THUNDER BAY – Lakehead University students will decide later this month on whether to go ahead with a new athletics building.
Students on the university’s Thunder Bay campus will be given the option to vote in an online referendum beginning on March 21, where they will be asked if they support a fee increase of $50 per semester – just under $100 for the full academic year – for the 30,000 square foot add-on the school’s existing athletics facilities.
Proposals for the plan include a new gymnasium with two courts, multi-purpose workout space and the potential for a food market and pharmacy.
Farhan Yousaf, the student union’s vice president of finance and operations, said the union’s leadership has decided to not take a position on the vote.
“The student union is strictly on the neutral side. We’re not either on the yes or the no side,” Yousaf said. “It’s entirely up to students.”
Undergraduate students in the 2017-2018 academic year paid a $70 athletic building fund, $113 student athletic society fee and a $30 CJ Sanders capital building improvement charge.
A study conducted by the university’s fourth-year tourism economics course in 2016 found there was backing at the time, with 45 per cent of the 720 respondents in that year’s winter semester expressing they either supported or strongly supported the new facility. Nearly 25 per cent were undecided.
The same survey also polled students on the threshold of a fee increase, with 54 per cent who identified as users of the athletic facilities supportive of a $70 hike and 42 per cent willing to pay a $90 more. That number continued to drop as the suggested cost went up, falling below 30 per cent who would be fine with paying $110.
The majority of identified past or non-users were against a $70 rise.
At least 20 per cent of the Thunder Bay student body – about 1,600 people – are required to vote to reach the union’s required quorum.
Last year’s referendum on the future of the UPass had 27 per cent voter turnout.
“I think it really comes down to what students want. If students are interested in it they’ll come out to vote. If not, then we’ll find out,” Yousaf said.
The voting period closes on March 28.
