|
Great Northern Way Campus Ltd (GNWC) is a private limited company and educational enterprise located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is the offspring of a consortium of four local academic institutions (the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, Emily Carr University of Art and Design and the British Columbia Institute of Technology, each of whom own a 25% interest in the company) that has attracted significant public and private funding. The company is the trustee of the Great Northern Way Campus Trust, whose stated purpose is to create "a centre of convergence for arts and culture, digital media and the environment."〔("Our Vision." GNWC Website ) 〕 At present, it manages a Master's degree in Digital Media, which admitted its first students in the Fall of 2007. The GNWC Trust has two principal activities: operating the Centre for Digital Media, which offers the Masters of Digital Media graduate degree, and revitalizing its land parcel to bring together business, academia and the general community into an emerging district for the digital and creative sectors. Eight projects, which include both new construction and renovations of existing buildings, are underway and several businesses in the digital media sector currently rent space on the campus.〔("Our Vision." GNWC Website ) 〕 == History == In 2001, the industrial distributor Finning International donated of former industrial land in the False Creek flats area of Vancouver to the GNWC Trust formed by the four academic partner institutions, though Finning retained a 20% interest in the site. No public money was spent, and the declared aim was "to cover the costs of future educational programs and buildings at the False Creek flats with revenues generated by private sector development."〔Doug Ward, "Finning Donates Land for High-Tech Campus: Four institutions of higher learning get six city blocks east of False Creek." ''The Vancouver Sun'' (Nov 17, 2001): E1 / FRONT〕 Beyond the tax write-off advantages, Finning also hoped that a further four-acre site that it kept for itself would now "be easier to market because of the university component." In the words of Bob Laurie, Finning's real estate consultant: "We're not philanthropists. We're looking at creating shareholder value and that's what I think we've done today."〔 By way of a trust deed, dated September 15, 2002, management and development of the property was delegated by the four partner institutions to a limited company to act as their trustee, Great Northern Way Campus Ltd. A Shareholder's Agreement governs the Trustee and stipulates that one representative of each shareholder will sit on the Trustee's Board, along with up to eight other directors, to guide the Trustee's activities. The board chair is Morgan Sturdy, "a high tech entrepreneur" and director of Discovery Parks Inc. The company's president is Matthew Carter, who "has an extensive background in real estate finance and development." In 2006 the Province gave $40 million as an endowment fund to establish the Centre for Digital Media. The Government's objective with this funding was to build Vancouver's prominence as a digital media hub. Among other things, this included launching a Masters of Digital Media (MDM) graduate degree program that would be operated by the Trustee and issue a degree credentialed by all four partners. The Trustee has outsourced operational management of the MDM program to SFU under a Management Services Agreement. As of 2012, GNWC President Matthew Carter claimed that its academic program would break even financially (previously it had been running a deficit in the order of $388,000 per year〔http://bog2.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2011/11/4.3c-FIN-BG-2011.12_GNW-Campus.pdf〕), and the debt incurred from the site acquisition would be repaid.〔(Studios set to power up Vancouver's digital prospects, Vancouver Sun PDF )〕 In January 2013, British Columbia premier Christy Clark announced the province's intention to fund a $130 million relocation of the Emily Carr University of Art and Design to the GNWC property. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Great Northern Way Campus」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|