The first semester of studies at the brand new Francophone university established at the University of Sudbury features a cohort of just 30 students, but the school’s president says he thinks that’s “pretty good.”
We briefly caught up with Serge Milville on Sept. 25 during campus celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Franco-Ontarian flag, and asked him how the semester was going.
“Well, 30 in the six-week period between funding and opening is pretty good, I would say,” Miville said. “I'm pretty proud of what the team has done, and we're just going to keep working at it for sure.”
As Miville alluded to, it was only on July 7 that the province announced that it was providing funding for the project to the tune of $10.8 million over three years.
A school located on the campus of Laurentian University and formerly federated with LU, the University of Sudbury announced its plans to create a French-language university back in 2021, when Laurentian severed ties with its federated universities.
With the backing of the Francophone community, the University of Sudbury (now known as Université de Sudbury) fought to make the project a reality since, despite setbacks including the province’s 2023 rejection of a standalone proposal by the U of S.
But in 2024, the school announced it was partnering with the University of Ottawa to offer French-language classes in Sudbury as of the fall of 2025, although provincial funding had not been announced until this summer.
Although the Université de Sudbury has invested $18 million of its own funds in the project since 2021, Miville told Sudbury.com this past summer it would have been difficult to launch this fall as planned without the government dollars.
He said at the time he figured people who might have otherwise applied were wondering if the school was a “safe bet,” and the school started recruiting students for this fall in November 2024, which is considered “super late” in post-secondary education.
The U of S also announced this past summer that it will be providing bursaries to all of its students fully covering the cost of tuition this school year.
Miville said last week that “it’s great to see a good bunch of students on campus,” who are studying everything from health sciences to commerce to interdisciplinary arts to history. “It’s actually a pretty diverse bunch,” he said.
Given the 50th anniversary of the Franco-Ontarian flag last week, Miville said he gave the Université de Sudbury students a half-hour lecture on the flag.
“We did some vexillology, which is the study of flags and their symbols,” he said. “So that was fun to go back to the classroom.”
Sudbury.com was also able to meet a few of the inaugural students at the French university at the Sept. 25 Franco-Ontarian flag event, and one of them, Marie Love Casi, gave us her thoughts on her new school.
Casi, who came here from Ottawa to study commerce, said the free tuition at the University of Sudbury was attractive, but she’s also loving the small class sizes at the school.
“On the first week, it feels like with the other students, it was already a family,” she said. “Because it’s a small class, it’s better. I feel like we have a relationship with the teacher. It’s more personal.”
Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s assistant editor. She also covers education and the arts scene.