Dominican University College, a bilingual, Catholic degree-granting institution based in Ottawa, and Carleton University announced an affiliation agreement that will assure long-term funding for Dominican’s graduate program.
Dominican, operating since the late 19th century, offers undergraduate and graduate programs in theology and philosophy. Although its graduate programs are authorized, they have not until now been funded by the provincial government. The school, with just 82 undergraduate and 53 graduate students, had been seeking an affiliation with a larger university for some years.
Under the agreement, Dominican will maintain its own board. Its students will register with Carleton and their degrees will carry the names of both institutions. Dominican’s academic programs will be reviewed under Carleton’s institutional quality assurance program.
At a bilingual ceremony to celebrate the agreement, Maxime Allard, president of Dominican, noted that philosophy students at Dominican will benefit because the two philosophy programs have different strengths. “It broadens the programs on both sides,” he said.
Carleton’s president, Roseann O’Reilly Runte, called the partnership a good example of “sharing between neighbours” and “using resources wisely.”
Dominican will immediately get funding for 30 graduate seats as a result of the agreement. Carleton will be awarded 100 additional graduate seats spread over the next five years. These will not come out of its share of the 6,000 new graduate seats previously announced for the Ontario system.
Glen Murray, minister of training, colleges and universities for the province, in Ottawa for the announcement, commented afterwards on Dominican’s “consistent graduate focus” and Carleton’s growth in graduate seats by more than a third over the last 10 years.
Mr. Murray said that recently some have expressed “quaint notions that there are only a few research-intensive universities in Ontario.” He said, “There are over a dozen research-intensive universities in Ontario. As minister, my intention is to give recognition to some of those that have not had the recognition they should have had until now.”
Madeleine Meilleur, Ontario minister responsible for francophone affairs, was also present and was singled out by several speakers for her role in making the agreement a reality.