[MolsonExport]

All about UWO thread: The University of Western Ontario. One of the most important drivers of the London Economy and one of the best-ranked universities in Canada.

[ldoto]

Sat, May 16, 2009

BEYOND CRISIS: Exploring our region's next economy

The University of Western Ontario and Fanshawe College received a total of $12 million from the province yesterday to help deal with a rise in enrolment amid an increasingly tough job market.

Fanshawe, which expects its student population to jump 5% in September, received $3 million while UWO got $9 million.

The struggling economy has caused a surge in postsecondary school enrolment, something many see as a positive.

"(The) traditional jobs we are losing today are not coming back," LondonFanshawe MPP Khalil Ramal said as he announced the money. "That's why we're investing in post-secondary education -- to increase the capacity of our schools to assist students with the skills they need."

Provincewide, $150 million is being split among all post-secondary schools in the one-time handout.




Chris Bentley, the London West MPP who serves as Ontario's attorney-general, said he would encourage those struggling to find work to head back to school.

Those without postsecondary schooling should do the same, he said.

"If you've completed high school, you should really be considering some form of post-high school education," including trades, he said. "Because 70 to 80% of the jobs of the future are all going to require that.

"They say that in 15 years a huge number of the jobs won't even have been thought of today."

Bentley, who served as Ontario's minister of colleges and universities from 2005 to 2007, says there are 100,000 more post-secondary students in Ontario than in 2003, when the Liberals took over Queen's Park. That's a 25% jump.

With the post-secondary funding model in flux, schools like Fanshawe and UWO don't yet know how much money they will get for the next school year. But the enrolment increase will make every dollar all the more important, said Fanshawe's vice-president of finance.

"Often in an economy that's in a downturn, what we see are people going back to school to upgrade their skills," Scott Porter said. "We believe there are people who want to come and update their skills."

[ldoto]

:previous:
btw this thread should be called Western Ontario and Fanshawe College ;)

[ldoto]

Thanks that's better!!!!!;)

[ldoto]

Fanshawe College Receives $31.8-Million in New Funding:cheers: :cheers:

Fanshawe College is starting the new work week with a $31.8-million dollar announcement from the Federal and Provincial Governments.

$15.9-million dollars will come from Ottawa while another $15.9-million dollars will come from Queens Park.

The announced funding will allow Fanshawe College to expand its recently purchased building at 1764 Oxford Street. The Centre for Applied Transportation Technologies will accommodate 1,500 full time students who are seeking job-ready credentials in trades and technologies that support the transportation industry.

Dr. Rundle was pleased about today's announcement. "We have one of the highest confirmation rates to date for fall 2009 and there is a marked increase in demand from adult learners and Second Career applicants. This is a great step toward meeting that increased demand." said Rundle.

The investment is part of the federal government's two-year, $2-billion plan to repair and expand research and educational facilities at Canadian colleges and universities.

London West MP Ed Holder announced the federal funding today which will be put towards Fanshawe's Centre for Applied Transportation Technologies.

"This is a significant investment in Fanshawe College and all of London will benefit as a result, especially with the new jobs in the short-term. This is the stimulus spending we have been pushing, which will help our local economy recover while investing in long-term innovation," said MP Holder.

"This is an example of the swift response that is possible when the federal and provincial governments work for the best interests of our community."

[ilp]

I'll try and post some pictures of the new residence building under construction at Fanshawe once the weather turns nicer :)

Also, I'll try and get some pictures of the new courtyard uploaded.

[ldoto]

:previous:
btw what new courtyard pics??????:shrug:

[JrUrbanDesigner]

:previous:
btw what new courtyard pics??????:shrug:

There was a redesigned courtyard that opened last fall at Fanshawe College

[ldoto]

:previous: I see!!!!!

[ldoto]

Fri, May 29, 2009

The province and federal governments are chipping in $50 million to help build a new Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.

The announcement this afternoon means the 1,000 students at the business school be under one roof instead of spread across five locations, one of them off-campus.

Western is chipping in $22.5 million and the business school is raising $27.5 million through private donations.

Construction will start at the new site, in front of Brescia University College in August and create 600 new construction jobs.

The first phase of the school should be complete by March 2011.

[ldoto]

Area MPPs announced $50 million for two new schools and renovations to three others this morning.

The Thames Valley District school board will get:

- $7 million for an addition to Glendale high school in Tillsonburg

- $10.1 million to build a new elementary school in the Stoney Creek neighbourhood in London

- $1 million to build an addition at Northridge public school in London.




The London District Catholic school board will get:

- $27 million to build a new Catholic high school in northwest London

- $5 million for an addition at St. Joseph’s Catholic high school in St. Thomas.

The cash was part of a $500 million province-wide investment.

[ldoto]

Dubbed Tornado Alley, Southwestern Ontario will soon be able to produce mini-twisters even if there aren't any in the sky.

The world's first six-sided wind tunnel able to simulate a tornado will be built at the University of Western Ontario.

The nearly $24-million facility will be the second wind-related project at UWO, home to a wind tunnel laboratory famed for wind tests run there on model structures ranging from New York's Freedom Tower to the Confederation Bridge.

The new hexagonal facility, called the WindEE Dome -- it stands for wind engineering, energy and environment -- will use a series of giant fans to create swirling winds to simulate an F3 tornado about six metres in size.

The 25-metre-diameter dome will be housed in a larger, futuristic structure about 40 metres in diameter.




"By manipulating the fans, the dome can simulate any kind of swirling wind environment," said engineering professor Horia Hangan, leading the project.

Traditional wind tunnels, such as the Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel at UWO, he said, cannot simulate the swirling wind of a tornado or downdraft.

Hangan said scale models of urban buildings, power lines, field crops, forests and industrial plants will be built inside the dome.

The dome will feature a variety of terrains, so the impact of tornado winds can be accurately assessed.

Scale-model wind farms -- pint-sized versions of what's popping up across Ontario -- will also be built in the dome to determine the best design to get maximum electrical power from their turbines.

The dome could also be used to track the spread of pollutants over wide areas.

Southwestern Ontario is one of Canada's tornado hotspots, but the twisters usually prove less manacing than they look. Hangan said tornadoes have been simulated in lab conditions before, but never on the scale being tried by Western.

Western's Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel has done testing for high-profile projects around the world. More recently, a UWO research facility near London Airport -- dubbed the Three Little Pigs -- has done ground-breaking research on wind damage on typical suburban homes.

Hangan, a director of UWO's existing wind tunnel, said the WindEEE dome will reinforce UWO's reputation in wind research. "This intention is to make Western a world leader in wind research,'' he said.

Hangan said construction of the WindEEE dome should begin within a year. It should be operating a year or two later

The project had been kept under wraps until UWO received confirmation yesterday of $9.5 million in funding from the Canada Foundations for Innovation.

The project was one of four research projects that received a total of $17.6 million in foundations funding. Others were:

- Western's anthropology department received $3.9 million to collect and preserve archeological artifacts unearthed at housing and highway projects across Ontario in partnership with First Nations.

- The Robarts Research Institute and Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry received $2.5 million for research into minimally-invasive surgeries using miniature surgical tools guided remotely by medical imaging.

- The chemistry department received $1.6 million to enhance the imaging capabilities of two X-ray machines being used at a research facility in Saskatoon, Sask.

[MolsonExport]

with all the hot air blowing out of city hall, I would have thought that the city was already a world leader in wind research :D

[ldoto]

The next long weekend for most of us is still a week away, although if you're a city police officer or someone who lives near Fanshawe or Western -- the next couple of days might feel like a long weekend for other reasons.

This is the weekend thousands of students begin returning to London for the new school year, and Police will be out in force along Richmond Row and student neighbourhoods trying to make sure everyone behaves.

It's all part of Project L.E.A.R.N, an annual crackdown on rowdy student behaviour. Last fall, between August and October, Police issued more than 1400 tickets and laid 130 charges.

One of the most notorious areas for student partying is Fleming Drive near Fanshawe College. Stephanie Drummond lives on that street and says she always has to brace herself for this time of year.

"I'll tell ya, they're pretty wild. Not right here, but down there... they light fires, and throw beer bottles all over the place and they just act like kids." she said.

Deputy London Police Cheif Ian Peer says every year is a challenge because a fresh batch of students come into the residences.

"We're starting at square one with many people to educate them - the first year students, and trying to get them to understand that they can be sort of a student here but yet a responsible citizen that can live co-operatively with everybody."

Officials at Fanshawe College are doing what they can to assist police. Spokesperson Leanne Perrault says they're trying to get a good line of communication between the students, the college and the neighbours.

"With newsletters, and some door-to-door visits, and through-out orientation, there's a focus throughout part of the orientation providing useful information to the 7,000 plus first-year students who will be here."

London Police will be frequenting not only the areas surrounding Fanshawe College but also Western and the downtown bars.

[SlickFranky]

'They light fires' ??? I went to a lot of rowdy keggers in my day, but I don't remember fires being typical. I do remember some beer bottles being thrown though.

[manny_santos]

'They light fires' ??? I went to a lot of rowdy keggers in my day, but I don't remember fires being typical. I do remember some beer bottles being thrown though.

In recent years there have been several student fires in the Fleming Drive area. One such fire was set on a couch that was dragged out onto the street, and was caught on tape by an A-Channel news crew.

[ldoto]

At last, a hero's role for the much-maligned starling.

The dark speckled bird that some deride as a pest is one of a dozen species to get star billing in a new, $9.2-million bird wind tunnel and laboratory at the University of Western Ontario -- the only one of its kind in the world.

And in the process, the various birds at the Advanced Facility for Avian Research may provide clues to understanding aerodynamics, climate change, human obesity, language development and brain growth.

A unique aspect of the facility is that the wind tunnel can give a close-up look at birds in flight -- at temperatures, air pressure, wind speeds and humidity levels simulating conditions during migrations at altitudes as high as 7,000 metres.

"It's one-of-a-kind in the planet. You will find a facility like this nowhere else in the world except London, Ont.," said Ted Hewitt, vice-president research at UWO.

Scott MacDougall-Shackleton, head of the facility, said studying birds is important partly because they live in diverse environments, have the capability of learning language -- much like humans -- and are sentinels of ecological change.

"We need to be able to understand birds' physiology if we're going to protect them," he said.

And in the process, we just may learn to understand and protect ourselves better.

The facility includes ecologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, molecular geneticists and engineers.

Its showpiece, the wind tunnel, will help researchers delve into the aerodynamics, physics and biology of flight.

The birds are being trained to fly from their enclosures into the wind tunnel, which can reach speeds of as high as 15 metres per second and can be adjusted to simulate environmental conditions birds encounter while migrating. "It's like swimming in an endless-lap pool," MacDougall-Shackleton said.

"How can they fly (at altitude)? It's a very high-performance exercise and yet they're doing this with very low oxygen."

Starlings are ideally suited for the job because they're "incredibly bright," are easily trained to fly into a wind tunnel and have a wide range of vocalizations, he said.

The wind tunnel will also help show researchers how birds use their large stores of fat as energy during the long distances of migration. That may provide clues to reducing obesity in humans.

Researcher Roi Gurka of the engineering faculty and a specialist in fluid mechanics, is looking forward to setting up specialized cameras that can help decipher how a bird uses its energy. "How can they eat so little and still fly so efficiently? That's one of the most important puzzling questions that exist," he said.

And MacDougall-Shackleton said the research may help find answers to questions no one has yet thought to ask about bird behaviour and neurology.

[ldoto]

Province injects $2.5 million into college's equipment

The Ontario government is giving Fanshawe College $2.5-million for new equipment and upgrades to its facilities.

The money will be used to pay for state-of-the-art machines such as an X-ray unit, cardiac monitor, FM broadcast transmitter and welding machines — to better train students on each industry’s latest technologies.

The move is part of the McGuinty government’s long-term plan to invest in post-secondary education, London Fanshawe MPP Khalil Ramal said today.

“We cannot maintain our economic prosperity without keeping pace with the rapid speed of technology,” Ramal said.

The investment is part of the province’s ReNew Ontario Infrastructure program.

[sparky212]

Elbow room costly hurdle
FANSHAWE COLLEGE: Finding money for downtown London expansion may be a problem

By HANK DANISZEWSKI, THE LONDON FREE PRESS


"There is a very real and pressing need," said Rundle, pointing out Fanshawe has run out of room at its main London campus because of soaring enrolment.

But Rundle said the major challenge will be finding the money for the $30-million to $50-million project and that could mean tapping into the city's $55-million economic development war chest as well as provincial and private funding.

"The moment we have that lined up we will leap into action," he said.

Rundle said Fanshawe's satellite campus in Citi Centre is crammed with staff running community employment services and faculty and students from the theatre arts programs He said the college would like to offer complementary programs in costume design and technical theatre skills. It would also like to move the culinary arts program into a facility with a new kitchen. Other arts and media-related programs could be added in the future.

But he said there's no room to expand in Citi Centre because the employment programs alone could take up the whole space.

"In five years time when the lease expires we will be up against it. We want to be somewhere else where we can grow," he said.

Rundle said the campus could be part of a downtown arts district and could be in a new or renovated building.

He said the programs could share stage facilities with the Grand Theatre and offer training in downtown restaurants.

"This whole package is better located in the heart of the city," he said.

Rundle noted George Brown community college has a theatre arts program in Toronto's historic distillery district and the University of Waterloo runs a downtown pharmacy program.

Janette MacDonald, manager of Downtown London, said a Fanshawe campus would be a valuable addition to the city core and there are a number of suitable properties available.

"Any successful downtown we have seen has an educational presence," she said.

MacDonald said a downtown campus would be a catalyst for further development, much like the John Labatt Centre.

She said students would be more likely to live in the core and spend money at the many new bars, restaurants and retailers that cater to younger customers.

"It gives us residents, customers and feet on the street. We want downtown London to be densely populated with the creative class," she said.

Hank Daniszewski is a Free Press reporter.


This is gonna be sweet. Not to mention awsome for down town

[ldoto]

This would be great for the downtown core!!!!!:cheers: :cheers: :cheers:

[manny_santos]

Anybody catch The Agenda on TVO tonight? The program was live from UWO and talked about London's future.

Very interesting stats - only 5% of Western graduates remain in London after graduating, while that number is 85% for Fanshawe College grads.

I have posted here before that a ton of Western grads that I have known leave London after graduating - but even I'm stunned at this number. And yet when I think about it, most of the Western students I knew during my career there had no connection to London. Many of them didn't give two sh*ts about London, the only things they visited off campus were off-campus housing after first year, grocery stores and Masonville Place, and the bars on Richmond Row.

Amit Chakma was in the panel on the program, and unfortunately I found him to be rather indifferent to Western's role in helping London's future as well as Western's reputation as a "party school". Host Steve Paikin asked Chakma a question about Western's role in keeping its talent in London, and he deflected to talk about Western students being prepared to work all over the world. That's all well and good (and I'll be the first to say I have aspirations to work in another country), but he didn't answer the question. He didn't seem at all concerned about the 5% statistic. When the "party school" issue was brought up, Chakma claimed it was part of Western's past and pointed to their high admission average. While Western doesn't have some of the problems Fanshawe has had in the past few years, as a recent graduate I can say it is still very much a party school.

Perhaps most interesting was the comment from the teacher in the panel - she said that in all the cities across Canada and the United States she has worked in over the years, London was the most difficult to get skilled employment in, because while in other places it's about what skills you have, in London it's about who you know. I haven't applied for jobs in other cities yet but that is definitely true of London.

[SlickFranky]

Those numbers are interesting, but not all that surprising.

First thing I would look into is where the students are coming from for both schools. UWO draws from across Canada, but mostly from Ontario, and most of that from GTA. Fanshawe (anecdotally) draws from a much more local pool. There are some programs that pull from all over, but it's mostly SW Ontario students, for whom London is already the regional center.

The easiest way to improve this would be to better integrate co-op into UWO programs. London's job market is very much 'who you know', so getting students 'known' to local employers and vice versa would make a massive difference. Co-op also edges away from the party school image, and is hugely beneficial to students.

[manny_santos]

Co-op is definitely something Western should be setting up, as Waterloo and some others have done. One of the student senators I know has told me he wants to see this happen for Western and he has talked about lobbying for this if he gets into the USC for next year.

As for where Western students are coming from, I don't have exact numbers, but the anecdotal numbers I've seen indicate 40% GTA, 10% international, and 15-20% London, with a good chunk of the remainder being from other parts of SW Ontario and also other parts of Canada (the current USC President hails from Nova Scotia). TVO's program seemed to indicate that a lot of the graduates who do stay in London are ones who come from smaller communities in Southwestern Ontario.

[SlickFranky]

Those %'s sound about right...I got the same impression when I went there. From my friends and acquaintances there the students from other provinces/countries all went back home, GTA almost all went back to GTA, and the Chatham/Exeter/St Thomas/etc (locals) were much more likely to stick around.

[manny_santos]

Those %'s sound about right...I got the same impression when I went there. From my friends and acquaintances there the students from other provinces/countries all went back home, GTA almost all went back to GTA, and the Chatham/Exeter/St Thomas/etc (locals) were much more likely to stick around.

Every single student from the GTA I've known at Western has gone straight back to Toronto after graduating, unless they're pursuing further post-secondary education.

[MolsonExport]

Those %'s sound about right...I got the same impression when I went there. From my friends and acquaintances there the students from other provinces/countries all went back home, GTA almost all went back to GTA, and the Chatham/Exeter/St Thomas/etc (locals) were much more likely to stick around.

As a Prof at UWO, this corroborates my own impressions.

[van Hemessen]

Sometimes the purpose of a school is not to bring skilled labor to the city, though. Princeton grads don't stay in Princeton, Cornell grads don't stay in Ithaca, Yale grads don't stay in New Haven, etc...

The fact is that the administrators of UWO have differing perspectives from local residents regarding what the purpose of the school should be.

Also, I completely agree that getting a job in London has nothing to do with what skills you have but purely who you know. That's discouraging to the type of skilled labor the city is trying to attract. The fact is most of the wealth in London is held in the hands of some very established (read: Old North) families and it's there to stay.

[ldoto]

TECHNOLOGY: Paid over the next three years, the federal government funding will cover 122 projects

By DEBORA VAN BRENK, THE LONDON FREE PRESS

Last Updated: 9th February 2010, 8:55am

New technology is under development to build molecules that work in much the same way as a non-stick frying pan, but with precise application to higher tech instruments, said researcher Paul Ragogna who heads the project.

"Oil and water don't mix, and this (surface) doesn't mix with either," he said.

The technology could be used as a micro-thin coating that eliminates corrosion on instruments ordinarily too sensitive for outdoor use, such as some low-energy light sources or next-generation solar cells.

Ragogna said he hopes the technology, with industry partners, could become market-ready in five to seven years.

"Ultimately we would like to be able to manufacture these things on a large scale," he said.

His team's work is just one of 122 university research projects that will receive $53.5 million in funding during the next three years, Gary Goodyear, minister of state for science and technology, announced at Western on Monday.

The NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council) program of strategic project grants offers funding to academic research that has industry partnerships and commercial potential.

Also at UWO, researchers will benefit from a grant to do full-scale testing of wood frame failures in severe windstorms -- one further step in building homes that are safer and more durable in extreme weather.

Combined, the two Western projects will receive $310,000 from the funding program.

Goodyear said strategic areas targeted for the grants include information technology, health, security and renewable energy. The grants, Goodyear said, can build a diverse and strong Canadian economy with "real-world research."

Collectively, the projects will help "make us a country of leading-edge innovators," Goodyear said

[ldoto]

Board of Control Considers Downtown College Campus Plan

The City is teaming up with Fanshawe College to turn empty and under-used buildings in the downtown core into works of art.

Board of Control will debate the proposed plan tomorrow to convert heritage buildings near the corner of Richmond and Dundas into a new campus for the College's applied and performance arts programs.

The 10 year program would cost $10-million dollars in city subsidies and would be the last major investment aimed at revitalizing the downtown core.

Fanshawe will be announcing details of the plan soon, including how they plan to buy and renovate several 'hertiage type buildings' in the area to create a 'district concept' campus for about a thousand students.

Officials from the College say they have no room to expand at the main campus on Oxford, so they need to look elsewhere.

Their threatre arts program is already downtown but their lease at the CitiPlaza is up in 5 years and they want to expand even more.

For their part, the City hopes to turn the proposed downtown campus into a tourist destination and use the space on nights and weekends for youth-focused arts competitions.

To help pay for renovating the older buildings -- which costs more than building new ones -- City staff could recommend a grant of $100 a square foot, but Fanshawe still needs funding from the Ministry of Colleges and Universities and the Federal government.

This would be City Hall's last in a long list of initiatives centred in the core which started in 1995 and included building the John Labatt Centre.
__________________

[ldoto]

POINT OF VIEW

By PAUL BERTON, THE LONDON FREE PRESS

Last Updated: 10th February 2010, 9:34am

A Fanshawe College vision for a downtown campus in London should excite everyone but the core's fiercest critics.

And city hall can pat itself on the back for helping make the dream a possibility.

Indeed, it's hard to imagine this even being proposed without the considerable investment downtown over the last decade by the taxpayer and some progressive policies instituted by city hall.

The result: a snowball effect of investment, both public and private, in downtown London, and a new future for the core.

It wouldn't have happened without the construction of important public buildings such as the Central Library, Covent Garden Market and the John Labatt Centre. And with private investment in commercial renovations and the construction of apartments and condominiums, more people are deciding they want to live downtown.

It's true downtown critics still abound. They don't appreciate that most of the city's best restaurants and entertainment venues are downtown. That most of the summer festivals are downtown. That a large part of the city's workforce is downtown. That most of the unique retailers and most of the city's heritage architecture is downtown. That much of the interesting housing options are downtown. They prefer to focus on such things as traffic, the perceived parking challenges, the unique mix of people on the sidewalks, the empty stores . . .

The reality may have changed downtown in the past decade, but the criticisms and the perceived challenges have not. Nor is it ever likely to.

But for those who can see beyond the rust and peeling paint, who are unimpressed with the temporary shine of disposable suburbia, we are in the midst of a remarkable few decades in London's core. Fanshawe's plan to establish a downtown education and arts district in and around the heritage buildings of Dundas and Richmond streets is more proof of that.

If it happens over the next decade, it could mean more performing arts venues, more retailers, more restaurants and more housing. It could mean a true renaissance that even the core's fiercest critics would have to concede (although that's unlikely). We don't know exactly what lies ahead, but it cannot be a bad thing.

Fanshawe and city hall should congratulate themselves. The rest of us should take a bow.

[manny_santos]

I sure hope they take over the old CIBC building at Dundas and Richmond. That has become a real eyesore since it was abandoned.

[van Hemessen]

I always thought that old CIBC building would be a perfect spot for a Chapters.