Daily Bulletin

University of Waterloo -- Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

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Friday, August 29, 1997

The end of the summer

The Labour Day weekend is at hand, making today the last day of work for thousands of co-op students on spring work terms -- from Kathy Grant right in Needles Hall, to denizens of IBM and the federal government. When we get back to campus on Tuesday (or Monday, as the case may be) the fall term will be starting, with some 4,000 bright new faces on campus. Orientation activities run Monday through Saturday, and classes begin September 8.

Monday's a holiday, but things will be hopping at the north end of campus as newcomers (and some returning students, no doubt) move into Ron Eydt Village and Village I. A little of the getting-to-know-you bustle has already taken place, at Student Life 101 on August 11. For exactly that reason, the traditional parents' reception on Labour Day "has been scaled down", says Kelly Foley in the student services office, "to a very informal mixer with light refreshment at the Ron Eydt Village cafeteria. There won't be any displays, but there will be a few people around to chat with parents and answer any questions that come up."

Monday night, Villagers are invited to a special show at REV by well-known hypnotist Mike Mandel. (No outsiders are welcome; the church colleges have their own social events planned, and off-campus residents are invited instead to a show by Theatre on the Edge in Davis Centre room 150.)

Orientation highlights later in the week include the usual things -- barbecues, concerts, games (the engineering "Scunt", or scavenger hunt, is Wednesday), productions of "Single and Sexy", service activities, and paperwork. Social events have been cleared out of the Friday daytime hours to make time for "Admin/Down Day": relaxation, library tours, the English Language Proficiency Examination.

Registration runs Tuesday through Friday -- at the Physical Activities small gymnasium for undergraduates, at the Needles Hall cashiers' office (as usual) for graduate students.

On the holiday weekend

To repeat the obvious: Monday, September 1, is Labour Day in Ontario, and so a holiday for UW staff and faculty. Offices and most services will be closed.

Here, so far as I have them, are specifics of what's in operation at Waterloo this weekend:

UW police: on duty 24 hours as always, 888-4911.
Student Life Centre: open 24 hours, turnkey desk 888-4434.
Library: closed Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
Maintenance emergencies: phone ext. 3793, 24 hours a day.
Computer networks: call helpdesk, 888-4839, to report major outages. "If the outage has a severe impact on the university computing environment and the appropriate facility-support personnel can be contacted, the problem will be addressed; otherwise, it will be pursued Tuesday morning."
Computing Help and Information Place (888-4357): open Saturday 9 a.m. to 7:45 p.m., closed Sunday and Monday.
Bookstore and UW Shop: closed Saturday, Sunday, Monday.
Graphics Express: closed Saturday, Sunday, Monday.
Food services: all outlets closed, until the Village cafeterias get going to feed the hungry hordes moving in.

A few other news notes

Jo Ann Chesher, supervisor of cashiers, reports that pay cheques that are normally available for pickup at the cashiers' office in Needles Hall -- cheques from the casual payroll and such -- will instead be available at the finance office in East Campus Hall, starting next week "until further notice. Due to the lines for registration, we hope this will help to speed things up."

Wilfrid Laurier University has a new president just in time for the new term. Bob Rosehart, formerly head of Lakehead University, takes office September 1. His first duty: to staff a lemonade stand at WLU's orientation check-in on Labour Day morning.

The University of Victoria -- which emphasizes its role in Asian-Canadian relations -- had been hoping to give an honorary degree to Jiang Zemin, president of China, in November. Yesterday the Chinese government announced that Jiang wouldn't be coming to UVic, because of a "busy schedule" during his planned visit to Canada. The honorary degree, approved by the UVic senate last week by a vote of 26-9, led to immediate protests. "We're outraged," said a student union spokesman. "We hope the senate will have the good sense, the common sense, to rescind the decision." President David Strong commented that recognition from a Canadian university might actually offer support for human rights reforms in China, rather than rewarding repression.

Waterloo Web site of the day

Today we wind up the summer-long "site of the day" series. My thanks to the web page creators whose work has been featured through July and August, to others who provided information that for one reason or another wasn't used, to everyone who suggested pages for the series, and to readers who responded with comments -- including somebody who finally zeroed in on a functioning URL for Canada's Wonderland.

INTERACTIVE LEARNING
http://watserv1.uwaterloo.ca/~tcarey/main.html

It's definitely a "course page", but it might take a little imagination to tell what the course is about. IS stands for Independent Studies, and IS301A is "a project course, in which teams of students work with faculty to design new learning activities using interactive multimedia". Its sequel, IS302A, being taught this summer, is also "a project based course, in which teams of students work with faculty and staff to design new learning activities utilizing the internet as the main medium".

Tom Carey, of UW's teaching resource office, is the key figure, and explains a bit more:

It is a course page, but not an exemplar of a course web because it is an individualized project course and as such a bit ad hoc. What is worth noting is that a number of the students who took the course are now employed during the summer under funding from the federal government's student careers program, working with faculty to build the courseware designed in the course in Winter semester. We will be running the course again in the Fall and Winter.

The page is seeking to attract both students and faculty members to be involved in finding a multimedia solution to "an instructional challenge in one of your courses". Anyone interested can get in touch with Carey through the teaching resource office. The site includes pointers to a couple of sample problems Carey helped deal with in a similar course at the University of Guelph.

CAR

TODAY IN UW HISTORY August 29, 1994: Leo Jabs completes his last shift after 28 years as a stationary engineer in UW's central plant.

August 30, 1961: An agreement is signed to transfer 23 acres of UW's land to St. Jerome's, Renison, Conrad Grebel and St. Paul's United Colleges.

August 31, 1984: UW takes ownership of the Waterloo Manufacturing property at 263 Phillip Street, soon to be renamed East Campus 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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