Engineering dean David Wilkinson said Friday at the official ribbon cutting the new building facing Main Street West will allow the faculty to provide top engineering education to even more students. He noted McMaster’s first graduating class of engineers was just 25 people. Today there are approximately 4,000 engineering students at McMaster, up from 2,500 in 2001.

The new building, designed by Vermeulen Hind Architects of Dundas, also provides space for a new bachelor of technology program offered in partnership with Mohawk College, and holds $60-million worth of research equipment in what Dean Wilkinson described as a “think-tank like atmosphere.”

Fred Vermeulen called it “A beacon on this corner of campus.”

A robot armed with a scalpel, with the Dean at the controls, cut the ceremonial ribbon. Dean Wilkinson noted that very day was the 50th anniversary of the original engineering building’s opening.

That original building will continue to be in full use by the engineering faculty.

“The new Engineering Technology Building was built to accommodate the growth the faculty has experienced over the years,” said Eugene Nakonechny, manager of public relations for the Faculty of Engineering.

The modern building features state of the art classroom and research facilities and creates a new gateway to the university campus. Recycled slag was used in the concrete and the building has “smart lights” which turn off automatically when there is enough natural sunlight.

Between the 2006-07 and 2007-08 school years, while eight of Ontario’s major universities actually lowered total undergrad enrollment, McMaster actually grew by 354 students. Only Waterloo, Ryerson, Ottawa and Toronto increased undergrad enrollment by a wider margin during that period. Data provided by Statistics Canada shows McMaster’s undergrad enrollment was 21,780 in the 2007-08 school year.-the sixth highest undergrad enrollment of Ontario’s 23 largest universities.