Daily Bulletin

Wednesday, April 2, 1997

Presenting . . . The Waterloo Adventure

The Waterloo Adventure was produced by the office of information and public affairs to mark UW's 40th anniversary year. The text was written by freelancer Pat Bow, who also collected the dozens of photographs from the university archives and many other sources. It's financially sponsored by the bookstore, UW Shop and computer store.

The famous 1958 picture of "BEER" painted on the Waterloo water tower is there, and so are pictures of three prime ministers posing with UW regalia during visits to campus. There's also a photo I had never seen before showing the excavation for Engineering I, with the Schweitzer farmhouse, now the Grad House, silhouetted against the sky. And there's an amazing aerial shot of a 1969 registration lineup.

The booklet moves swiftly through the university's history, and also offers chapters about the co-op program, research, distance education, "the university as citizen", and UW's international role. It's bracketed by words from presidents: founder Gerry Hagey writing in 1959, and the current leader, James Downey, introducing the 40th anniversary.

The inside back cover consists of a campus panorama, roughly divisible into thirds -- the bottom slice being roads and parking lots, the middle third the campus as we know it, and the top third Columbia Lake and farmland beyond, as a reminder of the countryside into which the campus was dropped, not quite 40 years ago.

Extra $500 fee in ptometry

"This request reflects the fact that a clinical professional education is very expensive," said the director of the optometry school, Jake Sivak. "We're under considerable accreditation pressure to expand our curriculum." The board agreed that "a significant portion" of the new money would go to the budget of the optometry school.

Provost Jim Kalbfleisch said the province would be asked to approve an extra fee, quite apart from the general 10 per cent increase students are facing this year, on the same principle as the higher fees now being charged at Ontario's two dental schools. John Thompson, dean of the science faculty (which includes the school of optometry), said the proposed new fee has student support -- "the students see this as the only way of stemming the erosion of their program."

One senator noted that with the $500 addition, optometry students would be paying $2,253 per term in the coming year, "roughly equal" to the $2,178 (including the co-op fee) that engineering students pay. And the dean of engineering, David Burns, said the extra fee isn't, and shouldn't be, associated with students' potential earnings after graduation, or with the idea that they're entering a "profession". So are engineers, he said, and differential fees aren't being contemplated for them. The reason is the high cost of teaching students in a clinic environment, and nothing else, he said.

The board also gave approval to the general 10 per cent fee increase, after brief expressions of opposition from Mario Bellabarba, president of the Federation of Students, and Burton Empey, president of the Graduate Student Association.

Graduate student is mourned

Waller, 24, was near the middle of a two-year master's program. His area of specialization was astro-chemistry, an interdisciplinary field linking spectroscopy with astronomy, according to Peter Bernath, his supervisor. Waller had just returned from a trip to the Kitt Peak observatory in Arizona where he was researching the spectra of stars. As a sideline, said Bernath, Waller also conducted an analysis of Comet Hale-Bopp, finding what he believed to be a fragment of an unknown molecule.

An athlete, Waller was practicing for an upcoming triathlon when the accident occurred. He was riding with a friend from Minota Hagey Residence, where they both lived. A memorial service on campus is being scheduled.

Copyright letters are urged

"You need to get your letters to senators by April 5!" says a memo circulated last week by Ian Macdonald, president of the UW faculty association. He was passing on an appeal from the Canadian Association of University Teachers that's also supported by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada and other national organizations.

Bill C-32, as already passed by the House of Commons, will "unfairly shift the balance" between the creators and the users of copyright material, CAUT says. "The Bill must be modified by removing unreasonable restrictions . . . restoring 'assignments' to the section of the legislation which originally provided for an exception for examinations and for assignments . . . allowing libraries to copy single pages or entire books which are out of print, damaged or lost . . . allowing professors to make a slide for the purposes of showing material on an overhead projector."

In a news release on the subject issued March 14, the AUCC says that Bill C-32, as it stands, "reneges on repeated commitments to restore balance in Canada's copyright law" and "will impose unacceptable constraints on Canada's students, educators, researchers and publicly-funded institutions and libraries".

Other notes on a spring day

The astronomy group will hold an open house tonight, starting at 8:00, at the observatory atop the Physics building. It could be the last chance to see Comet Hale-Bopp through a telescope.

CAR

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