Daily Bulletin, Thursday, March 31, 1994

A SUMMER DAY:  Got your sandals and your sunscreen?  At least the sun is
shining, even if the temperature's chilly, on "Think Summer Day" as 
organized by Campaign Waterloo.  Who's dressed up for the morale-building
occasion?  First to check in with us was Meredith McGinnis of the distance
education (correspondence) office:  "Lots of beach umbrellas, beach balls, 
and bright summer clothes.  I think our most summery looking character is Mr. 
Casetti, our office mascot, who is all ready for the beach with his shorts 
and shades and of course his beach ball, towel and umbrella."  (Should we 
explain? Mr. Casetti is made of tape cassettes.)

EASTER WEEKEND:  Tomorrow is Good Friday, a holiday.  Classes will not be
held (indeed in two faculties, engineering and mathematics, today is the
last class day of the winter term), and UW offices and most services will
be closed.  The libraries will be open for only limited hours (11:30 a.m.
to 6:30 p.m. in Dana Porter, 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the Davis Centre) with
no information or circulation service offered.

The computing services input-output room will be closed Friday, but open
Saturday and Easter Sunday for the usual weekend hours.  Outages of the
campus computer network or any major computing services facility during the
weekend can be reported to the DCS help desk at 888-4839; repairs will be
made during the weekend if possible, and if not, they'll be addressed on 
Monday.

Worship services for the Easter weekend are scheduled as follows at the
church colleges:

     St. Jerome's College (Roman Catholic): Friday 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.,
     Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 9:30 and 11:30 a.m.

     Renison College (Anglican): Friday at 10:30 a.m., Saturday at
     7 p.m., Sunday at 10:30 a.m.

     Conrad Grebel College (Mennonite): Friday at 9 p.m., Sunday
     at 8:30 a.m. (outdoors)

TEACHERS TALK:  The teaching resource office (TRACE) holds its "Learning
Technologies '94" colloquium all day today in Davis Centre room 1302, and
registration is full-to-bursting.  Speakers will touch on topics that range
from the use of newsgroups and electronic mail for assignments (Lynn 
Taylor of history) to "designing a networked hypermedia system" (Don
Cowan of computer science and Colin Mayfield of biology).  The day ends
with a 4 p.m. discussion forum moderated by the provost, Jim Kalbfleisch.

BUDGET PROSPECTS:  The senate finance committee met for two hours yesterday
to chew over a draft of the 1994-95 budget.  "It's inevitable that there's
going to be a budget cut of some size," said provost Jim Kalbfleisch, although
things aren't as grim as they might have been.  True, last week's announcement
of government grants and tuition fee levels involved no new cuts, but
spending is going up.  Last fall's "progress through the ranks" pay hike
for faculty is still having an efect, another PTR increase is due on
May 1, temporary cuts to the teaching equipment fund and other special
funds need to be restored, utility costs are going up. . . .

Kalbfleisch's rough budget right now shows a gap of about $4.1 million
between revenue and expenditures.  (And, he notes, that would be $6.5
million if there were no unpaid days for faculty and staff planned in the
coming year.)  There are various possibilities for cutting spending and
increasing revenue, still unclear.  The biggest hope is that the pension 
and benefits committee will agree to at least another year of reduced 
contributions to UW's pension plan.  Extending this year's reduction into 
1994-95 would save $1.9 million in the university budget.  After being told
that the pension plan has a surplus in excess of $30 million, the finance
committee expressed hope that the pension and benefits committee will give
its okay.

The university's revenue for the current year is now estimated as $183.2 
million, and Kalbfleisch mentioned that a year ago -- when UW was preparing a
budget before anyone had ever heard of the Social Contract -- the number was 
$193 million.  So income has dropped by $10 million in one year.

Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
888-4567 ext. 3004      credmond@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca