Lakehead engineering students to benefit from Queen's partnership

A new partnership between Lakehead University and Queen's University aims to create new opportunities for engineering students who are interested in mining.

Kimberly Woodhouse, the dean of engineering and applied sciences at Queen's, was in Thunder Bay today to formalize the relationship by signing a memorandum of understanding with Lakehead. 

The partnership will give Lakehead engineering students access to Queen's extensive online course offerings, Woodhouse said. They will also be able to travel to Queen's to use the school's facilities.

"We have an explosives facility, where students can test the impact of different explosive charges and their impact on the environment and the substructure," Woodhouse said.

It's hard for universities to hire enough mining professors to meet all their goals, Woodhouse said, so collaboration helps schools expand the depth and breadth of their programs.

Queen's chose to partner with Lakehead, she said, because of Lakehead's strengths in the areas of sustainability and corporate social responsibility and because it would give their students a chance to interact with the mining sector in northwestern Ontario. 

Lakehead's dean of engineering, Dr. David Barnett, said the partnership could start to benefit students as early as the winter 2016 school term.