University of Waterloo - Plans

Plans

The Faculty of Engineering is in the midst of a $150 million expansion between 2008 and 2012 in the form of three new Engineering buildings. Engineering 5, which opened in October 2010, houses a Student Design Centre that showcases the Waterloo Engineering student teams. Engineering 5 is also the new home for the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering and the Department of Systems Design Engineering. It also houses offices for several members of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Engineering 6 opened on 28 October 2011, and houses the Department of Chemical Engineering. Engineering 7 is still in the planning stage. The fluid mechanics lab in E3 has one of the biggest wind tunnel facilities in the region, where aerodynamics are tested for several purposes.

The university and the City of Kitchener are constructing a health sciences campus, including a School of Pharmacy, in the central Kitchener warehouse district. The project will cost $34 million for the first phase. The Honours co-operative Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy program began in January 2008. Preliminary operations, including staffed medical and optometry clinics, are based out of the former Victoria Public School in Kitchener's downtown.

The Kitchener site will also host a satellite campus of McMaster University's medical school, bringing 28 first-year medical students to Waterloo Region each year to study. They will remain until the end of the three-year McMaster program, and have the option of continuing as a resident in the area.

On 16 October 2006, university president David Johnston announced that the university has entered discussions with the City of Stratford and the Stratford Festival of Canada exploring the possibility of establishing a satellite campus in Stratford. On the same day, Stratford City Council unanimously endorsed a memorandum of understanding to continue exploration of the issue. This was clarified further on 26 March 2008, following a funding commitment in the previous day's provincial budget; the campus is to specialize in digital media and global business, and also has a funding commitment from Open Text corp. The University of Waterloo Stratford Campus together with the Canadian Digital Media Network hosted Canada 3.0, a digital media forum in Stratford that attracted 1,500 attendees. In February 2010 the campus opened its doors at 6 Wellington St., Stratford.

With donations by alumni and matching contributions from government, the university announced in April 2004 the founding of the Institute for Quantum Computing.

Construction began in September 2008 for the Quantum-Nano Centre, a massive building which will house the Institute for Quantum Computing as well as the new Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology. The building will be located in the centre of campus and its cost will exceed $100M. It is planned to be completed in the year 2012.

Though in preliminary discussion there also have been talks for the initiation of a law program.

The university is planning for its sixth decade (2007–2017) with an "ambitious plan". According to the plan's documentation, some objectives are benchmarked by the following targets:

• By 2017, at least 12 UW academic programs will be the best in North America
• By 2017, at least 12 out of 44 departments/schools will be ranked top 12 in North America
• By 2017, at least 20 UW departments/schools will be ranked top three in Canada
• Each department/school will participate in a doctoral program
• All departments/schools will be ranked top 25% in Canada

UW has opened, in partnership with the Higher Colleges of Technology, a satellite campus in Dubai; the UAE Dubai Men's College campus. During earlier media releases of the Dubai plans, the campus had come under scrutiny for its perceived lack of transparency in the planning stages, as well as issues regarding the labour used, as well as UAE laws restricting the conventional Canadian freedoms of female and homosexual members of staff. In particular, debate has come up in both the student Senate, the university's Board of Governors over possible violations of Policy 33, prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation.