Quai Building

Quai d'Orsay

Designing Services for Student Success: Staff Visit the Quai

How can we help students achieve academic excellence and prepare for fulfilling careers? Our new Quai d’Orsay building is all about answering that question.

We're designing our largest campus facility to provide a transformational environment for student learning, with the kinds of space and technology that inspire collaboration and active inquiry – but also an inviting location for students who just need a great place to focus on their work.

However, space is only part of the story.

The Quai will also be a destination where students can come to find help, support and guidance – whether they're trying to locate that elusive journal article, write academic prose that sparkles, produce a documentary that will go viral on YouTube, choose the right combination of courses for the upcoming semester, fine-tune their resume or find the perfect internship.

All those services will be provided by our dedicated staff, who will work in welcoming glass-walled offices, closely blended with student space.

Recently a group of the staff visited the construction site, to get a sense of their future work environment. Of course, it will be a lot less dusty and noisy when they move in! But this visit was a great way to provoke discussion about reimagining and reconfiguring the services we offer to students, as we work to bring together our key academic support units in one location.

We will continue these engaging conversations throughout the coming year – and indeed, long after the building has opened, in a constant effort to closely align our services with our students’ evolving needs.