SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Yellowknife's Aurora College campus at Northern United Place is getting cramped and the college wants a stand-alone facility in the capital city.

"We realize that the facilities they are now using are full," said John McKee, chair of the Aurora College Board of Governors.

Jane Arychuk, Aurora College's director of the Yellowknife campus, said she would like more space for the school. She said the college has close to 220 full-time students and almost twice as many part-time students, many of them taking classes at Northern United Place. - Herb Mathisen/NNSL photo

"We're still providing all the programs that are slated for the Yellowknife campus, but it is not the most suitable place."

The college takes up three floors in the downtown building, and uses parts of the adjacent apartment building for student residences.

"In Fort Smith we have a proper campus and in Inuvik we have a proper campus, too," McKee said.

An October 2005 report on educational facilities in Yellowknife found the campus in Northern United Place – along with the Tallah building on Franklin Avenue – only had "57 per cent of required space for current programs."

It concluded that "Aurora College is bursting at the seams and is in need of more space if they are to accommodate current programs and students."

The document contained four suggestions to ease the overcrowding problem.

Two options suggested the present site continue to be used, with the other two proposing to build a stand-alone campus: one option was the old Akaitcho Hall site, and the other was a site on Taylor Road, near William McDonald school.

With a required space of 5,500 square metres – with an estimated price of $3,000 per square metre – the report estimated the cost of a new facility at around $16.5 million, with a need for increased affordable housing.

The college currently has 2,395 square metres of space.

"We'll we make do with what we have," said Jane Arychuk, Yellowknife's campus director, who added the issue hasn't affected programs.

Arychuk said discussions on a stand-alone facility in Yellowknife have been on the radar for some time – even before she began with the college three years ago.

When the lease on the present facility was renewed in 2007 – set to expire in 2012 – the college did not get any new space.

Arychuk said the Yk campus has close to 220 full-time students throughout the year, with probably double that studying part-time. The Yk campus is the territory's health and social work education centre.

"It would be nice to give us our own identity because there are a lot of people that do know where our college is or just consider it part of the Northern United Place," she said.

McKee said the board has passed on comments to the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, which owns all the college's assets.

"We don't go into any details at all. All we state is we see that we need more space," he said.

He said any new infrastructure would have to be approved in the government's capital plan.

"It's up to the minister and the GNWT to make any final decisions on any infrastructure that is built for the college."

"We are continuing to work with Aurora College to develop infrastructure plans in Yellowknife and across the Northwest Territories," said department's spokesperson Shawn McCann, June 10.