In 1967, cegeps were established in the province of Quebec, following the criticism brought by the Rapport Parent. Indeed, before the law 60 was adopted, the costs to access to higher education were too expensive, the level of education was too poor and the admission to superior school was too strenuous. This legislation led to the construction of twelve cegeps in Quebec, including the Cégep de Sainte-Foy. The Cégep de Sainte-Foy was founded on July 1, 1967. However, the education system began long before that. Actually, in 1862, the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools created The Quebec Commercial Academy, located on Auteuil's street, which welcomed one hundred and fifty anglophone students. At that time, only boys were allowed to study at that college. In 1865, this institution moved to the intersection of Sainte-Angèle and Elgin's streets. Having proven themselves as a credible educational facility, they moved once again in 1893 to Cook's street and were in the obligation to expand the establishment to Chauveau's Avenue, due to the excessive number of students attending the school. In reason of its growing clientele, The Quebec Commercial Academy sold its installations, which were located at the center of Vieux-Québec, to the provincial government. In 1961, the construction of the new school began on Chemin Sainte-Foy. However, it is only in 1962 that the establishment is ready to welcome students. Since 1965, the school opens its doors to girls. It is officially named Cégep de Sainte-Foy in 1967.
Programs
Pre-University
There are seventeen pre-university program at the Cégep de Sainte-Foy. These programs are distributed in three big categories which are letters and arts, natural sciences and human sciences. In letters and arts, the students can choose between eight programs which are visual arts, culture and arts, literature and arts, creation and cinema and music. There are also double DEC linked with music which are music and natural sciences, music and human sciences with or without mathematic. In natural sciences, there are two profiles to choose from and a double DEC: the regular profile, the environment, life and health profile and science, letters and arts. In human sciences, there are five profiles to choose from and a regular DEC. The different profile are discovery of human sciences, organisation and management with mathematics, help relationship and social intervention, education and culture, international issues and challenges and the DEC is civilisation and history.
Science, letters and arts:
Science, letters and arts, also known as integrated DEC, is a two years integrated triple DEC combining natural science, human science and letters and art. In this program, students will see the human under every possible angle. As there are only few student accepted every year, groups are smaller than the average and stay the same in each class for every semesters. In addition, teachers of this program are chosen among the bests and must be implicated in their students' scholar life. Therefore, they offer special activities such as trip to USA or special conferences related to culture or to the material presented in class. To be accepted, there is no quota, high school students must only have over 80% of academic average. It makes the D.I. the only elite program offered in Cegeps. The most important part of this DEC is the eligibility for EVERY university programs, except for graphical arts and music. Many people could think it comes with an overwhelming work charge, but it is comparable to natural science. If you are interested in this program and would like to know if you have the typical profile, there is a test, in French, on the CEGEP web site.
Music:The music department of the CEGEP Ste-Foy is founded in 1982. There is only fourteen CEGEP in the entire Québec that offers the music program and the CEGEP Ste-Foy is the only public one in Quebec city, because the Campus Notre-Dame-De-Foy is a private college. Each year, the music program count approximately 250 students in 3 different programs, music, music/science and music/social science. Students learn how to master correctly their instruments, but also learn more on the music history and its evolution through years, they learn how to analyze pieces of music, to do solfege and musical dications so they can develop their ear. There is a wide choice of instruments the students can learn: Trumpet, trombone, percussions, piano, guitar and many many more... Students can participate to many musical activities, contests, concerts and they can take part to five different big ensembles, wind orchestra, chamber orchestra, choral singing, stage band and vocal jazz.
Film StudiesFilm Studies is a 2-year pre-university program. It brings the student to know more about American and Quebec cinema industries, which are more related to the cegep's culture, as well as foreign films while teaching how to make a movie through writing scenarios, creating storyboards, creating movie posters, filming, acting and post-production. It also brings the student to learn about other related arts such as theatre and literature. At the end of the program, a student will have made an animated movie, a movie poster, publicity and a short fiction movie. Besides offering the basic courses such as French, philosophy, physical education and English, the program offers classes such as Filmmakers and influences, Art history, Photography, Film production and more.
Natural Sciences:
The NaturalSciences program is a 2 years program. Its goal is to prepare the students to University. It leads to a specific collegial studies diploma. The main goals of the Natural Sciences program are to make sure that the students are able to apply the scientific process, learn in an autonomous way and resolve problems in a way that is systematic. It also aims the development of abilities like to reason rigorously, communicate precisely, establish links between science, technology and society's evolution and finally to adopt useful attitudes towards scientific work. Furthermore, the specific goals of this program are to analyze literary texts, to assess the contribution of social sciences to contemporary issues and to study the living organization, its different mechanisms and its diversity. There are 4 semesters for the 3 different programs. The Natural Sciences program is one of the main pre-university programs at CEGEP de Sainte-Foy. It is divided in three branches: the regular profile, the Environment, Life and Health science program and the Letter and Arts science program. The Environment Life and Health program focuses on multidisciplinary work and gives a higher importance to environment than the regular profile. The Letter and Arts science program has more social science and art classes than the regular profile although they have less science classes. These three different programs lead to the same diploma and are considered equal when it comes to university admissions. However, the people in the Letter and Arts program will see their grades slightly improved since their program is considered harder than the two others. The regular program has the most flexible curriculum and the most students. They can choose five of their 28 classes.* Of those five classes, two are not necessarily science related. ELH is, as its name says, more environment and health-related. In the first semester, the mechanics class is replaced by a biology class and the two biology classes are mandatory. ELH students also have an Environment class in their third semester, instead of being able to choose between nine different science classes. Unlike the regular profile, ELH classes are in closed groups, which means that, except for English classes, complementary courses and physical education, ELH groups are not mixed with students of other programs.
Extracurricular Programs
LINK
LINK is a program offered to the students of the Cégep de Sainte-Foy. Its name stands for Language Interaction N' Knowledge. It offers three different choices to students who which to improve their English: the first one is an immersion course. It can either be at a school recognized by the Cégep, in an English environment or in another program such as the "". These have to be 4 weeks or more to officially be recognized by the Cégep. The second choice offered to the students is to participate in 10 courses totalizing 20 hours offered out of the normal school calendar at the cost of $50. The final choice is to participate in extracurricular activities in English such as plays or conferences. All of these allow the student to apply for one of the 14 scholarships of $2000.
Vocational/Technical
Continued Education
The offers a large selection on continued education programs. First started in 1967, those programs are aimed to workers, enterprises or persons who want to reintegrate the working space. Programs vary from administration, marketing, insurance, language, health and communication. Some programs are offered as an Attestation d'études collégiales or a Diplôme d'études collégiales . The Cégep can also recognize past courses or working experiences to remove unnecessary classes. The Cégep also offers a francization program to immigrants coming from all over the world, helping them integrate Québec's working place. Officially recognized by the MICC since 1999, the program offers full-time intensive courses – 1 and a half or 2 years long, depending on the education level—or an auto-learning centre with and an open schedule.
The foundation
The Cégep de Sainte-Foy's foundation is an organisation that offers scholarships and financial assistance to help their students with realizing their dreams and projects. The foundation is managed by the Cégep de Sainte-Foy's administration.
Notable alumni
Robert Lebel, graduated from the Quebec City Commercial Academy
