The Sprott School of Business will have a new building to call home, after Carleton’s Board of Governors (BoG) approved the creation of a new $48-million building.
At an Oct. 5 meeting, the board announced the approval of the building, which will be called the Nicol Building. It will be located where Parking Lot 2 currently sits, near the University Centre and the Architecture Building, with development set to begin as soon as fall 2018.
Dale Craig, the chair of the BoG’s building committee, said at the meeting that Carleton needed more “flexible” teaching and learning spaces on campus and that Sprott is in particular need of the extra space.
“We could lose competitiveness in enrolment in the Faculty of Business if we are perceived as less attractive and non-competitive,” Craig said.
According to him, the 100,000-square-foot building will improve and create public assembly space, electronic and interactive classrooms, student resource rooms, office space, space for the entrepreneurial program, and a fifth floor for potential to expand the building in the future.
Linda Schweitzer, Sprott’s interim dean, said she has been working on the project for the last five years after Sprott was originally supposed to move to Richcraft Hall. She said a dedicated business building will attract more applicants and encourage more “interesting people” to apply.
“It doesn’t give us a lot more capacity than we have, it just gives us space we can call our own, more space for students, which is really important and increases the student experience,” Schweitzer said.
According to a press release, the building will be named after Wesley Nicol, a late Carleton alumnus and entrepreneur. The release also states that his family donated $10 million to Carleton in 2014, which led to plans for a building named in Nicol’s honour.
Jerry Tomberlin, Carleton’s interim provost and vice-president (academic), told the board that Sprott will use the space to its full extent. Tomberlin is also the former dean of the Sprott School of Business.
“[It] provides a gathering space that has been missing in the business school since its inception,” he said.
Erik Barr, a third-year accounting student, said the Nicol Building will increase the sense of community in his program. He said he hopes it aesthetically will be a combination of Richcraft Hall and the University Centre.
“If I’m studying in the library, I don’t know what program the person beside me is in. If I’m studying wherever this new building is, it’ll be like ‘what program are you in?’, and if they’re in accounting, I could help them or they could help me,” Barr said.
“Student experience and student outreach to the community, having a coherent face to the community, where the community knows where to find the business school and identify with us,” Schweitzer added on the importance of the business school having its own building. “We are one of the few [universities in Ontario] who don’t have their own building, so we kind of stick out in that way and we don’t want to stick out in that way.”
Barr said he dislikes Dunton Tower, which currently acts as the hub for business students.
“The elevators there are trash,” he said.
Hanna Di Virgilio, the president of the Sprott Business Students’ Society, said the new building will build upon Sprott’s “already-existing strong community.”
“We don’t really have a place to go. All of our classes are spread around campus and we don’t really have a communal area,” Di Virgilio said. “We have Sprott lounge but it’s extremely small. So the new Sprott building will really give us the opportunity to intertwine with faculty, different clubs and all the other students.”
According to the release, the Nicol Building is expected to be completed by 2020.
Graphic by Manoj Thayalan
