Western celebrated the opening of the new Ronald D. Schmeichel Building for Entrepreneurship and Innovation on Friday. The 100,000-square-foot building houses Canada’s largest maker space, available to students, staff, faculty, and alumni interested in inventing and sharing innovative ideas.
The building features collaborative learning spaces, breakout rooms, classrooms, and meeting rooms. It consolidates all of Western’s signature entrepreneurship programs under one roof, including incubators, accelerator programs, and networks. “It’s a collision space where Western students, faculty, staff, and alumni from any background or discipline can launch new products, develop new ideas, create solutions, and improve lives,” said Western President Alan Shepard.
The first-floor maker space features traditional shop hand tools and metal and woodworking machinery. The second-floor maker space boasts sewing machines, 3D printers, and water, laser, and vinyl cutters.
opening the Schmeichel building at Western
Both areas will be student-led. The building is also Western’s first net-zero energy building, prioritizing sustainability with features like geothermal energy, triple-glazed windows, high R-value insulation, demand-controlled ventilation, and integrated mechanical, electrical, and architectural systems. However, the opening was not without controversy.
Striking CUPE 2361 members protested right outside the building’s front doors, making their presence felt with horns, bells, and whistles. CUPE 2361 Vice-President Chris Yates refuted recent claims made by the university’s president about the state of collective bargaining negotiations. “Alan Shepard’s been on the news the last few days, saying falsehoods.
He’s been saying that they’ve been in constant communication with the union. That communication has been them sending letters, outlining their deal, details of the contract to our members, trying to circumvent the negotiating team, trying to break the union, trying to divide us is what they’re trying to do,” Yates said. Despite the protests, the opening ceremonies continued as planned, marking a new chapter in Western’s commitment to fostering entrepreneurship and innovation on campus.
- WesternGazette.”Entrepreneurship building opens as union rallies”.
- WesternU.”Western celebrates opening of Ronald D. Schmeichel Building for Entrepreneurship and Innovation”.
- CTVNews.”New Schmeichel Building for Entrepreneurship and Innovation opens its doors on Western’s campus”.