Ryerson will soon be home to a new athletics facility, after students voted Yes last week to a mandatory $126 fee hike to support its construction and maintenance.
“I am thrilled with the results of the referendum,” president Sheldon Levy said. “I can't wait to start working with students on ideas and plans for the new facility. Ryerson students deserve the best, and I want to ensure that they have lots of input and the facility meets their needs.”
Of the 32,738 full-time and part-time Ryerson students eligible to vote, 4,754 hit the polls.
It wasn’t such a close race either, 3,536 – or 74 per cent of voters – said Yes, and 1,202 said No. Sixteen students officially declined to vote online.
The $126 increase will be implemented once the building is open and being used by students. The fee will cover membership in the athletic centre.
In the weeks leading up to the election, four campaigns mounted by the university, two student unions and independent students tried swaying students to vote one way.
Third-year business management student Frank Whitestone, who led the student-initiated No campaign, said that because the Yes and No campaigns were so unbalanced, the final result didn’t shock him.
“They were far more organized and obviously had the full resources of sports and recreation behind them, whereas we just had some students that were busy with classes,” he said.
Whitestone added that his campaign only spent about half the $2,500 the university funds for opposing campaigns, due to having a limited amount of people to put up posters.
“They (Yes campaigns) clearly spent a lot more than that judging by the numbers of posters, flyers, balloons and free cakes,” he said.
But athletics director Ivan Joseph is just happy to have won, and admitted he was nervous about the No campaigns circulating.
He says he was “pleasantly surprised” that more students voted Yes than the total amount of students who voted in the 2004 referendum for a new facility.
Joseph said when he got the final results last Thursday night, he and everyone who had helped out with the campaign broke out into loud, rip-roaring cheers.
Now that the Yes side has won, Joseph said he will be taking a “much-needed” week off from anything referendum related, before his department starts creating focus groups to figure out what the most important elements of the new facility will be. He says in the next few weeks, sports and recreation will meet with architects and planners to look at possible locations for the facility.
Levy, who has always supported the idea for a new facility, said he was very happy with the result.
“The fact almost 75 per cent of people were in favour was more than I could have imagined,” Levy said.
He added potential locations have been scouted for the facility but until decisions are made about what it will contain a decision is not possible.
He said a leadership group will likely be formed by this summer to look into different ideas for the gym.