Re: UniverCity $

Hi Nicholas and all,

thank you for the replies.

About the trust being wound up: Their job was to sell leases to the SFU endowment land. At least that's how they saw it. All the leases have been sold so their work is done. Since the leases are in private hands, it is too late to discuss what else might have been done with the land. SFU kept possession of 10 apartments in the Verdant building so they can offer short-term rentals to new faculty and staff.

@Nic: If you are emailing the trust and not getting any information, I would ask the SFU faculty members on the board of governors to pursue getting a full report. It is part of the BOG oversight mandate to ensure transparency and accountability, especially when there is so much money involved.

I would like to take this chance to thank Holly Andersen for serving as SFU faculty rep on the UniverCity Trust board. Round of applause for Holly! 👏 She put a lot of time and energy into her work on the board. Of the 9 board members , 5 are from outside SFU (e.g. lawyers, real estate developers), and 2 are SFU Vice-Presidents who have never been faculty members at any university. So she was the board member who brought an academic perspective. Thank you Holly!

Regards,

Oliver

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Oliver Schulte E-mail: oschulte@cs.sfu.ca

Simon Fraser University Phone: (778) 782-3390

Professor Fax: (778) 782-3045

School of Computing Science Web: http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~oschulte

TASC 1 Building 9021 Work Schedule: see home page

Burnaby, B.C. V5A 1S6

Canada

On Sat, Sep 10, 2022 at 12:18 PM Nicholas Blomley <nicholas_blomley@sfu.ca> wrote:

Thanks for this. I hadn’t realized that the Trust is being wound up. This seems surprising.

From what I can determine, the Trust has generated several million $/year, that flows back to the University via the Endowment Fund (https://www.sfu.ca/research/community-trust-endowment-fund). This has supported research, scholarships, and other good things.

However, over and above questions of transparency and oversight, I do find it interesting that there seems to have been little - if any- recognition that this wealth has been derived from Indigenous lands.

On Sep 10, 2022, at 12:11 PM, H.K. Andersen <handerse@sfu.ca> wrote:

The University actually had the opportunity to make the last housing development on the mountain exactly this way, with affordable units targeted for faculty and staff, and more units for families with kids. The University representatives on the Trust actually decided against doing this, and went for something where there was just more cash in the bank, more per square footage from the developer who took the lease. They chose that over the longer term benefit of facilitating the work life balance and informal interactions of staff and faculty that, in my view, have done far more overall in terms of what we bring to SFU.

I will also note that the amount of money that the Trust under Gordon Harris brought to SFU from the endowment lands was something around half per square foot of leased-out land when compared to UBC.

These statistics are available in Trust minutes and documentation; I don't know if those are requestable through freedom of information, but maybe someone here knows more about that than I do.

Holly Andersen

From: Evelyn Encalada Grez <evelyn_encalada_grez@sfu.ca>
Sent: September 10, 2022 11:37:33 AM
To: Nicholas Blomley; academic-discussion@sfu.ca
Subject: Re: UniverCity $

Good question and with all the monies made the university could well afforded to build long term affordable housing for faculty and staff.

Best,

Dr. Evelyn Encalada Grez (she/her/ella)

[Latinx] Assistant Professor
Labour Studies-Sociology & Anthropology

I acknowledge the beautiful unceded lands of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw, səl̓ilw̓ ətaʔɬ, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm & kʷikʷəƛ ̓ əm nations in which I live and work & strive to respectfully & tangibly support.

Simon Fraser University | Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Faculty page: https://tinyurl.com/evgrez | eencalad@sfu.ca
Campus phone number: +1-778-782-3657

Justice for Migrant Workers: https://twitter.com/j4mw

From: Nicholas Blomley <blomley@sfu.ca>
Sent: September 4, 2022 2:45:05 PM
To: academic-discussion@sfu.ca
Subject: UniverCity $

I am interested to determine how much money the UniverCity project has generated for the University since its inception (or at least, annually, over the past few years)? I know of the Community Trust Endowment Fund, which generated some milllions of dollars. But is this the only revenue that flows to university coffers (e.g. through leases to developers)?

Nick Blomley