Daily Bulletin

University of Waterloo -- Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

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Monday, April 1, 1996

Now that April's here

I'm cancelling the literary quotation about "Aprille with his shoures soute" -- there is nothing "sweet" about "showers" of snow on April Fools' Day! However, in other respects today is a day of bright (and not-so-bright) new beginnings:

Back to work for the members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, who have ended a month-long strike against most government services.
Opening day of the 1996 season for the Toronto Blue Jays.
First day of a new fiscal year for the government of Canada -- and so, the first day for the new Canada Health and Social Transfer. The revised agreement between Ottawa and the provinces, over transfer payments for health, education and welfare, is expected to see less federal money available for higher education in the coming years. It's one of the pressures driving Ontario's determination to cut public-sector spending.

The future of the Canadian university

That's the topic of a panel discussion to be held at Village I tonight, organized by Village residents and including some people who ought to have things worth hearing. UW president James Downey has been invited; so has Joy Cohnstaedt of the Ontario Council on University Affairs; so has Michael Burns, executive director of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance. Art Headlam, former director of research services at UW, and John Alan Lee of the University of Toronto complete the announced panel. The event starts at 7:30 in the "red" cafeteria.

Salaries at St. Jerome's

On Friday afternoon, St. Jerome's College made the required disclosure of salaries that are over $100,000, putting two names on the Waterloo list in addition to the 52 names announced by UW itself. They are Doug Letson, president of the college, whose 1995 salary of $143,353 puts him in third place at Waterloo overall, and Ken McLaughlin, professor of history, at $101,814.

Continuing education courses

The continuing education office offers a wide variety of personal development, professional development, business communications and computing skills courses, and its calendar of spring offerings has just appeared.

Courses in May and June include Acting, Homicide, Managing Individual Differences (Meyers-Briggs), Strategic Planning, Work Teams to Support Total Quality, Introduction to Conflict Management Skills and Strategies, Promotional Writing, Developing Effective Presentation Skills, Making Information Available on the World Wide Web, Introduction to Corel Draw 6.0, and Microsoft Office. And new this season are four courses for children (in computing, art and storytelling).

A fee discount of 25 per cent is offered to full-time UW staff and faculty. Copies of the calendar are available from the continuing education office, phone ext. 4002 (or check the office's Web pages).

What else is happening?

The senate executive committee meets at 3:30 today in Needles Hall room 3004, to set the agenda for this month's meeting of the university senate.
Peter Rawley of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education speaks at 3:00 (Math and Computer room 5158) on "Computer Supported Intentional Learning Environment: Collaborative Learning as Knowledge Building". The teaching resource office is the sponsor.
With spring arriving, the staff association social committee is sponsoring four seminars on growing things. The first one is scheduled for tomorrow, starting at 12 noon in Davis Centre room 1302. The speaker: Larry Lamb, of the environmental studies ecology lab, on "Wildlife Gardening". (Future topics, same hour and same place: April 10, Alain Charest on "How to Improve Your Garden Design"; April 18, Jan Weber on "Growing Orchids"; April 24, a plant exchange.)

Now, about that trivia

In Friday's Bulletin I mentioned a note from a faculty member who had urged me to eliminate the "trivia" in the Daily Bulletin and stick with serious news. I asked for comments. My thanks to the 41 people who have e-mailed me with their opinions -- staff, students, faculty, department heads, even one faculty dean, who wrote, "I think folks should lighten up. It's administrivia that should be banned!"

"Lighten up" was the general feeling. Although three of the 41 people said the recent "birthdays on the same day" theme was wearing kind of thin, otherwise the vote was unanimous that light stuff, even irrelevant stuff sometimes, seasons the news pleasantly. "It makes the doom and gloom a little easier to bear," one staff member wrote. And another said: "I could certainly use something amusing after seeing the salaries displayed today."

Chris Redmond -- credmond@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
(519) 888-4567 ext. 3004

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