Burnaby Residence Expansion
The board approved a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the Residence Master Plan so that the university could engage a private or public partner to finance the project. This follows a recent Request for Information (RFI), which had the university gauging “interest in the market” for proposed residence expansion.
Board member June Francis expressed concern over how this plan might “dovetail” the university’s strategies around distance education in the future. Said Francis, “A physical geographic expansion [is] predicated on an assumption that students will continue to physically be present on the campus in the numbers we predict.”
The Associate Vice President of Students, Tim Rahilly, responded to these concerns: “I think we can assume that the university has a mix of programs, has had a history of some distance education [. . .] Of course, our enrollment plan, our recruiting, and retention strategies would all be aligned with what we’re doing with building a physical environment. And with this five-phase approach, we would be doing a demand analysis at each stage. We wouldn’t go out and suddenly build 1,800 residence beds.”
The motion for the RFP passed unanimously.
