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Brenden

10-19-2010, 12:55 PM

Wilfrid Laurier University
75 University Avenue West, Waterloo
www.wlu.ca (http://www.wlu.ca/)
Read the Latest News Stories (http://www.wlu.ca/news_listing.php?grp_id=28)
About Laurier (http://www.wlu.ca/page.php?grp_id=28&p=186)

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http://imgur.com/VAPmg.png
Laurier100.ca (http://www.laurier100.ca/)

Brenden

10-19-2010, 12:56 PM

Wilfrid Laurier University - 100th Anniversary

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Article from today's Record

Laurier celebrates its past, looks to wider focus in future (http://news.therecord.com/News/Local/article/796067)
October 19, 2010 | Greg Mercer, Record staff

As Wilfrid Laurier University begins celebrations for its first hundred years, its president is preparing for a second century that will be increasingly less focused on Waterloo.

WLU, a school that started in a farmhouse here in 1911 as a training ground for Lutheran pastors, is at a crossroads in its remarkable story. It has a Waterloo campus bursting at the seams, a Kitchener-based social work program, a growing campus in Brantford, and hopes for another in Milton.

At a kickoff party Monday to highlight a coming year of 100th anniversary celebrations, president Max Blouw said WLU’s identity will be redefined in the coming years as less and less geographically based.

“Waterloo has been its historical starting point, so it has naturally had a place of prevalence,” he said, in an interview. “But as the university continues to grow, can it remain a Waterloo-centric institution? I’m not sure that it can.”

And it will continue to grow past 17,000 students — it must — he said, to pay for its expanding ambitions. That includes a master plan that will dramatically rebuild the Waterloo campus to deal with overcrowding, a new business school across the street and plans to keep expanding a Brantford campus that now has 2,600 students.

“The university is changing more profoundly than at any previous time in its history,” he told the crowd, describing WLU as a “multi-campus community in the process of defining itself.”

To celebrate its first century, WLU has launched a website ( www.laurier100.ca) and has plenty of things planned. Among them are plans to erect a statue of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the school’s namesake.

There will be 100 new scholarships for student leaders, a program that encourages students and staff to give 100 volunteer hours to their community, and a celebration of WLU’s top 100 alumni.

There’s also a lecture series, a play, concerts, conferences and even a limited edition beer made by a Cambridge’s Grand River Brewing. The university has commissioned a historian to write a book about its first 100 years, too.

That will tell the story of a school that officially opened on Oct. 30, 1911, as a Lutheran seminary — the same month that Laurier, the man on the Canadian $5 bill, was voted out of the prime minister’s office and replaced by Robert Borden.

At the time, church officials had also considered Kitchener and Toronto as sites for the school, but the citizens of Waterloo won the bidding by offering an old Victorian farmhouse and some surrounding land on what was then the far edge of town. The church was also drawn to the region’s large German — and Lutheran — population.

News reports of the day said some 2,000 people came out to celebrate the seminary’s opening ceremonies. Classes began the next day — with four students and one professor. Tuition was set at $30.

In those days, rules were strict. The all-male school (until 1929) forbid smoking, moustaches, walking on the grass and girls. Students had to wear their college caps every day except for Sunday.

Within a few years, the school began teaching non-religious classes, and by 1925 it had established Waterloo College, offering arts degrees through an affiliation with the University of Western Ontario.

But by 1973, Waterloo Lutheran University, as it was then called, was growing at such a rate the church could no longer finance it. The Lutherans’ Eastern Canada Synod voted to turn the school into a provincially funded university, relinquishing control in exchange for about $4.5 million.

It was renamed Wilfrid Laurier University.

WLU’s festivities for the anniversary will lead up to a gala opera concert on the 100th anniversary date, Oct. 30, 2011.

The university has already unveiled massive 100th-anniversary banners across campus, and plans more public displays reminding people that it is a celebratory year.

Those banners were the first sign you can expect WLU to be a little more boastful of its accomplishments than it has traditionally been, said Jan Basso, who sits on the anniversary steering committee.

“We won’t be quite as quiet about ourselves as we have been in the past,” she said.

Duke-of-Waterloo

01-31-2011, 10:20 PM

Laurier is reviewing its visual identity, and is looking for your input!
Waterloo, ON | February 1, 2011 | Link (http://www.wlu.ca/news_update.php?grp_id=0&nws_id=7368&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter)

Visual Identity Project Webpage: www.wlu.ca/vir

Wilfrid Laurier University is conducting a visual identity review, which means examining the university’s graphic elements such as the crest and wordmark.

Building on the work already done during the Envisioning Laurier and Academic Planning processes, the review will answer two questions: should we update or change the university’s visual identity, and if so, how can we update the visual identity in a cohesive way that reflects our strengths, values and traditions?

The university engaged design firm Scott Thornley + Company (STC) in 2010 after a comprehensive RFP process. STC’s client list includes Columbia University, University College London, the Fields Institute, the National Arts Centre, the Royal Conservatory, the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, and the Trudeau Foundation, to name just a few.

STC has come to know Laurier quite well in recent months. They conducted focus groups with Laurier’s Centennial Steering Committee and did extensive secondary research before developing the LAURIER100 logo. And they’ve since designed the centennial banners, website and advertisements that are beginning to appear in national publications.

Now, STC is consulting with students, faculty, staff, alumni and others prior to developing the Creative Brief that will answer the questions noted above and guide their design work.

Focus group style sessions designed to help STC capture the stories and spirit of the university will be held on February 10 in Waterloo, February 15 in Brantford and February 17 in Toronto (for alumni). Click here (http://www.wlu.ca/page.php?grp_id=12543&p=18011) to register for a session. Please note that space is limited and sessions will be filled on a first-come, first-serve basis.

If you can’t make it to an input session, you can still share your thoughts via an online forum or on Laurier’s official Facebook page. The forum will feature the same questions being asked in the face-to-face sessions. Check www.wlu.ca/vir or visit www.facebook.com/LaurierNow beginning February 10 to leave your comments!

Spokes

02-09-2011, 07:08 AM

WLU hosts mobile communications workshop
February 9, 2011 | John Thompson, Wonderful Waterloo Staff

For three days next week, Wilfrid Laurier University will host scholars from across the globe as they host a workshop on mobile and wireless communication.

The workshop, titled “Materialities and Imaginaries of the Mobile Internet: Networks, Dwellings, Mobilities and Assemblages,” will take place February 11 to 13 at the Communitech Hub in Kitchener.

“Since the turn of the 21st century, the Internet has gone from wired to wireless, creating a ubiquitous mobile connectivity that has dramatically transformed everyday life,” said Andrew Herman, event organizer and chair of Laurier’s Communication Studies department.

According to research company Gartner Inc., smartphone sales will pass sales of personal computers by 2012. This study concludes that it will mean mobile devices could become the primary means for the public to access the internet.

Noted attendees include: Gerald Goggin, University of Sydney, Australia; Tiziana Terranova, University of Naples, Italy; Canada Research Chair Darin Barney, McGill University; Rich Ling, Telenor, Norway; American author and programmer Alexander Gallsoway, New York University and Catherine Middleton, Ryerson University.

To run the event, WLU has partnered up with Canadian Digital Media Network and Communitech. The event is one of the university’s first joint ventures with Communitech’s Hub since it opened in October 2010.

Every presentation and seminar is free and open to the public. For a complete schedule of events, visit www.materialities.ca.

bzmwillemsen

02-15-2011, 12:56 PM

UrbanWaterloo

04-29-2011, 02:38 PM

Laurier discontinues varsity volleyball program to address growing demand for recreational and intramural activities and to keep other teams competitive
April 29, 2011 | WLU | Link (http://www.wlu.ca/news_detail.php?grp_id=0&nws_id=7810)

After a thorough review of its athletics and recreation programs, Wilfrid Laurier University has decided to discontinue its men’s and women’s varsity volleyball teams to address the growing student demand for recreational and intramural sports activities and to help keep other varsity sports competitive.

The decision affects 30 student athletes. The university will maintain the students’ sports-related scholarships in the coming fall semester to help them continue their education at Laurier; if an athlete plays on another Laurier varsity team, the university will maintain the full scholarship commitment. The university will also provide assistance to those student athletes who seek to transition to another sport or pursue their volleyball aspirations elsewhere.

“This was a very difficult decision,” said Peter Baxter, director of Athletics & Recreation at Laurier. “Our volleyball players and their coaches are dedicated to their sport. However, faced with ongoing budget challenges and a growing demand for recreational and intramural activities, we have made a decision that we believe will strengthen our remaining varsity teams and allow a greater number of students to participate at the recreational and intramural level.”

The decision will free up approximately $112,000 annually and provide more gym time and space for recreation and intramural activities. It will also help support the transfer of up to 12 recreational/sport clubs that the WLU Student Union previously sanctioned and regulated. The Department of Athletics and Recreation will revamp their sport model in the coming months to include a club sport/recreation structure.

Universities across Canada, including Laurier, have faced significant budget challenges in recent years. Laurier has also experienced growth in student enrolment and a corresponding increase in demand for recreational and intramural activities and related facility space. In the past 10 years, the number of intramural teams at Laurier has increased more than 155 per cent and waiting lists continue to grow. The number of individuals participating in instructional sports and exercise is up 159 per cent.

In recent years, Laurier’s Athletics & Recreation department has sought to increase revenue and decrease costs in a variety of ways, including increases to the participation fee paid by student athletes and the introduction of a self-funded “pay to play” model for eight varsity sports. However, it was determined that ongoing across-the-board budget restrictions for all teams would only weaken the university’s ability to field competitive teams at the provincial and national levels.

In light of all these factors, the university undertook a detailed review of its varsity and recreation programs and budgets. All varsity teams were evaluated on a wide range of criteria. It was determined that the men’s and women’s volleyball teams, which have struggled to be competitive over the past five years, would require a doubling of financial resources to make the Laurier teams competitive with the top OUA volleyball universities. This, coupled with the overall program evaluation, led to the decision to discontinue varsity volleyball at Laurier.

“Everything goes back to our Athletics & Recreation vision statement, which commits us to strive for excellence in both our varsity and recreational programming,” said Baxter. “If we cannot support a specific program financially to the level of excellence needed to compete at the provincial and national levels, then we must discontinue that program and use the resources to strengthen areas of need.”

UrbanWaterloo

06-24-2011, 11:28 AM

Laurier President and Vice-Chancellor Max Blouw appointed for second term
Jun 24, 2011 | WLU | Link (http://www.wlu.ca/news_detail.php?grp_id=0&nws_id=8024)

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The Board of Governors of Wilfrid Laurier University has appointed Dr. Max Blouw to a second five-year term as president and vice-chancellor of the university. His current term began Sept. 1, 2007 and runs until Aug. 31, 2012; his second term will run from Sept. 1, 2012 to Aug. 31, 2017.

“Max Blouw has provided true vision and an exceptional level of strategic leadership during an important period in the university’s history,” said John Ormston, chair of the Board of Governors. “As Laurier celebrates its centennial, we are pleased and fortunate that Dr. Blouw will remain as president and vice-chancellor for another term to lead the university forward into its next century.”

Blouw joined Wilfrid Laurier University as president and vice-chancellor on Sept. 1, 2007 after a distinguished career in research and administration at the University of Northern British Columbia, and in teaching and research at St. Francis Xavier University.

A biologist with a keen interest in research, Blouw is active in national and provincial academic affairs. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada and its Standing Advisory Committee on University Research. He is also on the Executive Committee of the Council of Ontario Universities and serves as co-chair of the College-University Consortium Council. Blouw is a past member of the Executive Council of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and he served two terms as chair of the University Advisory Group to Industry Canada.

Since joining Laurier, Blouw has championed a number of strategic initiatives aimed at assessing the university’s values and strengths and establishing a vision to guide its future development. These initiatives include Envisioning Laurier, a new Academic Plan, the President’s Task Force on Multi-Campus Governance, and campus master plans for Laurier’s Waterloo and Brantford campuses.

During his first term, the university also added important new buildings to its Brantford campus, including the Research and Academic Centre. The university also announced plans to build the Global Innovation Exchange on the Waterloo campus — a state-of-the-art education facility that recently received Ontario government funding of $72.6 million, the largest single capital investment in the university’s history.

“Laurier has an extremely bright future ahead of it, thanks in large part to its vibrant sense of community and the many talented faculty, staff and students who work so hard to make this university one of the best in Canada,” Blouw said. “It is a privilege to serve as president and vice-chancellor, and I welcome the opportunity to help the Laurier community move forward into its second century.”

Brenden

03-22-2012, 03:50 PM

According to a tweet from The Cord (https://twitter.com/#!/cordnews/status/182913256577445888), Laurier has bought $58.9 million worth of apartment buildings on Ezra Ave. Bricker Av and Hickory St.
Edit: Here is the News Release (http://www.wlu.ca/news_detail.php?grp_id=0&nws_id=9263#.T2uBJhZ8Yex.twitter)

WATERLOO – Wilfrid Laurier University has purchased 12 student-housing apartment buildings adjacent to its Waterloo campus.

The acquisition, valued at $58.9 million, closed today, Thursday, March 22.

Nine of the properties are recently constructed four- and five-floor buildings and three are renovated multi-tenant houses. Together, they have a combined capacity to house approximately 785 students. Eleven of the buildings are located on the south side of Laurier’s Waterloo campus: 10 on Ezra Street and one on Bricker Avenue. The 12th building is located on Hickory Street West, adjacent to Laurier’s Northdale building on the north side of the campus.

The acquisition will provide the university with strategic property assets in the rapidly developing neighbourhoods adjacent to the campus, and a stream of rental income.

“This acquisition makes sense for the university from a long-term planning and revenue perspective,” said Jim Butler, Laurier’s vice-president: finance and administration. “Development around our Waterloo campus is happening so fast that we must act now to provide the university with some control over how these strategic areas develop in future.”

The university has engaged a private property manager to administer the apartment buildings as off-campus housing.

UrbanWaterloo

03-22-2012, 03:56 PM

Laurier acquires apartment buildings adjacent to Waterloo campus
Mar 22, 2012 | WLU | Link (http://www.wlu.ca/news_detail.php?grp_id=0&nws_id=9263)

Wilfrid Laurier University has purchased 12 student-housing apartment buildings adjacent to its Waterloo campus.

The acquisition, valued at $58.9 million, closed today, Thursday, March 22.

Nine of the properties are recently constructed four- and five-floor buildings and three are renovated multi-tenant houses. Together, they have a combined capacity to house approximately 785 students. Eleven of the buildings are located on the south side of Laurier’s Waterloo campus: 10 on Ezra Street and one on Bricker Avenue. The 12th building is located on Hickory Street West, adjacent to Laurier’s Northdale building on the north side of the campus.

The acquisition will provide the university with strategic property assets in the rapidly developing neighbourhoods adjacent to the campus, and a stream of rental income.

“This acquisition makes sense for the university from a long-term planning and revenue perspective,” said Jim Butler, Laurier’s vice-president: finance and administration. “Development around our Waterloo campus is happening so fast that we must act now to provide the university with some control over how these strategic areas develop in future.”

The university has engaged a private property manager to administer the apartment buildings as off-campus housing.

.....

More Links

Read Benjamin Bach's Blog Post on this transaction here (http://www.benjaminbach.com/real-estate-investment/wlu-drops-60-mil-on-student-housing-investment-portfolio-in-waterloo/).

Brenden

03-22-2012, 04:14 PM

Do you think these buildings will say student housing?

benjaminbach

03-22-2012, 05:47 PM

Do you think these buildings will say student housing?

Yes

benjaminbach

03-23-2012, 06:27 AM

From The Record: http://www.therecord.com/news/local/article/692124--laurier-buys-up-59m-buildings

WATERLOO — Wilfrid Laurier University has become a student landlord with a $58.9-million purchase of 12 apartment buildings adjacent to its main campus.
“It’s an important piece of property, and it’s a significant size,” said Jim Butler, vice-president of finance and administration.
The deal, which closed on Thursday, includes 10 properties on Ezra Street and one on Bricker Avenue, south of Laurier’s Waterloo campus. It also includes one on Hickory Street West in the Northdale area, north of the campus and beside the former Northdale Public School, which the university already owns.
“We’re landlocked, and there’s a lot of development taking place and prices are increasing rapidly in our environs,” Butler said. “Sometimes we have no choice . . . but to acquire some properties.”
Nine of the properties are recently built and three are renovated multi-tenant houses. In total, the buildings can house about 785 people, the university said, and the vast majority of the tenants are students. There are presently no vacancies.
Butler said the university plans to maintain the buildings as rental housing for the foreseeable future, barring any unforeseen contingencies. He wouldn’t speculate on what the university might use the properties for down the road.
“We’ve borrowed money to acquire them and we’re kind of relying on that rate of return,” he said. He said he expects the rental income to cover the cost of borrowing while generating a “small surplus.
“It pays for itself and gives us a long-term interest in the property.”
But some are questioning the timing of the deal, given that Laurier and the University of Waterloo both successfully encouraged the city to impose a temporary freeze on development in the Northdale area earlier this month.
“They ask for a development freeze on what is essentially direct competition to the assets they just bought,” said Benjamin Bach, a commercial real estate agent with Keller Williams Golden Triangle Realty.
The deal — which Bach said will represent one of the largest commercial real estate transactions in the region this year — was facilitated by Coldwell Banker Peter Benninger Realty. Bach said the parcel — all from a single owner — had been on the market for at least six months, and that Laurier paid very close to the asking price.
Bach and others want to know if Laurier disclosed the purchase negotiations, assuming they were ongoing when the university advocated for the development freeze.
“It’s an incredible conflict of interest,” said student landlord Paul Ellingham. “Were they looking for a monopoly?” he asked. “Or at least they want no competition.”
Butler disagreed. “I don’t see the connection,” he said. “We’re not blocking competition.”
Butler said Laurier’s purchase represents only a small percentage of rental units in the area.
The development freeze, which could last at least one year, was put in place while a land use and community improvement study for Northdale is being undertaken. The bylaw exempts 17 developments already in the planning stages in the area.
The study aims to create a new vision for Northdale, away from the student housing developments that Laurier president Max Blouw warned earlier this month were turning the neighbourhood into a “student ghetto.”
But Bach argued Laurier’s new acquisitions south of campus fit the description of precisely the types of buildings Blouw and his University of Waterloo counterpart Feridun Hamdullahpur were campaigning against.
Butler said the purchase was part of Laurier’s “long-term land banking approach.”
He said the university plans to invest in upgrades for some of the properties. A private property manager has already been enlisted to manage the buildings.
“We’re going to provide high-quality housing,” Butler said.