Wilfrid Laurier University welcomed its first class of students to the Milton campus in September 2024, extending the university's high-quality academic and student experience along the Toronto-Waterloo Innovation Corridor to the fast-growing community of Milton.
The first few years of the Laurier Milton campus experience are set in the Laurier Milton Academic Centre's engaging education hub, tailored to local and commuter students from the Halton Region and the Greater Toronto Area looking to attend university close to home.
Laurier welcomed its first students in September 2024 in the Milton Academic Centre. We are actively developing Laurier’s Milton campus, which will evolve over the years into a robust, purpose-built campus in the Milton Education Village. Campus spaces will come to life, grounded by Indigenous principles of land stewardship and enriched by sustainable buildings.
Over time, thousands of students, faculty and community partners will work at the forefront of research, innovation and entrepreneurship in Milton. Focused on solutions to planetary health challenges and urban watershed research, their ideas will extend from a broad suite of programs in the classroom into the surrounding greenbelt’s living laboratory. From there, co-op opportunities and partnerships will connect higher-education talent and expertise with Milton business and industry.
Note: All images are for illustrative purposes; the physical campus will develop over a number of years and the campus may look different as development evolves.
Subject to change based on regulatory approvals.
June 2021
Government of Ontario approval.
July 2021 – February 2023
Master planning, design and approvals.
May 2023
Computer Science and Psychology approved as inaugural programs.
Spring/Summer 2023
Future program planning; earthwork on site.
Summer 2023
Partnership opportunities for funding and co-op.
Fall 2023
Laurier, Town of Milton, Haltech and Conestoga College form the Milton Innovation Collective.
Fall 2024
Laurier welcomed the first class of Milton students.
Fall/Winter 2024-25
New academic program development continues; full campus development work ongoing.
Laurier’s Milton campus will be lively, safe, accessible and inclusive, promoting wellbeing and fostering personal and community connections. The network of pedestrian greenways will promote learning, socializing, and experiencing nature, while Laurier’s facilities will also reflect the focus on sustainability and planetary health, with state-of-the-art technology resulting in deep-green buildings with a minimum zero-carbon footprint.
1.
Create a net zero campus that is rooted in sustainability and innovation.
2.
Adopt Indigenous worldviews and perspectives in the design and programming of the campus.
3.
Recognize and honour the rich diversity of those who inhabit the campus by creating an equitable, inclusive place where everyone can belong and thrive.
4.
Foster personal and community connections through the design of buildings, open spaces, and a network of pedestrian greenways.
5.
Create a lively, healthy, and safe campus whose design promotes wellbeing through learning, socializing, and experiencing nature.
6.
Encourage land stewardship by reinforcing visual and physical connections between the campus, the greenbelt, and the Niagara Escarpment.
7.
Showcase natural ecologies, systems, and research in stormwater treatment within the Greenbelt lands.
8.
Balance immediate campus needs with a flexible and resilient long-term vision.
Laurier’s Milton campus is currently located in the Laurier Milton Academic Centre, an engaging education hub at 555 Industrial Drive. The campus will develop over the years on land provided by the Town of Milton as part of a comprehensively planned Milton Education Village in west Milton, encompassing land alongside the Niagara Escarpment. With plans for postsecondary education along with residential, commercial and recreational uses, this future community is the perfect site for a growing campus.
The Milton campus bird’s eye view illustrates the current condition of the lands as undeveloped greenfield, with a large portion of the Greenbelt Lands as low-lying wetland and woodlands.
Natural watercourses drain surface runoff from the eastern portion of the Milton Education Village area into the Greenbelt watershed.
Laurier’s Milton campus will be a connected one, where remote and in-person learners can connect seamlessly to every aspect of campus from wherever they are – fostering collaboration and community far beyond campus borders.
Once developed, the campus will weave throughout the surrounding natural ecosystem, allowing learning and ideas to flow throughout the campus, from the classroom to the lab and out into the natural landscape.
The campus layout plans are based on accessible, universal design, so campus spaces will be accessible and inclusive of all learners.
It will also be flexible, with spaces and technology that can be reconfigured to suit a range of pedagogical approaches that let users adapt spaces to their changing needs.
Students in the Halton region will experience Laurier’s sense of community, along with programming, research and experiential learning in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) under a planetary health umbrella as the campus and its program offerings evolve.
This focus is especially suited to the Milton campus, which will be adjacent to Greenbelt lands and the Niagara Escarpment and connect with the neighbouring urban environment.
Studying with a planetary health lens will bring students beyond looking at individual aspects of human and environmental health to looking at the intersection between the two.
This unique academic environment will foster new developments in clean and green technology, sustainable development and more through academic programming, a living lab, knowledge mobilization and commercialization of planetary health solutions.
Embodying principles of accessibility, equity, diversity and inclusivity and Indigenous ways of knowing, Laurier’s programs will equip graduates to be change-makers who can work across many contexts and cultures.
Students will find something at Laurier’s Milton campus to suit their diverse personal and professional learning needs at all stages of their lives with a range of innovative credential options and pathways and experiential learning.
Laurier is offering an honours BSc in Computer Science and a BA in Computer Science and honours BA in Psychology as our inaugural programs, combined with attractive course electives, such as User Experience Design, Leadership and Criminology.
Programs are delivered in cohorts to maximize students’ in-person and remote experiences and include amenities that provide students with an on-campus experience tailored to their specific needs.
Learn more about the current Laurier Milton campus experience.
Laurier’s Milton campus will be research-intensive, with a multi-disciplinary approach committed to excellence and a focus on solving local, regional, national, and global environmental challenges under a planetary health umbrella. Research activity at the campus will focus on the Greenbelt and Niagara Escarpment lands as a living laboratory for students and collaborative research partnerships with industry.
With partnership as a pillar of our development, the campus and its programs will be a significant element of a Milton hub for sustainable, purpose-led innovation and entrepreneurship and will provide short- and long-term economic benefits for the Town and the Province of Ontario through community and industry partnerships related to planetary health, sustainability, climate change, and water.
Laurier’s Milton campus will ensure strong linkages among businesses, the community and the university, creating a focal point for economic activity and research and innovation with numerous experiential learning opportunities for students, such as co-op placements, volunteer opportunities, workplace projects and community service-learning.
For more Laurier news and stories, visit wlu.ca/news.
As Laurier works to bring its Milton campus to life, we are pleased to share event and development photos.
