{"id":6447,"date":"2014-04-30T13:38:25","date_gmt":"2014-04-30T17:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=6447"},"modified":"2014-05-07T17:09:03","modified_gmt":"2014-05-07T21:09:03","slug":"mayors-look-to-keep-university-hopes-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/mayors-look-to-keep-university-hopes-alive\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayors look to keep university hopes alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

York University rejected Aurora and Newmarket\u2019s pitch for a new university campus straddling the two municipalities last week.<\/p>\n

But, the two proponents of the plan, Aurora Mayor Geoffrey Dawe and Newmarket Mayor Tony Van Bynen, are not ready to let the plan go to waste just yet. <\/p>\n

Discussions continue between the two mayors on just where to go from here after York University announced they were proceeding into May with a shortlist consisting of bids from the City of Markham, the Town of Richmond Hill and the City of Vaughan. <\/p>\n

Aurora previously courted a satellite campus of the University of Windsor over the past two years into the early weeks of 2014, but those plans fell through. The time might be here, said Mayor Dawe, to look for other suitors. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are actually going to get together next week to discuss that,\u201d says Mayor Dawe on meeting with his Newmarket counterpart to discuss other options. \u201cWe are going to have some initial discussions next week to see whether that would make sense to pursue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould I change anything that we did [with this bid]? No, I don\u2019t think so. I think we not only answered York\u2019s criteria, but the province\u2019s criteria and one of those criteria was underserved areas and I think that certainly describes where we are. Obviously York didn\u2019t feel that way and that is their decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proximity to the urban dynamic was an \u201cobvious point\u201d in favour of the three more southerly municipal bids, he added, noting there was \u201cno question about that\u201d when the whole process started. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnother Provincial criterion was what this would do in terms of the future economic impacts and certainly our position was that it would have a substantial impact on this area. That kind of driver would be far more impactful in this area than it would farther south. It is the same dollars but going into a much larger economy down south.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement released on Friday, just after York made its decision known, the Mayors expressed disappointment but wished the three other municipalities well as they moved forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to thank York University and Seneca College for providing the opportunity to host a post-secondary campus in Aurora and Newmarket,\u201d said Mayor Dawe. \u201cWhile I am disappointed that our innovative bid will not be considered during the next round of evaluations, I remain encouraged at the prospect of a university in York Region. I am hopeful that whichever option is considered supports our goal and the Government of Ontario\u2019s goal of providing educational opportunities to underserviced communities, such as those in northern York Region, Simcoe County and Durham Region.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Mayor Van Bynen: \u201cWhile we will not be moving forward to the next round of evaluations, this opportunity has demonstrated our community\u2019s firm resolve to work together to provide post-secondary education opportunities to the most underserviced area in Ontario.\u201d <\/p>\n

York University was expected to release a shortlist of two bids on Friday. When they made their wishes known, however, they expanded this to a list of three. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe heard such remarkable presentations from these three municipalities who went far above and beyond to showcase their capabilities and commitment that we decided to expand our list,\u201d said York University President Mamdouh Shoukri in a statement. \u201cWe believe that any one of these three candidate municipalities would be excellent partners in this major undertaking. York University is deeply honoured that so many municipalities in York Region are interested in working with us. All participating have demonstrated a strong commitment to postsecondary education, and full support from their local councils and communities.\u201d <\/p>\n

Added Seneca College President David Agnew: \u201cEvery potential partner in York Region made an excellent case for an expanded postsecondary presence. We are delighted to be working in a strong partnership with York University to expand access to today\u2019s and tomorrow\u2019s students.\u201d<\/p>\n

The University noted they believe Markham, Richmond Hill and Vaughan \u201cstood out\u201d with well-developed transportation infrastructure that could bring in students from across the GTA, as well as their \u201cvibrant urban centres.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

York University rejected Aurora and Newmarket\u2019s pitch for a new university campus straddling the two municipalities last week.<\/p>\n

But, the two proponents of the plan, Aurora Mayor Geoffrey Dawe and Newmarket Mayor Tony Van Bynen, are not ready to let the plan go to waste just yet. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-1FZ","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-01 12:43:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6447\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}