By Tim Mitchell, Features Editor
Dalhousie University has three campuses in Halifax: Studley, Carleton and Sexton. Studley campus is constructing a New Academic Building that’s scheduled for completion in September of 2010. Studley is also seeing renovations to its Life Sciences Centre.
Carleton campus is constructing a new Life Sciences Research Institute building that’s scheduled for completion in March of 2011. The classrooms in the Tupper building on the Carleton campus are also being retrofitted and upgraded.
So what’s being improved at Dal’s Sexton campus? At the moment, nothing.
“We’re in the middle of a development campaign, and if there’s some other philanthropist out there that is going to drop some money onto the (Sexton) campus, it could happen sooner than later,” says Ken Burt, Dal’s VP (finance and administration). “I don’t know, I just don’t know where we are in terms of that portfolio.”
Ironically, the Sexton campus is home to Dalhousie’s schools of engineering and architecture.
“I feel like Sexton campus is being left out of Dalhousie’s plan for improvement,” says Martin Crawley, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student.
Dalhousie has a Campus Master Plan that outlines future construction and renovation projects around the university. It’s been created by a multinational corporation called the IBI Group that offers services in four areas of practice: urban land, facilities, transportation and systems.
They company recently released a third progress report that outlines future construction efforts at Dal for the next 40 years, if approved by the Campus Planning Steering Committee as well as Dal’s president, Tom Traves, and the university’s board and senate.
Burt says students have been consulted throughout the planning process.
“We’ve been getting some (feedback from students). We’re always interested in hearing from the students. So, if they do want to comment I encourage them to go to the web site (blogs.dal.ca/campusplan) and to get into those blog discussions and have their voice heard.”
DSU president Shannon Zimmerman also sits on the Campus Planning Steering Committee.
In the Campus Master Plan, the future of Sexton includes an Integrated Design Engineering and Architecture (IDEA) building. At the moment however, that’s all the building seems to be – just an idea.
“We’re just at the conceptual planning phase of the building,” says Burt. “It could be as much as 100,000 square feet – largely academic and teaching space. The notion is to create some heavy duty labs so that some of the large engineering projects can be moved in with trucks and offloaded with cranes so students have the ability to work on much larger projects than are currently available.”
The building would be located somewhere between Gerard Hall and the electrical engineering building. It sounds like a much-needed improvement to the Sexton campus. But without funding, engineering and architecture students shouldn’t expect to see it built anytime soon.
“It’s just a process of the way the money comes,” says Burt. “With the knowledge infrastructure program, we did apply for 10 grants from the federal government, including grants for the IDEA building on the Sexton campus. The federal government chose to fund the Life Sciences Centre, so I don’t know what was in their decision making process, but you pretty well have to do the projects that are funded. We do have a developing campaign, a fundraising campaign, underway at the university, and the IDEA building is on the list of projects for that campaign.”
Crawley would like to see the project go ahead.
“Having a new building with proper ventilation, more group space and updated labs would vastly improve the experience of engineers and architecture students at Dalhousie University,” says Crawley. “I don’t understand how Dalhousie can be competitive for attracting more engineering and architecture students without making sizeable improvements on Sexton campus.”
As for the current infrastructure on the Sexton campus, Crawley says it’s time for renovations.
“Proper ventilation systems are lacking throughout Sexton Campus. Our library is very uncomfortable to study in because it is like a sauna all year round. Another issue on campus is the lab equipment and space on Sexton campus. The labs that I have been in are pretty small, cramped and messy. I think this is because the labs were allowed to become outdated and cluttered with old equipment. I am pretty sure students and professors would benefit from newer, larger and cleaner lab space, whether it be for instruction or for research.”
Burt says that in the future there will be some improvements to the Sexton campus, including retrofitting classrooms and labs, as well as the creation of new student space.
“We’re going to be retrofitting for instance, O’Brien Hall over the next couple of years, and increasing our student residences on that campus. If and when the IDEA building goes ahead, it will allow us to retrofit a big portion of the campus. I think the IDEA building will be key to creating a domino of improvements on that campus. The buildings, they’re good, they just need some money invested in them in terms of renewal, and we’re doing that, but that particular campus requires quite a bit of renewal, and the IDEA building will be the first major step in redeveloping that campus.”
The administration is also looking into creating a new 300-seat theatre on Sexton campus for first- and second-year engineering students who have to attend classes on Studley campus. One option they’re considering is transforming the Sexton gym.
“The (Sexton) gym itself is one idea that has come forward, related to relocating all the engineering students onto the Sexton campus. The notion was that by moving them all down to the Sexton campus, they would have their own community, and to make that happen, we need a 300-seat theatre teaching space. Now we’re looking at a couple of options, including using the theatre space, the teaching space that has been developed in Chapter house where we are currently teaching nursing students, sort of at the corner of University and South Park. But again, these are just early discussions. There is a need for a larger classroom and whether it’s a conversion of the gym, or some other space, we’re in the process of looking for something.”
“Whether it be a new building, or overhauling the current buildings on campus, concrete actions and commitments by the Dalhousie administration must be made to improve life on Sexton Campus,” says Crawley.
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