OCAD University campus has peeling paint, out-of-service bathrooms as student group ‘running out of patience’

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It seems an ironic problem for a school that turns out hundreds of fine artists every year: OCAD University is living in fear of paint.

For most of the winter, yellow caution tape has fluttered, tied to the pillars (OCAD faculty call them “pencils”) that hold up the Sharp Centre for Design, the iconic school-on-stilts designed by British architect Will Alsop, that opened 10 years ago. The yellow tape prevents students from walking underneath the south end of the building; the school fears they may get hit with falling flakes of paint.

“There is quite a thick layer of special paint on the pillars,” says Christine Crosbie, a spokeswoman for OCAD U. “The ice storm and bad weather started to affect it. It can’t be repaired until we were sure the cold weather wasn’t coming back.”

It isn’t the school’s only maintenance problem. On the four floors OCAD owns in a condo building on the east side of McCaul Street, the sinks in the bathrooms are broken or drip; a men’s room on the third floor has no door on the toilet stall. Rather than fix them, OCAD has put “Out of Service” signs on some sinks, and blocked two bathrooms outside the library with yellow caution tape.

Frustrated students and faculty last fall banded together to form OCAD Us, to press for improvements.

“The issue is not to criticize the school, but to fix it,” says Ksenia Soldatenko, 24, a part-time student in painting and drawing. Ms. Soldatenko takes on art commissions to pay her tuition. “Mostly horses and the occasional cottage and grandchild,” she says.

We are standing near a water fountain on the top floor of the Sharp Centre when a student bends to the fountain and presses the button. A jet of water shoots up, spraying his face.

Last fall OCAD Us hung posters asking, “What’s your problem at OCAD U?” White space was left on the posters where students could list their complaints. Security removed the posters seven times, Ms. Soldatenko says.

Deanne Fisher, associate vice president of students, says OCAD removed the posters because OCAD Us “haven’t sought recognition to become a recognized campus organization.” She later met with Ms. Soldatenko. The school has tolerated the group’s latest poster, which reads “Out of Order” and sends students to OCAD Us’s Twitter feed and Facebook page.

On Twitter, tweets include “OCAD = Only Cares About Dollars” and “Running out of patience (& money) for #OCADU while they try to get it right. seriously.”

"#OCAD = Only Cares About Dollars" ~ $tudent http://t.co/lMNmfC9XFk

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OCAD Us (@OCAD_Us) April 03, 2014

Ms. Fisher says OCAD has two sources of revenue: tuition and provincial cash.

“We are not sitting on billions of endowment funds,” she says. “We don’t have a residence, a parking lot, or food services.”

Even so, she adds, “We have the lowest faculty-student ratios in the province. The faculty actually know you by name here. There is an intimacy to the student experience. Our investment is very much in people.”

Students pay the same fees as other universities in Ontario, she says. OCAD tuition rose 3% this year and will rise 3% next year, the maximum hike the province permits.

Cuts in provincial transfers forced OCAD to cut non-salary budgets 2% across the board last year, she adds. Ms. Soldatenko felt the cut in her life drawing class: live models only come for nine weeks this year, compared to 12 weeks last year. (Ms. Crosby says OCAD has cut model hours by 20% to save money and because “there has been a decline in traditional notions of life drawing as part of art studies.”)

On our tour of OCAD, Ms. Soldatenko points to one small victory. “OCAD Us retweeted a student’s complaint, ‘It’s ridiculous that we don’t have a microwave in the Sharp Centre.’ ” Recently, a new microwave showed up.

OCAD now says that, after a long fight involving OCAD’s legal team, Grange Services Corp., property manager for the building OCAD shares with others, will fix the bathrooms by the library and on three floors above. A school web post in February promised the work would be complete by now; the work has yet to begin.

There was one other spot of good news for stressed-out art students on Wednesday: OCAD brought in a sheep dog, Norman the Therapy dog. Everybody, including me, stopped to rub Norman’s coat.

Norman the Therapy Dog is in action right now in our lobby at 100 McCaul Street, until 2pm today! http://t.co/p4yLwdxo7p

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OCAD University (@OCAD) April 09, 2014

National Post

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