Friday, January 28, 1994

UW IS CLOSED today because of the overnight ice storm that has also
closed Kitchener-Waterloo schools and just about everything else.
"Closed" means that classes are not being held today, and offices and
most services are not open.

The libraries are not open (as of 9:15) but a few people were trickling
in, and associate librarian Bruce Macneil said the libraries would open
later if possible.

The cafeterias in Village 1 and 2 are open, of course.  "We are trying 
to keep Pastry Plus in South Campus Hall and the Davis Centre open as
long as we have staff," says Mark Murdoch, director of food services.
Otherwise, food outlets will be closed.

Among the day's cancellations is an afternoon meeting of the senate
finance and long-range planning committees.  That meeting was to continue
its discussion of how UW plans for a difficult future with shrinking
revenues.

UW'S POLICY is to close on any storm day when the Waterloo County Board
of Education closes all its schools, and that's what was done this
morning.  University president James Downey -- who did make it to campus
himself, driving gingerly along the ice of King Street -- says he's
interested in reviewing the policy, based on today's experience, but
is persuaded that closing today was the right thing to do.

He was expecting a visit today from Lyn McLeod, leader of the Liberal
Party in Ontario, who's coming to town for a weekend conference hosted 
by the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, which includes student
federations at UW and Wilfrid Laurier University.  It's not clear whether
McLeod will make it to town, since Toronto is also shut down by the
storm.  Already in Waterloo is Jim O'Sullivan, vice-president of the
University of New Brunswick.  He's heading the four-person committee
to review UW's top administration; it held its first meeting yesterday.

CO-OP DEPARTMENT:  A few staff are on hand in the department of
co-op education and career services -- they acquired the last pot of
coffee from the Pastry Plus outlet in Needles Hall before it closed down.
Hopes are that interviews for spring term jobs can start smoothly on
Monday.

COMPUTER ADVISORY:  Here's the word from Roger Watt of computing
services about what people should do if they have machine trouble today:
"Follow the standard procedure for reporting any outage of a facility
maintained by DCS ... call the DCS HelpDesk (x4839) and leave a voicemail
message with all relevant details. Because of the unscheduled closing of
the university, you should expect that things are unstaffed, so the
problem will get tended to on a 'best effort' basis in accordance with its
overall impact on the university community. Because of the situation, of
course, we are unable to guarantee 'by when'."

LATER INFORMATION about services on campus will be posted to uw.general
and uw.campus-news and will appear on the FLASH facility of UWinfo.
Departments with emergency information to convey should send e-mail
to credmond@watserv1 or leave voice-mail at ext. 3004.

Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs
credmond@watserv1    ext. 3004