Daily Bulletin

Tuesday, August 12, 1997

Premiers urged to tackle student debt

In a letter to the first ministers who attended the annual premiers' conference this month in New Brunswick, the group of seven national postsecondary education organizations termed rising student debt "a very serious social, economic and political issue in Canada," and called upon the premiers to:

• Provide grants for students who are single parents
• Create a system of grants for low-income first and second-year undergraduate students
• Extend work-study programs
• Reduce student debts through deferred grants and extended and expanded interest relief

The groups warned of dire consequences unless measures are enacted to "assist students before, during and after their studies through grants, tax assistance and work experience....

"Should we fail in this most important of our endeavours, the disparities between rich and poor will continue to grow, our very ability to support our social and economic structures will be jeopardized, and the uncertainty and pessimism with which so many Canadians approach the future will continue to grow unabated".

Joining in the appeal were the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, the Association of Canadian Community Colleges, Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, Canadian Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, Canadian Association of University Teachers, Canadian Federation of Students and Canadian Graduate Council.

Finite fielders converge on UW

Fq4, as it is known to aficionados, is being hosted this year by the combinatorics and optimization department, faculty of mathematics, and UW, with speakers attending from the United States, Scotland, Austria and Germany. Among the topics of discussion: structures of finite fields, explicit constructions of finite fields, arithmetical theory of function fields over finite fields, sequences over finite fields.

Previous conferences have been held in Las Vegas and Glasgow.

Problems conference needs solution

A conference designed to help high school math instructors teach problem-solving skills has been cancelled due to insufficient enrolment.

Sponsored by the Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing, the Problems Conference '97 was due to open today at the UW Conference Centre and run until Saturday.

The first Problems conference, held at UW last summer, was a success, according to Centre director Gordon Nicholls, who plans to try again next summer with "a new format we hope will be more appealing to people."

Memorial service for UW music student

Daciw was riding his bike near the intersection of Columbia and Holly Streets in Waterloo at 1:30 p.m. when the collision occurred. He was not wearing a helmet. First admitted to Grand River Health Centre, he was transferred to Hamilton General Hospital, where he died of severe head and neck injuries.

The memorial service is being organized by chaplains, students, faculty and friends from Conrad Grebel and St. Jerome's Colleges.

On a cool and cloudy August day

Compu-scape, the satellite computer store in the Student Life Centre, takes a summer break from today until September 2, but the Computer Store (MC 2018) remains open with reduced prices or rebates on a number of items, including the IBM ThinkPad 380D and the PowerMac 4400 and 6500.

Waterloo Web site of the day

"There's not much to say about the page," says David Simser -- formerly of the software engineering group at UW, now making an honest living at Mitel in Kanata. Not much to say: but a picture is worth a thousand words, so this Web site amounts to a novel, or at least a substantial short story.

It's the story of a trip the SWEN gang took, one day in 1995, to Paramount Canada's Wonderland, the north-of-Toronto amusement park to which all roads lead:

We decided to record the events on our Web page. Originally, the page was only intended for our own personal use, but some people from outside of the group wanted to see the pictures, so we opened the page up to the public. Ever since, the page has become quite popular, but I expect that it is mainly due to people searching for information on Canada's Wonderland. In fact, I have had several comments to the effect of: "I'm having problems connecting to the Canada's Wonderland site. Can you help?"

Barbara Elve
bmelve@nh4.adm.uwaterloo.ca

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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