The City of Oshawa and its education and research partners - Canadian Urban Institute, Durham College, Trent University Durham Greater Toronto Area, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, and the University of Toronto's Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering - celebrated the first year of TeachingCity with the opening of the TeachingCity Hub.
The TeachingCity Hub, located in downtown Oshawa at 1 Mary Street at Bond and Mary Streets, is a dedicated space to facilitate TeachingCity projects with the City's education and research partners, including students, faculty and staff.
The Hub provides opportunities for TeachingCity partners to share access to facilities, resources and equipment, and includes office, classroom and open lab space. The open-concept space will be used for TeachingCity partnership meetings, collaborative learning opportunities and co-design.
During the Hub opening, Trent University Durham Greater Toronto Area officially joined TeachingCity through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding.
TeachingCity brings together municipal government, City partners and academic institutions. The partners focus on and address urban issues facing Oshawa through innovation, collaboration, applied research and shared experiential learning opportunities.
The partnership facilitates:
- developing practical, scalable and sustainable solutions to urban issues;
- building research partnerships;
- coordinating experiential learning opportunities, applied research and innovative educational activities;
- developing new technologies;
- sharing access to facilities, resources and equipment; and,
- working toward the long-term positioning of Oshawa as a locally and globally recognized community of urban research and learning.
Learn more at www.oshawa.ca/TeachingCity and follow #OshTeachingCity on Twitter and Instagram.
Partner Quotes
"The opening of the TeachingCity Hub represents a significant milestone for the City of Oshawa and TeachingCity," says Oshawa Mayor John Henry. "Together with our academic and research partners, TeachingCity is positioning Oshawa as a leading city of urban research and learning."
"Oshawa's TeachingCity Initiative is a forward-thinking approach to prepare the community to thrive in the 21st Century economy. It will enhance the prospects for the City and be a model for others to learn from. The Canadian Urban Institute has been helping build capacity for achieving healthy communities since 1990 and we look forward to applying our experience to work with the City and academic partners to help connect the learning to policy and practice," said Peter Halsall, Executive Director of The Canadian Urban Institute.
"The opening of the TeachingCity Hub, signifies the evolution of our partnership in this ground-breaking initiative," said Don Lovisa, president, Durham College. "By providing a physical space for learning and exploration, we will be able to continue helping the City of Oshawa address urban challenges and issues while also creating even more opportunities for our students to engage in applied research and innovative experiential-learning activities."
"Signing-on as an official TeachingCity partner is important for Trent and Oshawa. With our rich history in the region, and our plans to expand our Trent Durham GTA campus, we are always looking for opportunities to contribute to the greater community," said Dr. Leo Groarke, president and vice-chancellor of Trent University. "We look forward to collaborating with our post-secondary partners, and the City of Oshawa to increase opportunities for students to engage with the community they're living and learning in."
"Teaching City is a powerful example of city-university learning from living' and demonstrates how engagement and integration with the community promotes quality of life. The University of Ontario Institute of Technology looks forward to the new knowledge uncovered by this partnership, and to working together on applying these technological discoveries in practical and exciting ways."
Dr. Steven Murphy, President of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.
"This is a bold and timely initiative. With this innovative partnership U of T Engineering students, working across the spectrum of urban issues, will be able to engage with Oshawa staff, residents, and businesses to solve real-life problems facing urban areas today. This is a tremendous educational opportunity for our students and we are excited to begin developing our first activities and projects," said Professor Brent Sleep, Chair of the Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering at University of Toronto.
