Deo favente haud pluribus impar
Unlike any other, with the grace of God
On
December 8, 1852, Her Majesty Queen Victoria signed a royal
charter giving the Séminaire de Québec the "full
rights and privileges of a University." For Louis-Jacques
Casault, Jean Holmes and many others, this was the crowning victory
of many years of hard work, perseverance and restructuring, enabling
the Seminary to welcome within its walls the first francophone
university in North America.
List of rectors, vice-rectors and Secretaries-General of Laval
University
Cf. http://www.mcq.org/objets/fonds_archives/
The way the university functioned was inspired largely by European
tradition. At its inauguration it consisted of four faculties:
theology, medicine, law and arts. Later it would add departments
of chemistry, agriculture, forestry, architecture etc. It was
administered chiefly by the Seminary, and sitting on its Board
of Directors were the rector, the Seminary governing committee
and the three most senior teachers in each faculty. The superior
general of the Seminary was de facto also the rector of the University.
