PDF Edition - The Gauntlet

Infrastructure 2, cont’d from pg. 6
West Campus
Down the road, the university will
develop the West Campus, 80 hectares
of land the U of C received from
the province in 1995. Aft er two open
houses involving the surrounding
community at the end of May of this
year, the university will bring out a
revised plan later this fall.
“It’s largely conceptual at this
point,” said Harrison. “We’re trying
to sketch out what we can do and
make sure that people feel that they
have an opportunity for input.”
But the current West Campus
plans don’t include a major residence
building and beyond the
Dr. Fok Ying Tung house, which
will have beds for 80 students and is
scheduled to be completed Jan. 2009,
there are no new residence buildings
announced by the U of C.
“We are lobbying the university,
the provincial government and the
municipal government about aff ordable
housing,” said SU president
Bogle. “One of the solutions is to
build more on campus residences as
we feel it enhances the student experience
as provided by the portrait of
the student done by the Offi ce of the
Student Experiences survey.”
Though it was too early to
announce any plans, Harrison and
university administration is aware
of the need for a new building.
“We are in advanced stages of
planning around additional residence
space,” said Harrison. “We
are expecting to be able to say a lot
more about this in the next couple
months. We are [as] cognisant as
you of what’s happened recently
in respective to the demand for
residence spaces and we are working
hard to come up with a plan to
deal with it.”
In early Aug., almost 750 students
were on the waiting list to get into
U of C residence.
By the time this year’s round of
frosh graduates, the university may
look like an entirely diff erent place.
But, barring an urban campus funding
announcement from the federal
government, there won’t be 7,000
new spaces for 2010. Harrison
admits growth is constrained by
what the provincial government
funds and that’s the way a responsible
university should operate.
“Our stated intention has always
been to only grow as quickly as
government funding allows us to,
which means we’re constrained to
the speed of growth by both the
provincial additional operating
funds for new students and the
provincial capital funds to provide
the spaces for those new students,”
said Harrison. “We would regard
it—and I believe the students
would regard it—as irresponsible
to grow in the absence of funding
because it will essentially devalue
the quality of the education for
everyone who is already here.”
GAUNTLET NEWS SEPTEMBER 13.07 11