Building maintenance urged as U of C grows
Stephan Guscott was in a 200seat lecture hall in the University of Calgary kinesiology building when a student sat down in the row in front of him and the back of the chair broke, tipping him backward.
“The chair was broken for the remainder of the semester,” recounted Guscott, who is the president of the U of C Students’ Union.
He said a backlog in needed repairs can have a major effect on students, whether it’s in the classroom or during extracurricular activities.
“It can give you a negative perception on the experience that you have at school,” he said.
While a broken chair is one example, the overall bill for deferred maintenance at the University of Calgary is $490 million, Postmedia reported Tuesday.
Guscott noted some of the buildings on campus have been around since the 1950s and 1960s, and are in dire need of upgrades. Given the backlog, he said it’s important for the institution to prioritize maintaining the older buildings on campus, while keeping up with the new facilities being developed.
But despite the number of aging buildings, it’s not a problem that can be addressed right away, he noted.
“If you’re a student who goes to class and if a chair breaks, it might be hard to put that in perspective with all the other buildings on campus and understand that this isn’t a problem that can be fixed right now,” he said.
University of Calgary president Elizabeth Cannon said the institution is always looking at the school’s deferred maintenance needs and talking to the government.
“They have increased a little bit our infrastructure maintenance program funds,” she said. “We prioritize those and projects of highest need, and we look at major capital investments in not only new buildings but in renovating existing buildings.”
Currently, the priority is the MacKimmie Library complex, Cannon said.
“We did get some funding from the government last year to look at detailed engineering and budgeting for that project, and we’re hopeful in the future that will be our next project funded by the government to again put a major dent in our deferred maintenance needs,” she said.
Advanced Education Minister Marlin Schmidt said this year’s budget included $101 million for capital maintenance and renewal of schools.
“Of course we recognize the significant amount of deferred maintenance that’s on the books at universities and colleges all across the province, and that’s part of what our plan to support higher education is, to begin to address the deferred maintenance deficit,” he said.
Cannon and Schmidt made the comments at the official opening of an expansion to the U of C’s engineering complex.
The project adds capacity for another 400 students and includes study spaces, research labs and an expanded student lounge.
Cannon said the old building didn’t serve the needs of students.
“It became very obvious very quickly that this school needed to be expanded in size, expanded in scope and particularly adapting to the new ways that students learn and collaborate, as well as the research and the research impact that the Schulich school is making here in Calgary and beyond,” she said.