Daily Bulletin

University of Waterloo -- Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

Yesterday's Bulletin | Previous days | UWevents | UWinfo home page

Tuesday, April 29, 1997

A campus on the cusp

"So I suppose the university's closed now that all the kids are gone." Well, no, friend: the university doesn't "close for the summer". And by the way, there are quite a few of the "kids" still around, I noticed as I walked through the Student Life Centre yesterday.

Yes, there are some things closed this week. No, I don't have a full list of closings, only what people send me. I did notice Brubaker's in the SLC shut up tight yesterday, and likewise Dr. Disc. Word is that the Modern Languages coffee shop is closed this week also, presumably to reopen next week with the beginning of the spring term.

Marks for winter term courses are due at the registrar's office Friday, May 2. And then the cycle starts all over again.

Today, tomorrow and soon

The Waterloo Advisory Council, representing co-op and graduate employers, continues its spring meeting today.

The annual "Energy and Environment Forum", sponsored by Canada's Technology Triangle and local Chambers of Commerce, takes place today at Wilfrid Laurier University. Keynote speaker (at 1:45) is Larry Smith of the UW economics department, on "The Energy Industry in the 21st Century -- Why Energy Will Become a High 'Hot' Technology".

Tomorrow is the last day of the 1996-97 fiscal year, with transactions closing for the year at 4:30 p.m. Graphic services will have some of its outlets closed for year-end inventory: the main printing facility closed all day, Graphics Express closed until 4:30 (but open for evening hours), other copy centres closing for part of the day, mostly from noon to 3:15 p.m.

At noon tomorrow, a tree will be planted in the area between Needles Hall and the Dana Porter Library, in memory of Gary Buckley, long-time and well-known staff member in the registrar's office, who died last September. Some of the memorial donations received from friends and co-workers have been used to provide the tree; the rest of the money is being directed to the general bursary fund of the Ontario Student Opportunity Trust Fund, where it will help future generations of students in need. "Gary would always want to help a student in need," says co-worker Pat Kalyn, "and would delight in getting the government to pay half!"

Finally, here's a reminder of the Presidents' Forum on Scholarly Communication, to be held Monday at the conference centre in Ron Eydt Village. Says the invitation from the presidents of UW, Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Guelph:

The phenomenal increase in the body of published knowledge combined with the advances in electronic and communications technologies have dramatically altered the behaviour of scholars and provide a wealth of opportunities for researchers and students. This evolution is not, however, painless; neither should it take place without direction from those individuals and institutions who will be most affected by its outcome.
The morning of this Forum will be devoted to presentations from speakers from the Canadian academic community, the federal government and the commercial publishing world who have taken a leadership role in the evolution of scholarly communication. The afternoon will provide the opportunity for some practical demonstrations and applications of the new technology. . . . Everyone attending this forum will be encouraged to participate in the discussions following the presentations.

More information is available from Val Harper in the Dana Porter Library, phone ext. 2608.

Senate elections and centenary electrons

The university secretariat has issued this announcement of an election result:

Nominations closed at 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 23, 1997, for the by-elections of one full-time Environmental Studies faculty representative to Senate and one full-time graduate student representative to Senate. Larry Martin, Urban and Regional Planning, has been acclaimed as the ES faculty representative, term to April 30, 1999, and David Kribs, Pure Math, has been acclaimed as the graduate student representative to Senate, term to April 30, 1999.

On the sub-atomic scale, word is that tomorrow marks the centenary of the discovery of the electron. More about that slice of history tomorrow, in this Bulletin and also in a talk that Robert Mann of the physics department will be giving at 4:30 p.m. in Physics room 145. Don't know exactly what flavour his talk will have, but a cash bar at the Graduate House will follow.

Local volunteers are wanted

Opportunities listed this week by the Volunteer Action Centre:

Buddies for boys, through a program operated by Family and Children's Services -- listing 021-1710.
School volunteers to present Lung Association smoking prevention programs in local schools -- listing 069-278.
General store volunteer -- someone to work in the shop in a chronic care health care centre, with shifts available weekdays, Thursday evenings and weekend afternoons -- listing 024-141.
Receptionist -- three to four hours a week, for an agency that helps cancer patients and their families -- listing 09-1919.

For more information, the VAC can be reached at 742-8610.

Some notes from other campuses

Trent University has found a big name to serve for a year as its interim president. Taking that role will be David Smith, former principal of Queen's University and more recently head of the "Smith panel" on post-secondary education in Ontario. An announcement from the chair of Trent's board of governors says he will serve for a year, starting July 1. Trent's president, two vice-presidents and dean have all resigned or said they will leave by the end of June, in the wake of administrative turmoil and a painful faculty strike.

The strike of professors and librarians at York University is still going on. With the originally scheduled end of the academic year at hand, students are scattering, many of them uncertain about graduation, summer jobs and transcripts, and York has set up a Canada-wide toll-free number -- (888) 530-7787 -- for student inquiries. The university's board of governors had a meeting scheduled yesterday, and announced that it was being moved from the usual venue to an undisclosed location, to avoid "disruption" of the kind that happened at a senate executive committee meeting last Thursday.

The Technical University of Nova Scotia was merged on April 1 with Dalhousie University, and has found a new name for itself: Dalhousie University Polytechnic, or DalTech for short. "There is fascinating potential in our future venture together," says Ted Rhodes, formerly of UW, who was president of TUNS and becomes principal of DalTech. TUNS territory along Halifax's Barrington Street is now "the Sexton campus", named for F. H. Sexton, who was principal of Nova Scotia Technical College from 1907 to 1947.

Finally . . . this is progress?

Got a stimulating note here from Walter McCutchan of information systems and technology, a.k.a. the Duke of URL, who takes gentle issue with something I said in the April 21 Bulletin. He writes: "I'd say that progress in the computing world is not a constant. I would say change is. Maybe I'm just an old cynic, but I have seen far too many changes that are sold as progress but aren't to let your statement stand. Some change is progress, that I concede. Computing may be no worse in the failure of change to equal progress than in other fields, that I might concede. I won't, however, concede that 'progress in the computing world is constant'."

CAR

TODAY IN UW HISTORY April 29, 1993: In response to the Ontario government's Social Contract, May 1 pay increases for staff and faculty members are cancelled.

Editor of the Daily Bulletin: Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
credmond@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca -- (519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
Comments to the editor | About the Bulletin | Yesterday's Bulletin
Copyright © 1997 University of Waterloo