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New University...where should it go?

afransen said:
If in the GTA, somewhere along a GO line would make sense to me. Are there any obvious tracts of 500+ acres that are vacant (or cheaply acquired) that wouldn't be better used for something else? I can think of any.
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Yes there is! In Burlington (a city desperate for a University). Hyrdo owns at least 500+ acres right on the GO Line between Burlington Station and Aldershot station. The track of land is just west/north of Ikea and east of Aldershot. You can see it from the 403/QEW when you head east torwards to Toronto from Hamilton.

A new station could be built to serve students/staff/faculty that would serve riders from the entire lakeshore line.
 
McMaster actually wants to build a campus somewhere out along the 403 or QEW in Burlington. They had plans to build in downtown Burlington but recently canceled them.
 
flar said:
McMaster actually wants to build a campus somewhere out along the 403 or QEW in Burlington. They had plans to build in downtown Burlington but recently canceled them.
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Seriously, the downtown Burlington one was cancelled?
EDITED: found this link: http://dailynews.mcmaster.ca/story.cfm?id=5016

Well, as an avid ex-Burlingtonian, I am disapointed with this development. However, there is a silver lininig that perhaps the City and School will work together to find another urban spot for the campus. I'd really hope that they work with the Ministry of Transportation which owns a lot of land along Lakeshore, parallel to the QEW on the beachway to rehabilitate that land and build the campus there. It is still down, totally unused land and has great access to Hamilton, Burlington and the the watefront.

However, the likely location for the new campus would be at the old Brock Highschool site.

Also, regarding Burlington Universities, they city also has a satilite campus of some Australian Univesity (Charles Stuart I think) for teachers college.
 
McMaster's decision is very disappointing. They want the new campus to have highway access and to be exapndable. The campus will have a business school focus so they want easy access to the hotels and corporate offices along the QEW.
 
Barrie doesn't have a university. In fact there's no university north of Toronto until you get to North Bay. With Barrie's booming population a university there makes perfect sense.
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What about Fanshaw? It can be elevated in status.

I think the best GTA location for a university is Brampton: small town charm, big city amenities. Two or three options come to mind. First two are the Flowertown City Community Campus and Sheridan College both located on MacLaughlin Rd and are very close to...

Hwy 10
Hwy 407
Shoppers World
Peel Regional Court House
Peel Memorial Hospital
Brampton City Hall
MT/BT/GO accessible
Business, Liberal Arts facilities on campus(es)

The third option could be to build an entirely new facility in northeast Brampton (Springdale) as result of the 410 extension, Brampton Civic Hospital opening and other development booms in the area.
 
The former OPP lands (McLaughlin/Queen) would be a great idea for Brampton, it being on the edge of the intensification area and not too far from the GO station, and on the Acceleride corridor. The City owns it (called the "Flower City Community Campus", basically a senior's centre and overflow city hall offices), waiting for some big thing to be proposed there, like a new second hospital, or a university.

The semi-derelict industrial lands directly on the south side of Queen between Queen and the 410 would be good too, it's also in the OP for revitalization/intensification.

I don't have a hard time picturing a new campus in Springdale. After all, I've seen UOIT.
 
I have a dream for "Green University" to be located in the Portlands. It would stretch south along the shipping channel, north to the reconfigured Don River outlet channel/Lakeshore Blvd, and potentially as far west as Carlaw Avenue.

Campus buildings would be mixed in with student dorms and public/private housing. The various athletic facilities proposed for the area could be co-used by the general public, the university and possibly the Canadian summer Olympic team.

Green University would obviously have an environmental/ technological and medical research focus, with specific programs centered around solutions to, and coping with, global warming and its related crises (such as pandemics). And of course the campus would have numerous public transit links and bike-only lanes (and maybe a prototype "velo-city" bicycle tubeway system). Oh, and campus parking lots would be for hydrogen vehicles only.

Sure it's a dream, but it could get chipped down to something more realistic, provided some billionaires and Fortune 500s get onboard with the various governments.

http://www.velo-city.ca/MainFrameset.html
 
I can see York opening something down there, not U of T.

If U of T ever opens another campus, I wonder how far away they'd go...would Barrie be too far to be called U of "T"? Barrie is a great spot for a new institution - too bad there isn't a huge swath of derelict land in the inner city, although a suburban campus could always work...just model it after a university campus such as Oxbridge, not an office park campus with a sea of grass and parking!

I'm also not at all opposed to a city that already has a university getting a second one...multiple schools serve Halifax well, after all. As for areas that don't already have one, what about Collingwood or Midland/Penetanguishene instead of Barrie? The old Queensville proposal is also not a bad spot. Burlington's another good choice, but it's so close to Toronto that kids would return to the city the minute classes are over, leaving the campus abandoned (edit - this would also happen in Queensville).

To accommodate these 40,000 new kids we could, of course, always upgrade colleges or offer joint degree programs, or make it easier for kids in the GTA to go away to school (and not just an OSAP limit boost...$40,000+ in debt is not easier). However, the revitalizing benefits of bringing a sizable institution to a new area may just be too great to pass up. I'd much rather see new schools built than U of T, York, and Ryerson all ballooning towards enrollment of 100,000...the experience and education would quickly become meaningless.
 
scarberiankhatru said:
To accommodate these 40,000 new kids we could, of course, always upgrade colleges or offer joint degree programs, or make it easier for kids in the GTA to go away to school (and not just an OSAP limit boost...$40,000+ in debt is not easier). However, the revitalizing benefits of bringing a sizable institution to a new area may just be too great to pass up. I'd much rather see new schools built than U of T, York, and Ryerson all ballooning towards enrollment of 100,000...the experience and education would quickly become meaningless.
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I like the idea of upgrading colleges. As for your comment about education becoming meaningless, it already is. Bachlor is the new High School diploma and in some ways even less (due to uneven distribution of wealth - gap between rich and middle increasing). We are already stuffed into classes where there isn't 1 seat per student (I've had to sit on the steps / floors once) and this was in 2001. I received my bachlor in 2005 I think.
 
rpgr said:
I like the idea of upgrading colleges. As for your comment about education becoming meaningless, it already is. Bachlor is the new High School diploma and in some ways even less (due to uneven distribution of wealth - gap between rich and middle increasing). We are already stuffed into classes where there isn't 1 seat per student (I've had to sit on the steps / floors once) and this was in 2001. I received my bachlor in 2005 I think.
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A big reason why I think we should be downgrading universities, boosting colleges and encouraging more kids to learn specific skills and trades. Universities can't be higher learning if 1/3 of the population is there.
 
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