Commerce students vote in Goodes Hall fee
Commerce students voted 72.5 per cent in favour of a $97.50 opt-outable fee to a proposed expansion of Goodes Hall as well as other renovation costs.
The referendum was held Wednesday and Thursday following a three-week campaign.
Commerce Society President Dave Waugh said ComSoc originally planned to implement a 10-year mandatory fee to raise funds for the project, but the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities told him that because Goodes is eligible for capital grants, it can’t be subsidized using a mandatory student fee.
ComSoc has pledged $1.2 million to the project and will levy the fee for as long as it takes to generate this amount.
“We as a society ed [the fee] and encouraged students to it. We wanted to it because it’s the right thing to do,” Waugh said.
“It’s certainly what we were hoping for.”
Of 1,147 eligible voters, 274 voted in favour of the fee and 104 voted against.
Voter turnout was 33 per cent.
—Lauren Miles and Erin Flegg
Queen’s buys land to develop technology park
Queen’s bought a 49-acre piece of land from research development company Novelis Inc. adjacent to the company’s research and development centre in Kingston this week.
The land is located at Princess and Concession streets.
The land cost $5.3 million, a portion of the $21-million grant Queen’s received from the Ontario government last spring.
The University plans to develop a technology park on the property.
Vice-Principal (Research) Kerry Rowe said the purpose of a technology park is to bring together students and faculty interested in research and industry.
Rowe said the technology park will provide students and faculty with a space to develop new research initiatives.
“They can collaborate on projects so that students can have an opportunity to work on practical projects,” he said.
“We can get interaction between different industries so we can get synergy and develop new ideas.”
He said Queen’s is very fortunate to have the opportunity to work with a large company like Novelis, one of Queen’s research partners.
“We hope to work with them on a number of projects that will provide opportunities for new ideas that will benefit Novelis, but also some ideas that they don’t want to pursue but could be pursued by other companies or the University.” Rowe said Kingston isn’t considered an industrial centre.
“This makes it difficult for some of the professors in areas that need to interact with industry,” he said.
“We’re trying to provide an environment that attracts high-tech companies that can benefit from interaction with the University.”
Rowe said the development of the technology park will have numerous funding benefits for the University and industry partners.
“It allows the professors to attract funding that they couldn’t always get from the federal and provincial government that you can only get if you can have an industry partner,” he said.
“This will allow them the opportunity that neither industry nor the University could get alone.”
—Jane Switzer
Homecoming working group still lacks concrete plan
A working group established in November to discuss town-gown issues still lacks a concrete makeup and mandate.
The Queen’s/City Shared Solutions working group will make its first presentation to city council April 15.
Since city council struck the new working group to address issues relating to student housing and Homecoming, it established a steering committee comprised of City Chief istrative Officer Glen Laubenstein, Vice-Principal (Academic) Patrick Deane, Vice-Principal (Operations and Finance) Andrew Simpson and AMS President Kingsley Chak.
The committee oversees four subcommittees dealing with issues surrounding Aberdeen Street, student housing issues, improving student-city relationship, and urban planning.
Each group’s responsible for setting its own meeting schedule.
It’s up to the chair of each committee to determine whether the meetings and the minutes are open to the public.
Deane said neither the hip, the groups, or the structure of the committees have been solidified.
“It’s not inconceivable that this arrangement evolve into something quite different down the road.” He said it’s possible a student could be added to the urban planning committee once the group’s mandate is more clearly defined.
“It’s quite possible that a solution in one may aid a solution in others,” he said.
“I would say that’s a significant change [from past initiatives]. It’s a parallel to the shift in the way Aberdeen has been dealt with over the past few years.”
—Erin Flegg
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