Message from the Academic Director - June 2022

Tradidi quod et accepi

When I started working at Champittet in 1984, I never imagined the length of the journey I would undertake and the extraordinary diversity I would experience there.

The College, which belonged to the religious congregation of the Canons of the Great St Bernard, was handed over to private owners in 2000 and became part of an international group in 2009, all of which are fundamentally different ways of working.

Initially as secondary school leading only to the Federal Maturité exam, Champittet has successively expanded its offer to include primary and nursery classes, Baccalaureate, French and international sections, even opening a new campus in Nyon. Meanwhile, the school became bilingual and trained to use "new technologies" without even imagining how useful this would be when it was time to move to remote learning during sanitary confinement. All these changes were successfully implemented because they were built on a stable identity.

More than this journey, I’m proud to leave a school in good health, both academically and economically, where I have been able to "pass on what I have received" (1st Epistle to the Corinthians, XV,3). Not just an inheritance, but a spirit of benevolence and a constant search for improvement, driven by the desire to put the young people entrusted to us in the best possible conditions to develop in them the full dimension of the human being both physical, intellectual and spiritual.

I believe I can take on board the following thoughts expressed by the man who will remain the great inspirational figure of the College, Canon Gérard Payot, who wrote at the time of leaving his position as Rector in 1992: "The health and success of a school are the fruit of teamwork.” This is why I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all those with whom I have worked; teachers, supervisors and administration because it is to them all that our Collège owes its reputation and its prosperity.

In conclusion, it is to God that I lift my spirit and my heart. I thank Him for these blessed years, I ask Him to forgive my shortcomings, and, if I have accomplished a little good, to dedicate it to the praise of His Glory.”

Roland Lomenech
Academic Director