By Mark Schadenberg
The
downtown of Brantford includes a terrific post-secondary education
multi-building campus for Laurier University (Two pictures at bottom). The Waterloo-based
school is also planning on expanding to Milton.
A
satellite university or college – anything away from its original
campus – can only be a plus for a community, whether the new school
space is in the central core of a city or the outskirts.
London, for example, in my opinion, is missing a wonderful opportunity if it does not roll out the welcome mat for a larger Fanshawe College site on its Dundas Street in the Kingsmill department store locale.
I'm
guessing that most universities and colleges have outgrown their
original footprint at their original site, and must now set the
sights at alternate sites.
Woodstock
is a great location for more Fanshawe.
Woodstock
is a great location for the University of Ottawa to build a
French-speaking school, even if part of the curriculum is taught in
the French immersion format. Woodstock has two French immersion
elementary school and a JK-12 French-only school. Growing up
bilingual (Our two national languages) is integral in today's Canada.
The
folks in Ottawa appear prepared for this proposed expansion in
southern Ontario.
“As
Ontario’s flagship bilingual research-intensive university, we are
committed to meeting the needs of Francophones . . . wishing to
pursue their post-secondary education in French,” said Allan Rock,
president of the University of Ottawa in a press release. “We greatly appreciate the
vision and commitment of the City of Woodstock. The University of
Ottawa looks forward to working in partnership with Woodstock to
realize this vision and support Ontario’s francophone and
francophile communities,”
The
Reg Hall building across the street from Woodstock's City Hall (500 Dundas) will
be the first classroom setup for the university if all the strings
can be tied together, including funding directed from the provincial
government.
Woodstock
has other downtown locations which could be transformed into
post-secondary schools. That list includes WCI (I went to that high
school, but folks it will not always exist as a high school I'm
afraid) on Riddell Street, the nearby Woodstock Hydro building on
Graham, the truly wonderful architecture of a retired church at 34 Riddell
(corner of Adelaide), and even the 386 Dundas 3-storey storefront
which already includes the accessibility-important feature of an
elevator.
Ingersoll
has a Conestoga College location specializing in the hydro /
electrical industry.
This
idea of expanding schools beyond their current centres also includes
Ottawa's Carleton university as speculation includes a possible
campus in Niagara Falls.
This could be an election issue in Woodstock this fall, but I would hope all candidates are 100 percent behind this idea.
LINKS:
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/u-of-o-plans-woodstock-campus-carleton-eyes-cornwall-and-niagara
Laurier -Brantford Pictures
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