Fanshawe College. X FM News file photo
Construction is now underway on Fanshawe’s Innovation Village Project. The $58 million project is estimated to take three years, with the initial construction phase lasting until September of next year.
Executive Director of the project, David Belford, says Innovation Village is an excellent opportunity for future students.
“It’s a very large project in the middle of campus. [It’s] going to allow us to: create spaces for modern learning for students, for places where students can interact with partners from the industry, where they can work together in teams, where they have some new facilities that reflect some of the things they’re teaching in class.”
Innovation Village will include a virtual reality space, maker spaces, and more group study spaces.
The project is slated to be completed in three phases.
Some of Fanshawe’s current services will be affected while construction is going on. Leap Junction has already been relocated, the library will have to move, and the homework lab located in room F-1000 has been closed.
🚧Construction update!🚧
F1000 (homework lab) and F1012 (student lounge) are closed as of Monday, January 27. Students should use the homework labs in B1049 and L2005 until the new lab opens in A2024 on Monday, February 3. pic.twitter.com/NtOSYIOOWz— Fanshawe College (@FanshaweCollege) January 24, 2020
Homework Lab (F-1000) has closed its doors.
photo: Tamara Thornton
Brody Lavoie, Senior Manager of Academic Technical Support Services says he sees the closure of the computer lab as the end of a legacy.
“F-1000 has been around for a long time… The good thing is, the brand-new lab, which is currently slated to open on Feb. 3rd, the student union through the Student Technology Fee has actually funded brand new equipment for the space.”
Lavoie says 68 new computers and three group study spaces will be available for students to use in the new lab. He adds that the old equipment will be sold.
“[The finance department] accumulate the equipment, they’ll clean the equipment, ensure that it’s ready to go out in working order, and then they’ll post information pertaining to when that sale will occur.”
Though Innovation Village won’t be completed until at least spring of 2023, Belford says current students also benefit from the project as it was a very collaborative process.
“There were lots of consultations, starting in fall of last year, we had student focus groups, we had employee focus groups [especially] the departments being effected by it. We’ve had lots of conversations with the student union…”
Anyone looking for more information about the project can attend an information session being held on Feb. 5th.
