University of Waterloo
Daily Bulletin
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Thursday, May 18, 1995
Council is taking counsel
UW's top brass, presidents and deans and such, is off today and tomorrow
for the annual executive council retreat at Kempenfelt Bay resort near
Barrie.
Nobody's made an agenda public, but it doesn't take the brains of an
associate provost to guess that there will be plenty of talk about budgets,
and ways UW might cope if government funding for universities goes down
next year and the year after. A drop of "5 to 15 per cent" in funding is
what's being tossed around. UW's office of
institutional analysis and planning has been working on more detailed
predictions, based on various combinations of guesses about how Ontario
will respond to cuts in federal transfer payments. All such guesses, of
course, are subject to being thrown out the window after the Ontario
election, to be held three weeks from today.
Desirable residence, no commuting
Gail Clarke of UW's residences office sends this note: "Two Tutor
Houses are available for UW employees to rent. These are
available July 1 and October 1. Monthly rental is $1,045 which includes
basic unit rental, water, sanitation, hydro, grounds maintenance and
parking. Union Gas, cable and telephone are billed separately to the
tenant. Each unit contains four bedrooms and approximately 2,500 square
feet of total living space. If you are interested in applying, please contact
Gail Clarke at extension 5634 or by e-mail giclarke@mc6adm.uwaterloo.ca."
And here's news about health
Sandie Hurlburt of the
human resources department has this advice for staff and faculty
about the extended health insurance plan: "New
Liberty Health
certificates were mailed out by Human Resources this
week. This card
replaces your paper Blue Cross card. All identification numbers and
coverages remain the same. The term 'Non Provider Network'
on the card refers to our reimbursement plan. Dependents are not listed on
the card.
Keep your World Assistance card (for travel coverage). Travel coverage
and hotline numbers remain the
same, and Liberty Health stickers will be distributed soon to update
your World Assistance card."
Progress on UW's financial systems
The people behind the Financial Systems Project introduced
a new Web page
this week, describing how the project is coming along. You can find it
through UWinfo, by looking under "departments".
Half of the FSP has to do with accounting, purchasing and bean-counting
-- the implementation of Oracle Financials software to keep UW's financial
records. The other half is the Human Resources Management System, the
introduction of new ways of keeping records about the 3,000 people who
work for this university, including their pay, their benefits, their
workers' compensation, their "employment equity" status, their
qualifications, and so on. "It
is expected that the volume of paper shuffling required to hire,
pay and manage employees will diminish," says one of the FSP Web
pages. Also promised: "Wider
access to human resources and payroll information by
users throughout the University environment."
What's to celebrate today?
Well, the Maple Leafs hung in for an overtime win and are still in the
Stanley Cup playoffs. Today's Lag b'Omer, a happy summer festival in
Judaism. It's a birthday for Peter
Roe, of the
systems design engineering department.
Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
(519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
credmond@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca
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