FONDATION LUCIEN-PICHÉ
Fondation Lucien-Piché's Mission
The Fondation Lucien-Piché is a non-profit charitable organization that was created in 1987 after the passing of Professor Lucien Piché, a chemistry Professor who was the first secular person to occupy a Vice-Dean position at the Université de Montréal.
The Foundation's mission is to encourage undergraduate chemistry students from Québec universities by awarding merit scholarships.
History of the Foundation
Following the passing of Professor Lucien Piché in 1987, her wife contacted Professor Jean-Claude Richer, his former colleague from the Université de Montréal, as well as the managers of the Ordre des chimistes du Québec in order to create a foundation to commemorate his life. We recall that Lucien Piché was, from 1955 to 1956, the head of the Association des chimistes professionnels du Québec, an organization that would later become in 1973 the Ordre des chimistes du Québec. Edgard Delvin, Professor at McGill University, Henri Favre, Professor at the Université de Montréal, and Patrice C. Bélanger, Head of quality control at Merck Frosst, respectively President and Vice-Presidents of the Ordre des chimistes du Québec at the time, created the Fondation Lucien-Piché to commemorate the life of Prof. Piché, a pioneer in his field.
The Ordre des chimistes was organizing, at the time, a chemistry competition for the students at the college level. It was decided that the winners would become the recipients of the Lucien-Piché Scholarship. The funds required to award those scholarships originally came, for the most part, from donations from Prof. Piché's wife, to which other punctual donations from other people and institutions were added.
Modest at its begining, the Foundation's financial capacity became much more important in 1992 following a major chemistry symposium that was organized in the Montreal area, the 9th International Conference on Organic Synthesis (CISO-92). Due to the efficiency of its organizers, Dr. Robert N. Young (Merck Frosst), Andrée Lefebvre (L.A.B. Bio-Recherches), Sandu Goldstein (Merck Frosst), Yvon Pépin (UQAM), and Jean-Claude Richer (Université de Montréal), this event generated considerable surpluses which were used to create the major part of the Foundation funds which, to this day, are still used to award scholarships.
The Foundation decided to create a new scholarship program dedicated to third-year undergraduate students enrolled in a chemistry program in a university within the province of Québec. These scholarships, initially named Bourses CISO-92, constitute today's main Lucien-Piché Foundation scholarship program.
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