A contest seeks new names for two former city streets now encompassed into campus between University Avenue and Wyandotte Street.
Sunset Avenue? Patricia Avenue? Not for long.
The University is launching a contest aimed at renaming both those stretches of Sunset and Patricia which have been remade into pedestrian-friendly thoroughfares.
President Alan Wildeman announced plans to rename Sunset and Patricia during his January 29 address to the university community, citing an opportunity to instil a greater sense of pride in the campus.
“This past autumn, we enjoyed for the first time a car-free and care-free Sunset Avenue. We had community barbeques there, and students and faculty and staff could stroll and relax,” Dr. Wildeman said. “I do not want the University of Windsor to forever refer to that wonderful space as Sunset Avenue. It is not where the sun sets ... it is where the feeling about being at a university should be nourished.”
Wildeman also said it was time to deal with the “historic dead-ending” of Patricia Avenue.
“This spring, adjacent to the new Stephen and Vicki Adams Welcome Centre, we will be completing the landscaping with a new entrance way. It is where Patricia Avenue used to continue on. This is a wonderful historic Champs-Elysée through the old part of the campus, past Dillon Hall and the soaring London plane trees.”
The competition is open to everyone and suggestions can be e-mailed to NameTheWays@uwindsor.ca. A panel of faculty, staff and students will review the submissions and entries will be accepted until 4 p.m., March 11.
The new names for Sunset and Patricia will be announced Friday, April 1, and the winning entries will each receive a $250 gift certificate from the Campus Bookstore.
Dr. Wildeman said that the university is open to all kinds of suggestions: “The names could be ones that reflect our traditional lands, they could be ones that reflect our diversity, they could be ones that honour great alumni or scholars, they could be ones that remind us that education and compassion have the power to change lives immeasurably.
“Once we have names, they will be prominently displayed as you enter what are two great corridors through the campus.”