Future of the Map Library

In the name of growth, expansion and efficiency, big change has a way of finding big solutions.

The Faculty of Environment is growing. The growing pains are hoped to ease by the construction of a 3rd building (EV3). But in the shuffling it appears that perhaps the Map Library might have to seek exile in the Dana Porter Library.

In one way, this is a rational choice of centralizing library activities and utilizing productive space (i.e. less space for students and basic research within the Faculty, replaced with activities by the Centre for Teaching Excellence and the Centre of Knowledge Integration). Researchers are not losing access to the resources, as the move will merely get rid of its users enjoying the amenities within the Faculty.

Questions arises

• Is this good for students?
• Is this good for the overall Faculty Character?
• Is this an attack on the theoretical idealized mixed-use within one building?
• As the Faculty is growing bigger, is its ‘heart’ maintaining a healthy beat?

Responding to Growth

Responding to Growth at student, faculty, university, neighbourhood, city, regional, national or international levels – be it institutions, malls, apartment buildings, height and density targets, population moves or natural resource extractions – is a choice, at least until it affects you directly. Planners have a tendency to be interested in planning-related decisions, and planner’s engagement has more than once been argued to be what is needed to bring about an educated, engaged and productive community.

This, our friends, is a chance to form an opinion and have a say, because planners of tomorrow will not be the ones to only plan and not engage themselves. You may as well start getting involved now, sooner rather than later. Likely, doing good planning requires the ability to personally and communally foster energy and motivation to nourish a life of active engagement. This is indeed the stand the AGP takes, as we increasingly feel committed to involve ourselves and our organization in planning matters internationally (Haiti), nationally (CIP’s Planning for the Future, and the Conservative’s scrapping of the Long Form), and locally (relocating the Map Library).

So, what do you think? Let us know by posting comments or sending emails…

Thank you for the generosity

Like so many others who attended a most enjoyable Charity Ball arranged by the Association of Graduate Planners (AGP) and the Environmental Graduate Student Association (EGSA) at Tyrone Restaurant and Ultralounge Uptown Waterloo March 10^th, 2010, I received a ‘thank you’ letter from Habitat for Humanity the other day.

The disastrous January 12 earthquake in Haiti displaced or made homeless an estimated 1.2 million people. Our Charity Ball raised $2,970 in support of Habitat for Humanity’s continued efforts in the rebuilding of Haiti.

Charity Ball organizing involves students organizing, delegating responsibility and collaborating to set out a vision, securing the venue, marketing, scheduling the itinerary, ticket sales, inquiring and collecting donations and hosting at the night of.

Moreover, it requires a community of social interaction, individual passion and local supporting institutions and businesses – the easily underestimated power of generosity.

To all who participated: we wish to express a heartfelt “thank you”, and we hope arranging the Charity Ball will be a continued tradition for the AGP and the EGSA at the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Environment for years to come.

International Women’s Day 2010

The AGP congratulates all women on the International Women’s Day on March 8, 2010, which is also the 100th anniversary of this annual celebration.

Particularly relevant to Wednesday’s Charity Ball, we side with Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) and their expressed honoring of the lives of feminist Haitian leaders who died in the massive earthquake on January 12th, 2010.

We’re looking forward to see you all Wednesday (see picture) for some good times. Doors open at 6pm.

Charity Ball

March 10. Let’s get ready!

Looking forward to see you all there!!