[St. John's] Memorial University of Newfoundland

[Horsell]

I heard part of an interview on CBC radio this morning about the new Science building, it sounds like it will be an impressive structure. One interesting aspect however is that it will not have any parking underneath it for a number of reasons such as high water table, effect of research equipment and of course cost.

MUN has identified other areas where they feel they can make up for the displaced parking. It is somewhat ironic that a building of that size does not require a single parking space where it is but if it were downtown they would probably have to provide hundreds of spaces. I don't agree with DT parking regulations.

They hope to have shovels in the ground next spring on this fabulous $250 Million building. Long overdue. Let’s get ‘er done!

[rthomasd]

There's some space on the west side of Westerland Road. They could easily double the size of the Aquarena parking lot by taking the remainder of the old track, unused at the moment for 100 spaces.

Typical for MUN though, is that they'll wait till they tear up lot 16 to start planning for replacements for the lost 400 parking spaces. There was a plan for another parking structure behind the Aquarena, you'd think they'd be building that NOW, or adding another floor or two to the parking garage.

Is MUN working with the City on the parking and traffic nightmare this construction will cause for 3-4 years? How about linking University Avenue with the Aquarena / Lamb's Lane, take some pressure off Westerland Road ??

[delesseps]

Originally Posted by rthomasd

There's some space on the west side of Westerland Road. They could easily double the size of the Aquarena parking lot by taking the remainder of the old track, unused at the moment for 100 spaces.

Typical for MUN though, is that they'll wait till they tear up lot 16 to start planning for replacements for the lost 400 parking spaces. There was a plan for another parking structure behind the Aquarena, you'd think they'd be building that NOW, or adding another floor or two to the parking garage.

Is MUN working with the City on the parking and traffic nightmare this construction will cause for 3-4 years? How about linking University Avenue with the Aquarena / Lamb's Lane, take some pressure off Westerland Road ??

I worked on a study of Westerland Road as part of the final project for my B.Eng. It's a nightmarish street because of the heavy vehicle traffic and the number of people crossing the street on foot. MUN is indeed considering building a new parking garage between Prince Philip Drive and the Aquarena, which would create even more pedestrian traffic across Westerland Road. Restricting through traffic on Westerland Road was the only scenario I could come up with that would significantly improve pedestrian safety on that part of campus, but the knock-on effects would require additional work on roads west of MUN, and a major attitude shift in favour of active and public transportation at the expense of driving.

Of course, the parking "problem" at MUN is mostly a misunderstanding. MUN has had an apparent parking shortage for years, but this hasn't stopped enrolment from increasing. Motor vehicle traffic obeys Parkinson's law: assuming an unmet demand for parking, the number of people who actually do park will continually increase to match the number of spaces available. Conversely, a shortage of parking forces people to choose other methods of transportation, which appears to have been happening at MUN.

Building parking isn't a cost-effective use of MUN's resources. An absurdly long service life had to be assumed for the new parking garage to get a positive return on investment, and every space on campus costs MUN hundreds of dollars a year to maintain, due mainly to the expense of snowclearing and ice control. Parking revenue doesn't come close to meeting those costs, since most staff are guaranteed parking spaces with permit fees limited by their collective agreements. Building on-campus housing or subsidizing public transit through a U-pass would provide a much better return, and are likely to be the only options available in the future. Freshwater Road and Elizabeth Avenue are already congested for short periods of time during rush hour. Building more parking would increase the number of drivers using the streets around MUN and worsen that congestion, and attempts to mitigate it by expanding road capacity would similarly be stymied by Parkinson's law.

[J_Murphy]

Originally Posted by delesseps

I worked on a study of Westerland Road as part of the final project for my B.Eng.

So did I. What year did you graduate?

[RWin]

Less than a week and she's off

Actually I'm pretty excited that my daughter has chosen MUN. The people they sent out here to promote it had her seriously thinking about it within minutes and decided within a week. Now it's about to become reality

[Stryker]

honestly I think mun should come to its senses and start diverting resources to secondary campuses.
Route 1 is pretty much an express route placing a school along it would be the perfect way.


It baffles me how all this government money is subsidizing cars for indebted students.

[delesseps]

Originally Posted by Stryker

honestly I think mun should come to its senses and start diverting resources to secondary campuses.

That's the sort of thinking that brought us the Marine Institute on Ridge Road in 1985. It's in a terrible location and has made a permanent hash of transit planning in the east end. I'm not sure how much space was available around the Parade Street campus before the Harvey Road fire of 1992, but there would have been room to expand had MI stayed there until after the fire. There was also ample room on the MUN campus at the time, which makes the terrible location all the more infuriating.

There's still space to expand the main campus at MUN. The university has been quietly buying up the houses on Clark Place, and demolishing St. John's College and Coughlan College would make room for large buildings that could be much better connected with the main campus. The main advantage of the single campus is that it creates a strong transit node within an already walkable neighbourhood. There aren't many of those in St. John's.

Originally Posted by J_Murphy

So did I. What year did you graduate?

I took the project course in 2014, but a partial course load in the last year of my degree means that I need two more technical electives to graduate. The Westerland Road study was part of a wider pedestrian safety review for St. John's. Due to the knock-on effects I mentioned above, our final recommendation for Westerland Road was literally putting a handle on the outside of an exterior door in the Field House so people could climb the stairs from Pedagogue's Close up to the existing overpass.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Originally Posted by Stryker

honestly I think mun should come to its senses and start diverting resources to secondary campuses.
Route 1 is pretty much an express route placing a school along it would be the perfect way.


It baffles me how all this government money is subsidizing cars for indebted students.

I think this is the opposite of what MUN should be doing. Honestly MI has worked because of it's self sufficiency, but otherwise it's been a bit of a poor decision to move it away from the main campus. Grenfell from what I hear from people who have gone there is an absolute nightmare and isn't doing too well being so cut off from the main campus. There's plenty of room for expansion currently at the main campus, it's already in a central location, and the University Centre is capable of becoming a major transportation hub within the city. Plus at this point, buildings and departments are sharing instrumentation among themselves, moving to a new campus would make this sort of collaboration impossible. MUN's 50 year plan which was released about 5 years ago outlines a very nice strategy for expansion using it's main campus, and it's both very well thought out and self sustainable.

I don't see how things could be improved at all by starting another campus on the highway, either near St. John's, or even worse, in the middle of no where. If anything, it'd make things worse.

Also I'm not sure what you mean by the last comment?? If you're implying that the current campus is car-oriented, how would building a campus near a highway with no public transit help this? Also remember that a huge majority of the cars on campus are driven by employees, not students. Moving the campus away from it's location now will only force students into buying cars if they're not able to walk to class from places like Churchill Park, Rabbittown, and other nearby student neighbourhoods.

[Trevor3]

Originally Posted by Marty_Mcfly

I think this is the opposite of what MUN should be doing. Honestly MI has worked because of it's self sufficiency, but otherwise it's been a bit of a poor decision to move it away from the main campus. Grenfell from what I hear from people who have gone there is an absolute nightmare and isn't doing too well being so cut off from the main campus. There's plenty of room for expansion currently at the main campus, it's already in a central location, and the University Centre is capable of becoming a major transportation hub within the city. Plus at this point, buildings and departments are sharing instrumentation among themselves, moving to a new campus would make this sort of collaboration impossible. MUN's 50 year plan which was released about 5 years ago outlines a very nice strategy for expansion using it's main campus, and it's both very well thought out and self sustainable.

I don't see how things could be improved at all by starting another campus on the highway, either near St. John's, or even worse, in the middle of no where. If anything, it'd make things worse.

Also I'm not sure what you mean by the last comment?? If you're implying that the current campus is car-oriented, how would building a campus near a highway with no public transit help this? Also remember that a huge majority of the cars on campus are driven by employees, not students. Moving the campus away from it's location now will only force students into buying cars if they're not able to walk to class from places like Churchill Park, Rabbittown, and other nearby student neighbourhoods.

This is the only thing I have to disagree with. Everybody I know that has gone to Grenfell, myself included, only has positive things to say about that school. Education-wise it passes the main campus in every aspect. Smaller classes, great faculty, admin staff that actually do their jobs, beautiful facility, and better developed programs. The killer is that it's in Corner Brook which nobody really likes. I took more away from 3 semesters at Grenfell than 3 years at MUN.

Pretty much everyone I've spoken to will say Grenfell over MUN, but St. John's over Corner Brook.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Originally Posted by Trevor3

This is the only thing I have to disagree with. Everybody I know that has gone to Grenfell, myself included, only has positive things to say about that school. Education-wise it passes the main campus in every aspect. Smaller classes, great faculty, admin staff that actually do their jobs, beautiful facility, and better developed programs. The killer is that it's in Corner Brook which nobody really likes. I took more away from 3 semesters at Grenfell than 3 years at MUN.

Pretty much everyone I've spoken to will say Grenfell over MUN, but St. John's over Corner Brook.

It must vary depending on the field of study. A lot of the sciences are hurting over that way, though Grenfell is often more often seen as a liberal/performing arts-lead campus.

At least the residence chalet are stunning. Spent a few nights in one, may have actually been better than some of the rental homes in the St. John's area

[Trevor3]

Originally Posted by Marty_Mcfly

It must vary depending on the field of study. A lot of the sciences are hurting over that way, though Grenfell is often more often seen as a liberal/performing arts-lead campus.

At least the residence chalet are stunning. Spent a few nights in one, may have actually been better than some of the rental homes in the St. John's area

That right there is Grenfell's biggest problem. They brand and market themselves as a liberal arts, fine arts, art of the arts school, and then turn around and invest all of their incoming money in science programs and totally neglect their "bread and butter" arts programs. Now whether that's Grenfell's call or Memorial's, I have no idea.

The Arts and Science Building extension is beautiful and the new residence is nice as well, but the extension is mostly geared towards better facilities for the science department. I suppose it makes sense if they aim to be a more general academic university but that has never been their mandate.

You should see some of the rental units in Corner Brook. I had a kitchen with no exterior wall behind the fridge.

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by Trevor3

That right there is Grenfell's biggest problem. They brand and market themselves as a liberal arts, fine arts, art of the arts school, and then turn around and invest all of their incoming money in science programs and totally neglect their "bread and butter" arts programs. Now whether that's Grenfell's call or Memorial's, I have no idea.

The Arts and Science Building extension is beautiful and the new residence is nice as well, but the extension is mostly geared towards better facilities for the science department. I suppose it makes sense if they aim to be a more general academic university but that has never been their mandate.

You should see some of the rental units in Corner Brook. I had a kitchen with no exterior wall behind the fridge.

The lack of sciences in grenfell is a disaster for the province.

honeslty I don't even know where to start for the whole thing.

Subsidized education benefits mostly st johns. Instead of lessening provincial imbalance its only exaggerated it.


The focus on liberal arts on the west coast, has cut our economic growth off at the neck.

It's one of those situations where the only logical answer is that this province is in a bigger mess than most people realize. And its not created by economic adversity etc etc, but simply people being unable to work towards very straightforward goals.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Originally Posted by Stryker

The lack of sciences in grenfell is a disaster for the province.

honeslty I don't even know where to start for the whole thing.

Subsidized education benefits mostly st johns. Instead of lessening provincial imbalance its only exaggerated it.


The focus on liberal arts on the west coast, has cut our economic growth off at the neck.

It's one of those situations where the only logical answer is that this province is in a bigger mess than most people realize. And its not created by economic adversity etc etc, but simply people being unable to work towards very straightforward goals.

There was some talk about Grenfell cutting ties with MUN and becoming it's own stand-alone university. I haven't heard anything about it in a while, I would imagine that the lack of endowments would make that difficult. If it were to achieve autonomy the face of the provincial education scene would change dramatically. Whether if would help or kill Grenfell is debatable, I'm not sure if I know the answer to that.

But yes, the sciences are a little underfunded, and it would be great to have two hard-hitting science campuses to go along with the strong arts both campuses have. They have very nice buildings over there to do science research, but no money to buy anything they need to actually do the research.

[Trevor3]

Originally Posted by Marty_Mcfly

There was some talk about Grenfell cutting ties with MUN and becoming it's own stand-alone university. I haven't heard anything about it in a while, I would imagine that the lack of endowments would make that difficult. If it were to achieve autonomy the face of the provincial education scene would change dramatically. Whether if would help or kill Grenfell is debatable, I'm not sure if I know the answer to that.

But yes, the sciences are a little underfunded, and it would be great to have two hard-hitting science campuses to go along with the strong arts both campuses have. They have very nice buildings over there to do science research, but no money to buy anything they need to actually do the research.

While Danny was premier there seemed to be a push to make Grenfell more autonomous. I was a student there in 2009 when they announced they were renaming the campus to reflect the future directive of the campus, which was to become fully autonomous at some future time. So it went from Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, which appeared to be affiliated with MUN only so far as its logo went, to Grenfell Campus - Memorial University, which greater reflects the campus' ties to MUN. How goal "A" resulted in outcome "8", I'll never understand.

This is the sort of nonsensical haphazardness with which Memorial does business that prevents Grenfell from growing.

[overboard]

Yeah, investing in other campuses doesn't mean giving St. john's another Marine Institute. It would be nice to see some activity outside the Avalon. Of course concentrating on Prince Phillip Drive makes financial sense, but there's more than that and transit in St. John's to consider.

Lately Memorial has been making more of an effort to engage the rest of the province. Their public engagement framework makes a big deal of its "special obligation" to all residents, and the fact that they actually brought consultations on the Battery facility to other communities might indicate that they're actually going to act on that. That would make it strange to cut ties with Grenfell, even in the future, but I guess there's no telling what could change or how they would arrange that.

[Engibeer]

Originally Posted by Trevor3

This is the only thing I have to disagree with. Everybody I know that has gone to Grenfell, myself included, only has positive things to say about that school. Education-wise it passes the main campus in every aspect. Smaller classes, great faculty, admin staff that actually do their jobs, beautiful facility, and better developed programs. The killer is that it's in Corner Brook which nobody really likes. I took more away from 3 semesters at Grenfell than 3 years at MUN.

Pretty much everyone I've spoken to will say Grenfell over MUN, but St. John's over Corner Brook.

Couldn't agree with you more. I did my first year of engineering at Grenfell back in 2008 and although the ENGR classes were sloppily put together (first time it was being done out there), the remainder of my math and science courses were top notch. Looking back at it now, that's probably the most learning I accomplished throughout the academic portion of my degree.

Again, it's too bad the school is so geared towards 'Arts' and is in such a small town/city. Corner Brook is a beautiful place, it's just a little boring for a 18-20 y/o.

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by Engibeer

Couldn't agree with you more. I did my first year of engineering at Grenfell back in 2008 and although the ENGR classes were sloppily put together (first time it was being done out there), the remainder of my math and science courses were top notch. Looking back at it now, that's probably the most learning I accomplished throughout the academic portion of my degree.

Again, it's too bad the school is so geared towards 'Arts' and is in such a small town/city. Corner Brook is a beautiful place, it's just a little boring for a 18-20 y/o.

I agree. Look at the ridge road marine institute campus.

Lots of applied programs, not even automatically degrees.

This is the direction grenfell should of went in.

The university does nothing to build the economy of the region.

The whole point of it being an arts schools gives off the vibe it'd rather ignore the economic realities altogether.

For a system that takes in so much government money, I have to question how they are suppose to give back.

Being caught between overreaching hand of mun, and the lack industrial potential on the west coast.

It's really frustrating to see the amount of subsidies going to mun, and the way it only increases the inbalance between st johns and the rest of the island.

[statbass]

Source: www.mun.ca
Date: Nov 17, 2014

A new report that quantifies the significant, substantial and sustainable economic impacts of Memorial University within Newfoundland and Labrador was released Nov. 14 by Memorial’s Collaborative Applied Research in Economics (CARE) initiative.
According to Dr. Wade Locke and Prof. Scott Lynch of Memorial University’s Department of Economics, and two of the principal investigators with CARE, the current prosperity of the province has been enabled, enhanced and facilitated by the activities of Memorial University, which in turn benefits from the strong economy.
The report, which was commissioned by Memorial’s Office of Public Engagement, includes an assessment of Memorial’s impact on employment levels, provincial gross domestic product (GDP), inter-firm sales and on municipal, provincial and federal government revenues. The report also quantifies the impact of a more educated populace on the provincial economy.
“Determining the economic impact of Memorial on the province of Newfoundland and Labrador is a complex and multi-faceted exercise,” said Dr. Locke. “Aside from considering employment, GDP and tax revenue impacts, we also looked at the various components of the study by geographic region to illustrate the impact of the campuses independently.”
According to the report, more than $1 billion of the province’s annual GDP, or 3.1 per cent of the total provincial GDP in 2012, can be attributed to the university.
...

http://today.mun.ca/news.php?id=9264

[statbass]

Also posted in the SJ Economic thread (this is probably the correct spot for it though).

VOCM News
Dec 5, 2014
Author: Mike Lockman

Memorial University is celebrating the opening of a $6.8-million Research and Development facility. The expansion will enable an increase in focused R&D performed in this province. VOCM's Mike Lockman has more.

One obstacle in Memorial's Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science up to this point has been lack of dedicated research space. This 1,320 square meter expansion to MUN's Engineering Building makes that a thing of the past. The $6.8-million facility was funded by the RDC and Suncor Energy and will employ 100 full time equivalent researchers. It is estimated the expansion will help grow the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science R&D by six to eight million dollars per year over the next five years.

http://www.vocm.com/newsarticle.asp?...51220&latest=1

[J_Murphy]

Infrastructure renewal remains Memorial University's top priority, according to President and Vice Chancellor Gary Kachanoski.

He says more than half of the university's 103 buildings are over 40 years old, but a multi-year infrastructure plan has been approved to update MUN's resources. This includes a new 425,000 sq. ft. Core Sciences Building, for which the university has allocated $200-million. Kachanoski says construction should begin this spring, and if things go according to plan, it will be operational by late 2019 or 2020.

Kachanoski also confirmed that plans to build a law school are still in place, but those plans are still in the early stages.

He says a committee is working to develop specifics: what courses might be offered, costs of programming, operations, and infrastructure. He says it's "at the proposal stage."

http://www.vocm.com/newsarticle.asp?...52488&latest=1

Surprised to learn that MUN has 103 buildings! Glad to hear the new science building is scheduled to start soon.