UNIVERSITY EMBARKS ON $42.4 MILLION FACILITIES RENEWAL PLAN TO ADDRESS ACADEMIC AND STUDENT LIFE NEEDS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Capital improvement strategy targets investments in facilities for students, faculty, arts and science, library, graduate programs, athletes

Thursday, June 21, 2007, Peterborough

A Facilities Renewal Plan approved at today’s Board of Governors meeting will ensure that the academic and student life facilities that Trent University students need will be in place as the University heads to its 50th anniversary in 2014.

The 2007-2014 Facilities Renewal and Development Strategy will see a $42.4 million investment in facilities over the next seven years, with a primary focus on enhancing the quality experience for Trent students and capitalizing on new provincial capital funding for the expansion of Graduate Studies. The integrated plan supports the overall mission of the University and responds to feedback provided by students, employees, alumni and donors in a consultation process to identify priority facility needs.

Mr. Reid Morden, chair of the Board of Governors, praised the Board-approved Facilities Renewal Plan for providing a framework to address the most pressing demands on Trent’s existing facilities.

He highlighted that the program will accelerate the University’s Master Plan to renew its 30-year-old Athletics Complex, in order to offer new and improved facilities for Trent students and members of the surrounding Peterborough communities. This expansion follows a significant investment by Trent students to support the recent installation of a new artificial turf surface field in 2005.

Under the Facilities Plan, the Symons campus will also see the construction of new social science and Teacher Education program space, new science space added to the DNA Building and major renovations to the Bata Library.

The plan also identifies the expansion of graduate studies programming at Traill College as a key priority. “The growth of Trent’s graduate programs will play a determining role in supporting the continued evolution of Traill as a primarily Graduate Studies college,” said Mr. Morden. It is anticipated that Trent’s graduate student enrolment will double from approximately 230 in 2007 to more than 500 by Trent’s 50th anniversary in 2014.

Symons Campus

Highlights of the plan include extensive construction and renovations at the Symons campus in Peterborough:

• Renovate and expand the Athletics Complex to include a new Sports Medicine Clinic, integrating the facility with the new Student Commons.
• Construct a new Student Commons building, identified in the consultations as a priority need for the campus, providing new student space and accommodations for a variety of student support services.
• Add a third module to house new science space in the existing DNA Building.
• Create additional academic space, 21,000 square feet for social science and Teacher Education programs.
• Renovate sections of the first and second floors of the Bata Library, relocate archive records, reorganize library stacks - repatriate space currently used for administrative departments for library services.
  

Traill College

As part of the approved Facilities Renewal Plan, the Board voted to retain and repurpose Traill College as a primarily graduate studies college. The date for the planned conversion from undergraduate, to a primarily graduate studies college, is set for September 2009. Under the plan the University will:

• Convert residences rooms in Wallis Hall and Scott House for use as offices for 100 graduate students and 14 new apartments, graduate student offices and faculty offices.
• Sell Langton Hall and Bradburn House.
• Complete renovations and improvements to Scott House and deferred maintenance issues at Traill.

Funding support for the Facilities Renewal program will come from three primary sources: provincial funding to cover the cost of the debt financing that will support the required capital expansion to accommodate a doubling of Trent’s Graduate Studies programs; a dedicated fundraising component of approximately $4 million for Athletics and Traill College; and debt financing.

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For more information contact:

Brittany Cadence, Communications Officer, (705) 748-1011, ext. 5371 or visit the Facilities Renewal website.