It traces its origins to the merger of several educational institutions which became public in 1967 with the creation of Quebec's CEGEPs and the collegiate system.

[6] This more decentralized structure has been proposed to the Board of Governors by administrators as a possible new organizational model for the college, but it was rejected as unworkable for CRC, in part due to the distances between the campuses.

[10] The 16-member Commission of Studies is also composed of Sherbrooke administrators plus faculty, staff and students from each teaching location.

The St. Lawrence campus is located 227 kilometres from the Sherbrooke office in Capitale-Nationale region, in the Québec City borough of Ste-Foy.

Many members of the college community argue this structure limits campuses' ability to respond as well as they might to their students' and local communities' needs, while others argue that regional diversity creates opportunities for "synergy" across multiple regions of Quebec, even though there is little interaction between the campuses due to the vast distances between them.

In part due to regional disparity and distances, each campus has, over time, developed its own distinct culture and traditions.

[13][14] Meetings of college-wide bodies are often held in rented space in the city of Drummondville, which is more or less equidistant from each of the three campuses and the Sherbrooke administrative offices.

There, all three unions (faculty, support staff and professionals) have been working together since early in 2014 to make their campus an independent college.

[20][21][22] A formal petition was sponsored at the Québec National Assembly by the Official Opposition Critic for Higher Education, Véronique Hivon (Parti-Québécois).

[30] The Campus independence movement continues to assert that the best change would be the elimination of the Central Administration in favour of creating three separate colleges, one per region.

In August 2017, David Birnbaum, MNA for the Montreal riding of Darcy-Mcgee,[34] prepared a report at the request of the Minister of Higher Education.

[35] This report, while putting aside the idea of independent status for the three campuses, nonetheless recommended that the college be greatly decentralized in a number of ways, particularly with regard to academic leadership.

In response to this, the campus unions returned representatives to the Board, which committed itself to studying and implementing the "Birnbaum Report.