The university’s board will meet on Friday to discuss an action plan that calls for the university to completely abandon four of its buildings by 2030.
Tampereen the university plans to abandon its slag buildings. Students and staff oppose the plans.
At its meeting on Friday, the university’s board will discuss an action plan for the university’s premises. If the program were to materialize, the university would completely abandon four of the buildings it uses, including the Linna Library on the central campus.
An expert working group prepared 12 different options for which buildings the university could give up by 2030. The working group proposed the option of completely abandoning three of the downtown campus buildings and one of the Hervanta campus buildings. In addition, one building on the Hervanta campus and one on the Kauppi campus would be partially abandoned.
If the proposal were to materialize, the square footage of the central campus would be reduced to about 60 percent of the current one.
Tampereen Student Union Trey opposes the motion. The student union will hold a demonstration on Friday morning with the intention of appealing to the university board to return the action plan for the premises back to preparation.
According to Trey, the university community has not been sufficiently consulted in the preparation.
“The student union is not opposed to the abandonment of some of the university’s facilities at some point. It was intended that the facilities could be centralized when the universities merged. But the timetable by which the matter has come to be decided is approaching irresponsible, ”says the chairman of Treyn Iiris Taubert.
Taubert says plans for the scope and extent of space savings only became known to the university community last week when the agenda for Friday’s board meeting was released.
Trey was asked to comment on the OP, but the plans submitted to the Student Union were limited, according to Taubert, and the Student Union was not given access to the various options for the OP to abandon the premises.
Students and staff took part in the capture of the University of Tampere library building in the castle on Friday last week. The conquest of the university was a protest against the university’s space-saving plans.
Read more: A huge sea of books on its way to rubbish has been photographed in Tampere this week – Fear of closing the library was a false alarm, still
Principal Mari Walls The University of Tampere says that the space reduction target of the university’s campus development strategy is 25 percent by 2030.
The university is rented in premises owned by Suomen yliopistoistiinteistöt oy. According to Walls, the cost of premises is a growing item of expenditure that needs to be brought under control. According to him, learning and research environments also require development.
The university’s carbon footprint calculation last year revealed that a quarter of the university’s carbon footprint consists of its premises and the other quarter of research environments such as research laboratories.
“That’s why the facilities need to be viewed in a way that supports the university’s goal of carbon neutrality.”
According to Walls, facilities in their current form may not best meet the needs of the future. For example, there are too few facilities to support hybrid teaching, and campuses have large lecture halls that are not fully utilized.
“The Korona era has made visible different ways of working in the university community. We need to look at whether our facilities will best support research and teaching over the next decade. ”
Taubertin according to the proposal, the effects of the reductions on the university community have not been sufficiently taken into account.
“It seems scary that a decision is made first to give up a large part of the premises and only then to start thinking about where the functions of the premises should be located.”
Taubert estimates that in the worst case scenario, by the middle of the decade, about half of the campus facilities would be simultaneously under renovation, relocation, or already decommissioned. Detailed information on space arrangements over the next decade will not be on the board’s agenda, adding to the student union’s concern.
Tatte, an association of scientists at the University of Tampere, has also expressed concern about space savings. According to the association, the plan does not provide a credible or illustrative explanation for how space savings will be successfully implemented without negatively affecting the fluency and quality of study and academic work.
Read more: Who has power in Finland’s second largest university? The fierce controversy in Tampere flared up again
Professors’ Association The local department of the University of Tampere, like Trey, has suggested that the proposal be opened for extensive comment by the university community before the board makes a decision on the progress of spatial planning towards concrete implementation.
The enrollment of higher education institutions is being increased, and the enrollment rate at the University of Tampere has also increased in recent years. How will the growing year courses with students and university staff fit on campuses if their square footage is reduced?
“The prerequisite is that we will continue to work and study on campuses. But how facilities are being developed to support the needs we have identified here requires a broad vision from the university community. ”
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