Students at the Queen’s School of Business will be exposed to a larger range of electives once the Goodes Hall expansion is completed in December 2011.
David Saunders, dean of the School of Business said the new expansion will allow larger classrooms for students as more electives to choose from.
Saunders said construction is going according to plan. The 18 month construction project broke ground in July of this year.
“It’s a complex project and it’s fully on time and fully on budget and to me that’s terrific news,” he said.
The new wing is being built on the west side of Goodes Hall, which was formerly a parking lot. The wing will have five levels, including an underground parking facility linking to the underground lot located under Tindall Field. The 75,000 square foot expansion is set to have six classrooms as well as a number of faculty offices and student areas, two new research faculties and Leadership in Energy
& Environmental Design (LEED) features. LEED are internationally recognized green-buildings designed to improve performance such as energy savings, water efficiency and improved indoor environmental quality.
The budget for the project is $40 million, with $22 million coming from fundraising. Saunders said the School of Business has already acquired $19 million and has set up donors for the remaining $3 million. The other $18 million of the budget is self-financed, $6 million of which is provided by capital funding from the government funded graduate expansion and $12 million internally from the university.
“It’s really a combination of government funding, philanthropy and internal resources of the three,” he said, adding that the opt-outable fee of $97.50 has contributed to the $1.2 million students have pledged for the expansion.
Currently, $200,000 of the 1.2 million students have pledged has been raised. The opt-outable fee will appear in student fees until the target $1.2 million is raised. Saunders said the students had wanted to get involved with the project and ComSoc executive had proposed a referendum in adding an opt-outable fee to raise money for the expansion.
“The students are putting in $1.2 million into the project. When we go to potential donors or alumni, [they] say ‘that’s great’ and it shows great dedication. So symbolically it is very important,” he said.
This year roughly 60 per cent of commerce students paid the fee. The School of Business is working with ComSoc to create other ways to promote student participation in the expansion.
Saunders said one of the ways they are currently promoting this is by allowing student access to changes already made inside the current Goodes Hall building. In addition to building the expansion, there have been eight new student team rooms and a renovated commerce office in the current Goodes Hall.
The School of Business has been moving groups of students into different buildings due to current space constraints. Currently there is a domino effect in ensuring there is enough room for students in the building, Saunders said.
“The PhD students and the PhD office are out of this building and in Dunning for 18 months and then they will directly move into the building once the new wing is built,” he said, adding that the space is then used for classrooms for other students.
Currently the School of Business accepts approximately 300 applications of the 4,500 who apply each year. According to the Senate approved enrollment plan the School of Business will accept approximately 475 students in two years time.
“The minimum average right now is 87 per cent and the incoming average of students accepted is 92 per cent. The increase of students accepted may change the incoming average to 90 per cent,” he said, adding the increase will not make a significant impact in the quality of students accepted due to the high demand of the program.
Steve Millan, the School’s executive director of finance and administration and chair of the building committee, said although the expansion is not set to be completed by December 2011, there will be three new classes available to students next September.
“In the end we are really trying to give benefits to our students so … we don’t have to wait until the end of the construction project,” he said.
Millan said the excavation is near completion and the pouring of concrete will start next week. The erection of the construction crane will happen in the next three weeks.
“The students have been very supportive in this process; there hasn’t been any complaints from the students of the community, part of that is because we have been able to give them access to new facilities already,” he said.
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