Dawson’s Nursing Program will be gaining a lot more space when faculty and students move into their program’s new home at The Montreal Forum just before the Fall 2023 semester. 

The Nursing Program will have more than triple the space for simulation, which can also be used by other programs, and an additional 100 square metres for their labs. Plans are being developed to renovate the former Future Shop space on the second floor. It will accommodate the Nursing Program and up to nine general use classrooms. There will also be a new student space where students can relax, study or eat between classes.  

“Roughly 50 faculty will have their offices in the Forum, and there will be over 400 students in Physiotherapy Technology, Medical Ultrasound Technology and Nursing,” said Max Jones, Associate Dean of Science, Medical Studies and Engineering. There are also students from other programs and Continuing Education who come for general education courses and AEC labs. 

This is a partial response to Dawson’s space deficit of more than 11,200 square metres confirmed by the Ministry of Higher Education in December 2021. The College has been renting space across the street from the main campus at the “most storied building in hockey history” since 2010.

Dawson’s space deficit has existed for over 25 years and was officially recognized in 2012. The College has been adding space through a rental arrangement with the Forum. Nine classrooms were established on the 4^th floor of the Forum in 2010, and four additional classrooms in 2011.  Expansion was made to the 2^nd floor in 2018 and Ultrasound spaces were added in two phases in 2021 and 2022.

The College continues to work on a longer-term solution to the space deficit after plans for the construction of a new medical studies pavilion were officially cancelled by the Quebec government in late March 2022.