which had long been neglected in favour non-competitive sports. University management supported the Carabins’ cause by setting up a Governors’ club for elite sports. Chaired by Normand Legault, the President and Director General of the Canadian Grand Prix Formula 1, the club provides elite athletes with financial support so that they can continue training while studying.

The Université de Montréal celebrated the 125th anniversary of its foundation. With the theme, “histoire de savoir,” (“all about knowledge”), the university community commemorated UdeM’s many achievements since its foundation. The festivities included a ceremony on December 10, 2003 to officially rename the main pavilion in honour of Roger Gaudry, the Université de Montréal’s first secular rector. (Quicktime plug-in required)

The University inaugurated the J.-Armand-Bombardier Pavilion, which cemented the collaboration between the Université de Montréal and the École Polytechnique in engineering and nanotechnology. Built thanks to support from the J.-Armand Bombardier Foundation, the new building meets very high standards for research on the infinitely small. In order to reduce the risk of vibration in highly sensitive experiments, some of the Pavilion’s laboratories are built on an immense block of concrete completely detached from the rest of the building.

Twin buildings house the Faculty of Pharmacy, which is in the Jean-Coutu Bldg., while the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer is in the Marcelle-Coutu Bldg. The twin structures were constructed thanks to the visionary support of Quebec’s best-known pharmacist and his wife. The structures are united via the Morris & Rosalind Goodman Agora – a vast and welcoming space where up to 400 people can assemble.

October is the Université de Montréal’s alumni month. The event features major public conferences, comedy breakfasts, as well as festive, cultural and social get-togethers throughout the month in honour of the 260,000 students who have graduated from the Université de Montréal since its 1878 foundation.