Daily Bulletin

University of Waterloo -- Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

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Monday, April 7, 1997

March winds and April showers --
always a month late in this damn country of ours.
( -- Robertson Davies)

Four jobs lost in AHS cuts

Four staff members have been told that their jobs will end April 30, as the faculty of applied health sciences copes with continuing budget cuts.

"What we had done in our downsizing was always chop out faculty," says the dean of AHS, Bob Norman. Seven years ago AHS, which is UW's smallest faculty, had 52 "full-time equivalent" professors, and now it's 43. "That's too small," the dean said Friday. When more cutting was necessary, he had to turn to staff jobs, he said. AHS is now down to about 30 staff members.

The staff who are leaving -- three paid from the operating budget, one from research funds -- have all "been doing a great job", Norman said, and have qualifications and recommendations that he hopes will help them find new jobs quickly. "I don't want to lose any of our staff!" he said. "Our staff are all good." Under UW's Policy 18, staff who are laid off have "internal" status for anywhere from 6 to 18 months, meaning a preference in applying for other jobs within the university.

The dean said he had sent a memo to everyone in AHS more than a year ago warning that "times were tough" and that he "could not guarantee" jobs would still exist after the end of the 1996-97 fiscal year. At a general meeting in February, he said definitely that there "would be layoffs" this year, "and urged them to take whatever job opportunities there were". As a result, he said, four staff have left AHS for other parts of the university in recent weeks, and that reduced the number of people who had to be laid off.

Many of the remaining staff are not only "grieving" the loss of their colleagues, Norman said, but adjusting to new jobs, as the faculty has reorganized, centralizing some activities so they can be done by fewer people. A new "student services and information" office, for example, has three people doing what was once done by five staff dispersed through the departments, in such areas as academic counselling, student recruitment, marketing and alumni relations.

Seeking a dean of engineering

As Friday's Bulletin mentioned, UW is on a search for three deans: for science, mathematics, and engineering. All three current deans are on appointments that end June 30, 1998. Friday's announcement included the list of nominating committee members for science and math, and now here's the list of members for the dean of engineering nominating committee:

Jim Kalbfleisch, Provost; Committee Chair (4766), (jgk@nh3adm)
Gordon Andrews (3689), member at-large; Mechanical Engineering (gandrews@watserv1)
S. Ariaratnam (2741), Civil Engineering (stariara@civoffice.watstar)
Hazel Austin (2756), staff member, Engineering Computing (haustin@sail)
Nancy Baggio, undergraduate student, Chemical Engineering (nfbaggio@novice)
Glenn Heppler (4648), Systems Design Engineering (heppler@dial)
Jocelyne Legault (3233), external member, Earth Sciences (jlegault@sciborg)
John Moore (4036), Management Sciences (jbmoore@mansci.watstar)
Alex Penlidis (6634), Chemical Engineering (penlidis@cape)
Alan Plumtree (6840), Mechanical Engineering (plumtree@mechoffice.watstar)
Muehel Tabet (3896), graduate student, Electrical & Computer Engineering (mtabet@venus)
Anthony Vannelli (3330), Electrical & Computer Engineering (vannelli@cheetah.vlsi)

Applications and nominations are due by July 2 and should be directed to Emily Barnes in the university secretariat.

Look for the full notice of the nominating committees' work, in all three faculties, in Wednesday's Gazette.

Today, tomorrow and soon

The executive committee of the UW senate meets this afternoon -- 3:30, Needles Hall room 3001 -- to sift the agenda for the senate's April meeting. Business looks routine: "recognition and commendation" of staff, student and faculty achievements; reports from the faculties, with appointments and faculty changes; a report from this month's meeting of the Council of Ontario Universities (which may not take long, as the meeting hasn't been held yet); elections and appointments to senate committees and the UW board of governors.

A wine-and-cheese party will be held tomorrow (that's Tuesday, at 4 p.m. in Davis Centre room 1301) for students who may be interested in starting a local chapter of the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs. The group is described as "a non-profit international network of students dedicated to developing, supporting and bringing together young entrepreneurs". ACE already has a presence at Wilfrid Laurier University, and people from WLU and Toronto will be at tomorrow's gathering along with UW faculty and students who are involved in entrepreneurship.

The drama department is staging three one-act plays today, tomorrow and Wednesday. They are David Campton's "Out of the Flying Pan", Anton Chekhov's "A Marriage Proposal", and Steve Martin's "Picasso at the Lapin Agile". You can see them on a rotating schedule at 12:30 today and Tuesday, 8 p.m. all three days. Location: Humanities room 180, the studio theatre. Admission: "pay what you can".

Carousel Players brings a children's performance to the Humanities Theatre today and tomorrow at 10:00 and 1:30, so watch for the school buses on the ring road.

The teaching resource office sends a reminder of the Teaching Workshops that are to be held this Thursday. Faculty, other instructors and teaching assistants are all welcome; more information is available on the teaching resource web pages or by phone at ext. 3132.

CAR

TODAY IN UW HISTORY April 6, 1979: A freak exam-time blizzard shuts down UW -- the first time the university has closed because of a storm.

April 7, 1991: A draft "master plan" for the UW campus is unveiled at an open house in Federation Hall.

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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