Originally Posted by finklej

there are no humanities specific building, the arts quad is shared with Soc Sci, and the vast majority Hamilton Hall is Math.
Also, the Arts Quad hasnt been updated in decades.
The Liberal Arts (Humanities and Soc Sci) are consistantly undermind and discounted by the Univeristy.

It's my understanding that each individual building is managed by individual faculties. For example, BSB is run by the Faculty of Science, and all renovations/construction that ever happens there is managed and funded through the Faculty, rather than the University as a whole.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if Humanities or Social Science wants new or improved facilities, they need to manage it themselves. Perhaps you could speak to the Dean(s) to see if there's any plans in the works?

ya, we need the simple things like classrooms that arnt falling apart and tentured profs that arnt worried about whether they will have a job next year

the funding has to come from the university, and if they dont feel like the upgrades are a priority then they wont allocate funding to them

Originally Posted by finklej

the funding has to come from the university, and if they dont feel like the upgrades are a priority then they wont allocate funding to them

Regardless, if resources for humanities students are that bad, then you should probably speak to the Dean. I don't know what you've included in your year plan but advocating for improved facilities for Humanities students could be a project for your caucus.

Originally Posted by finklej

the funding has to come from the university, and if they dont feel like the upgrades are a priority then they wont allocate funding to them

Well the Engineering classrooms in JHE were pretty crappy too, no better or worse than the classrooms in the arts quad. And engineers tend to have classes scattered all over campus, so we have to share rooms with science, math, humanities and soci sci students. Also, correct me if I'm wrong but we have many more students (esp. first years) than any other faculty, so it makes sense that they would have to expand and make new buildings.

And at least your classrooms don't smell like dirty, sweaty, unshowered engineers.

Originally Posted by finklej

the funding has to come from the university, and if they dont feel like the upgrades are a priority then they wont allocate funding to them

Also, if you want help, I'd be willing to help if I can as a member of the UA Committee

Originally Posted by Geek

Also, correct me if I'm wrong but we have many more students (esp. first years) than any other faculty, so it makes sense that they would have to expand and make new buildings.

No, you're way off here. Eng is not even close to the largest faculty. We have more first years in science than you do in your entire faculty.

It is one of the top issues for the Humanities SRA this year

and I would love you help in this and I will bring it to UA for sure.
Thanks Ben!

Originally Posted by tauntobr

No, you're way off here. Eng is not even close to the largest faculty. We have more first years in science than you do in your entire faculty.

Oops. Just Eng propaganda, perhaps.

Joe, humanities IS getting a building and got mad funding last year.

Red Wilson gave $5 million to Mac to build up the history program, and part of that is going to go into a new building to replace Wentworth House. The timeline for that hasn't been set, but it is happening.

If anything, Social Science students are getting screwed these days.

Also, that isn't a new engineering building per se. It's being built to accomodate for the BTech program which started last year with Mohawk. Within 2 years that program will be 1200 people full and they needed a place to have classes and labs and such. Right now they do a lot of stuff at Mohawk.

But at the same point in time... we do have an Arts Quad with three buildings that are majorly used for Soc Sci/Humanities.

The construction of a new Liberal Arts building was approved by the Senate this past year. The building is inspired by MDCL and will have state of the art everything as well as lots of much needed space for the two arts faculties.

There has been expansion of the Humanities and Social Science faculties with new Chair positions being established as well as Centers (Chinese Language, and Canadian History)

Obviously there are issues that need to be addressed but you can't say that Humanities and Social Science are being completely shafted.

I am in the process of confirming that we are getting a new building, and not being shipped off to Burlington. I will keep you updated.

Callen, where could I find the info on the Senate approving the new building?

Okay wait... let me reiterate on those comments. There are some factual errors.

Red Wilson gave $10 million for a new liberal arts building that is supposed to be getting built after Wentworth House is torn down in summer 2010, but that might not happen on schedule.

Red Wilson then also donated $2.5 million to fund Mac's history program. A million of that will go into the creation of the Wilson Centre for Canadian History which I assume will mean that some part of the new building will be dedicated exclusively to an expanded Canadian history program.

..and this whole time Red Wilson is neglecting Mac Econ: the program he is alumni of... booooooooooo!