Open letter from Cliff Neufeld, TRU’s Vice President Administration & Finance

You are invited to learn about, and take part in an exciting project to enhance campus life at TRU: the University Village Concept.

Attend an information session

• Wednesday, Nov. 23, 3:30pm, Irving K. Barber British Columbia Centre
• The same presentation will also be given at the regular meeting of Senate on Monday, Nov. 28, 4:30pm, Irving K. Barber British Columbia Centre

Goals of the University Village Concept

• Enhance campus life for students and add vibrancy to the campus which is increasingly a core part of the Kamloops community
• Generate revenue that can support university priorities such as student support and research

Backgrounder
For over 40 years our campus has been constantly growing and strategically evolving. We have become more than the sum of our buildings, green spaces and pathways; we have become a community, a place to learn, live and play.

This conversation has a long history, starting in January 1991 with our first long term Campus Development Plan. This plan guided both the physical expansion of the College Campus and the effective transition for Cariboo College from community college to university college. The 2002 McGill Corridor Plan and the 2003 Campus Plan built on the original Campus Development Plan provided strategic direction for the next transition from a university college to Thompson Rivers University.

The 2003 Campus Plan and the McGill Corridor Plan discussed the possibility of creating residential areas throughout our campus, namely—a University Village Concept. UBC, SFU, and the University of Guelph have developed such concepts to enhance their campuses.

The Campus Master Plans and the land use strategies have led to the developments in:

• 1991 a new centre of campus established which identified building sites for the Arts and Education Building, Campus Activity Centre, campus commons, International Building, the Residence and Conference Centre, and the new Brown Family House of Learning
• 1995 the reuse and repurposing of Old Main, including relocation of Trades
• 2003 the Westgate entrance and a bus transit hub
• 2007 Tournament Capital Centre
• 2009 University Road and the Hillside Drive connector
• 2011 the transformation of Old Main into the home for the new Faculty of Law

In 2010 the Budget Committee of Senate and Senate considered a University Village concept. Further investigations of the potential residential development on our lands continued in 2010 and 2011 included a review of case studies on UBC and SFU. Both UBC and SFU have undertaken property development on their lands starting years ago.

Many are familiar with UBC Endowment Lands or UniverCity at SFU. Each of these institutions established an entity separate from their Board of Governors to which they delegated limited responsibility for developing parcels of land identified by the Board of Governors and guided by University priorities.

During the public Board of Governors meeting in March 2011 an update of the progress on University Village was provided. The TRU Board of Governors will follow the model described above to develop our own University Village. In this model, the separate legal entity will be a corporate trust named “TRU Community Corporation” (TRUCC) and managed by a corporate trustee.

This will continue the planning, design and communication surrounding the ongoing process to develop our campus.

For this to succeed, it is critical that the TRU Community takes part in consultations on all aspects of the TRU University Village concept.

This is the first step in what will be a long ongoing process towards implementing a residential design project.

Sincerely,
Cliff Neufeld , Vice President Administration & Finance, Thompson Rivers University
Tel: 250-828-5011
email: cneufeld@tru.ca