The Council of Ontario Universities sets standard amounts of space per student that universities should have for everything from classrooms to cafeterias. Though U of T works with the standards, VP and Provost Vivek Goel said: “sometimes we have to bend them.” Meeting COU space standards would require huge expansion.
UTM, whose enrolment has swollen by 52 per cent since 2000, falls 23,000 square metres short of COU guidelines for institutional space alone (not counting recreational and residence areas). The suburban campus hopes to add 4,000 square metres of facilities to its sprawling property by 2011.
UTSC, the most cramped U of T campus, also has the least room to expand into. The campus had budgeted for a 60 per cent enrolment surge, and got 104 per cent. It currently has 4.71 square metres per student, barely half the provincial average.
Governing Council’s new financial and real estate strategies aim to ease the crowding on U of T’s campuses, but Catherine Riggall, U of T’s VP of business affairs, said meeting COU standards is unrealistic.
“The only places that meet the COU guidelines are the little schools like Trent where nobody really wants to go,” she said.
-Andre Bovee-Begun
