TheBulletin.ca Journal of Downtown Toronto
By Dennis Hanagan –
The 8-storey George Brown campus will open in the fall of 2012.
Classrooms and the library at the new George Brown waterfront campus are going to look a lot different from what older generations would remember from their schooldays.
There’re won’t be neat rows of desks in the 25 classrooms at the $175 million eight-storey Centre for Health Sciences on Queen’s Quay in the East Bayfront neighbourhood. Rather, students will sit and collaborate in groups with the teacher in the room’s centre acting as a facilitator.
And the library and learning centres will be geared to computer learning rather than areas piled high with books.
“The library isn’t a storehouse for books as much as it is a place of collaborative learning. Our resource learning centres really focus on computer labs, on virtual learning, internet learning, online learning … web-based learning,” says Terry Comeau, executive director of waterfront campus development.
Terry Comeau, executive director of George Brown Waterfront Campus Development, looks over the eastern waterfront from the campus’s eighth floor.
“The various fields and disciplines are moving so fast that textbooks are trying to catch up with the learning process that’s going on,” she explains.
The focus now is on young high technology students who are comfortable learning and working anywhere, anytime. “So we’re looking at providing those kinds of environments that support learning in every square inch of this college,” says Comeau.
The benchmark in the education field is 70 per cent of learning happens outside of the physical classroom, says Comeau. So the library and learning centres “are actually where a lot of the real learning goes on.”
On Dec. 8 college officials led a small media tour of the building where the banging and clattering of construction continues before it’s ready to open for 3,500 full-time students and 450 continuous learning students in the fall of 2012.
The centre will house four schools for dental health, health and wellness, health services management, and nursing. It’ll also provide lower cost health services to the public, including dental checkups, fillings, teeth cleaning, hearing aid evaluation, cardiovascular and fitness assessments, and mobility and flexibility training.
Artist’s rendition of the campus interior looking east to Sherbourne Common.
Eugene Harrigan, vice-president of corporate services, describes George Brown as a community member. “We’re woven into the economic and cultural fabric of the city,” he says.
Just as Ryerson navigated its expansion to Yonge St., Harrigan says it was a “natural extension” for George Brown to head to the waterfront. The college has also acquired 100,000 square feet at the Toronto Sun building on King St.
“We continue to grow quite rapidly,” says Harrigan.
Lorie Shekter-Wolfson, assistant vice-president for the waterfront development, says the campus’s health care training will take into account Canada’s aging population, considering more people are living longer and with chronic illnesses such as diabetes.
She says the Downtown college’s proximity to Queen’s Park has allowed administrators to gain insight into future health care needs from “leading players … that helped to shape our agenda.”
The campus is among the first in Canada designed to foster “interprofessional” health care education, meaning students will work alongside peers in other disciplines to gain an understanding of each profession.
Says Comeau about the campus’s open design concept: “It’s a significant step forward for our evolution as a province in education.”
