October 16 marked the groundbreaking for a major reconstruction project at UTM’s North Building, the eighth major renovation in the last decade to be undertaken on a campus that is rapidly expanding.
Over the last 10 years, enrolment at UTM has doubled to just over 12,000 undergraduates, making it larger than approximately 60 per cent of universities in Canada.
UTM principal and university vice-president Deep Saini says he expects the campus will continue to grow, in keeping with an ambitious expansion plan laid out in the university’s guiding document, “Towards 2030: The View from 2012.”
“We are growing at five per cent each year. At this point we expect 15,000 students in about five years time,” said Saini. Some of the documents in the “Towards 2030” plan suggest this number might eventually grow as large as 20,000.
“The reconstruction will provide our students, staff and faculty with facilities better suited to their work and more in keeping with their excellence — spaces that will support and inspire them in teaching and learning, discovery and innovation,” said U of T president David Naylor, who was on hand for the groundbreaking ceremony.
The North Building was originally constructed in 1967 as a temporary facility, with the intent of gauging whether or not an additional University of Toronto campus in Mississauga (at the time called Erindale College) was a feasible project. As UTM encountered early success and popularity, the building simply remained in use.
Saini noted that there had been “complaints about the quality of the original space,” making it a prime candidate for renovation.
The project is jointly funded by the Ontario provincial government and UTM, which have contributed $52.5 million and $22.5 million, respectively.
Once opened in September of 2014, the new North Building will be four storeys tall and feature approximately twice the space than is currently available, providing students and staff with an area of over 5,000 square metres. Administrators hope the new layout will meet current demands for space, as well as accommodate anticipated growth.
“This reconstructed facility will make a significant difference in the delivery of educational programs on this campus,” says Saini. “It will help us accommodate student growth and provide up-to-date facilities that match the wired and digital needs of young people today. The quality of our built environment, and facilities that stimulate and inspire will play a huge role in our students’ success.”
The new North Building will house the Mathematics and Computational Sciences departments, both of which are currently crowded into basements. There will also be space for the psychology, drama, and English departments. “We want to accommodate the departments that have burning needs,” explained Saini.
The new building will also provide ample study and cafeteria space, aimed towards use by undergraduates.
Saini explained that including these amenities and ensuring sufficient student space was a major priority for UTM. “In every new building, we are providing free [individual and group] study spaces for students,” he said more cafeterias are a welcome development, given the relative isolation of UTM from the commercial centre of Mississauga.
To ensure its long-term usefulness, the new North Building has been carefully designed with an eye towards future needs.
Like all new UTM developments, it will have green energy certification. Classrooms will be wired to easily convert into teleconferencing-capable “smart” classrooms. These capabilities are also in keeping with the “Towards 2030” plan, which calls for greater inter-campus collaboration and the possible teaching of first-year courses to students on multiple campuses via high bandwidth transmissions.
According to “Towards 2030,” such aggressive expansion is based on “the guiding principle…to complete [UTM and UTSC’s] growth as comprehensive universities with stronger identities, yet build on the enormous advantages our tri-campus system confers upon them in recruitment of top flight faculty and students.” Part of this strategy involves making UTM more attractive for graduate and international students by improving facilities.
Saini is not alone in considering the North Building expansion as an example of the swift, drastic changes UTM has been making as a campus. “This groundbreaking ceremony continues the transformation of the campus into a world-class, cutting edge institution unrecognizable from only a decade ago,” said Harinder Takhar, MPP for Mississauga–Erindale.
Pending the approval of further funds, this is only the first of an expected three phases of renovation which are intended to almost totally replace the original structures of Erindale College.
Saini sees the expansion of UTM as benefitting both the Mississauga campus and the university as a whole. “The vitality of the campus is exemplary, and a lot of students are attracted to that. It’s a pretty phenomenal story for U of T,” he said. “We are transforming into something unique among Canadian universities.”
