Founder's Day Celebrations 2021: Past, Present and Future
Mark your calendars for our annual Founder's Day Celebrations!
This year's event will take place online.
Highlight: a conversation with Marc Bieler, DipAg’58, BA’64
Featuring: student panel on the future of Macdonald, McGill and the world
Macdonald Campus classes are canceled from 13h00-15h00 to allow students to be able to attend the celebrations
The waiting room will open at 12h30. Click here to participate.
ABOUT FOUNDER'S DAY
Founder’s Day is our annual celebration of the life and generosity of our benefactor, Sir William Christopher Macdonald. Sir William was a great industrialist and one of our country’s leading philanthropists. His greatest cause was education and his generosity toward McGill was boundless. He was one of McGill University's greatest benefactors, the fourth Chancellor of the University (1914-1917) and was dedicated to improving the quality of life in Quebec’s rural communities and training rural leaders to meet the future needs of a nation.
In 1907 Sir William founded Macdonald College as the School of Agriculture, the School of Household Science and the School for Teachers. Significant changes have taken place since the College’s founding and the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences has developed into a world leader addressing global needs in the fields of food, nutrition and health, agriculture, biodiversity, applied biosciences, climate change and the environment.
The event is held on the Thursday closest to the anniversary of his birth - February 10, 1831. Founder’s Day festivities are an occasion to celebrate our history, our strengths and our promise for the future. The day’s activities are framed around the College’s Motto, Mastery for Service. Historical records describe Mastery for Service as “First, the complete Mastery of the Self for Service, as, the Mastery of the Mental processes; the Mastery of the Powers of the body, the Mastery of the Passions; the Mastery of the emotions—and second, the Mastery of the world for Service, as the service in any sphere in which one finds life."