Daily Bulletin

University of Waterloo -- Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

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Tuesday, February 18, 1997

Budget night in Ottawa

Paul Martin, the federal minister of finance, will deliver a budget in the House of Commons at 4:30 this afternoon -- a pre-election budget in which he's expected to do some spending. "Martin will ignore opposition demands for across-the-board tax cuts," says the Star this morning, "in favor of additional federal support for child poverty programs, job creation, health care, universities and hi-tech research and development."

Universities? That's certainly the hope of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. "We expect an announcement regarding university research infrastructure," says a briefing sent to university leaders late last week. "Infrastructure" would mean money for buildings (conceivably including UW's proposed Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering), equipment and other things on which research depends.

The AUCC also says it's expecting renewal of funding for the Networks of Centres of Excellence, research centres supported by Ottawa, and essentially level funding for the research granting councils.

"Press reports have consistently indicated that there will be some new student aid money in next week's budget," the AUCC briefing goes on, "but it is likely to come largely in the form of tax breaks rather than new spending initiatives. We believe that the focus will be RESPs, and new measures to make them a more attractive vehicle for savings. . . . There may be some measures aimed at current students as well, possibly the inclusion of ancillary fees within the tuition fee tax credit and possibly the introduction of a carry-forward mechanism on unused education and tuition tax credits. In the best case scenario, the minister will also announce that these measures will be followed by new measures to ease loan repayment in future years."

The AUCC is also looking for new tax rules about charitable gifts that might make it easier for universities to attract large donations.

Engineers rule the province

Waterloo engineering students had almost a clean sweep in the Ontario Engineering Competition, held at McMaster University in Hamilton last weekend. The event involved students from all 13 engineering schools in the province and saw UW entries take first place in four of six categories.

"It's going to cost me a fortune," says David Burns, dean of engineering, who sounded pretty proud yesterday even though he's on the hook for paying the winners' expenses to the national competition in Moncton at the end of the month.

The UW winners:

In Corporate Design, UW's Leif Bloomquist, systems design engineering, came out on top with his entry, "Navigation System for Robotic Mining Vehicles." The category challenged students to develop a solution to a problem currently faced by industry.
In Editorial Communications, first place went to UW engineering student Tonya Sulley, with her entry, "The Release of Biologically Engineered Micro-organisms into Our Environment." Competitors examined the social, economic, and environmental impacts of a current technological issue.
UW's Kenneth Yip, electrical engineering, was second in the same category, with "To Embrace the Next Generation Wireless Communication Technology More Cautiously."
First place in Explanatory Communications went to UW student Chris McRaild, systems design engineering, with "Personal Communications Services: The Next Wave in Telecom for the Masses." Competitors had to explain a complicated issue or process to a non-technical audience.
In the Parliamentary Debate category, UW won with Doug Suerich, and Ritcha Gupta, both systems design engineering students. Another UW team, with Jason Worry, systems design engineering, and Michael Worry, electrical engineering, was third. Debaters had to present a well-formulated argument after only a 15-minute preparation time.
In Entrepreneurial Design, a UW team won second place with an entry called "Aqua Flow." Competitors designed a marketable product or service currently unavailable in Canada, combining both technical feasibility and innovation with a solid marketing plan. The four team members -- Mark Phillips, Joyce Liu, Siva Sanmoga and Mamon Rashid -- also won the Canadian Industrial Innovation Centre award for their entry.

Work begins in ECH

Renovations got started in East Campus Hall on schedule yesterday, says David Churchill of the plant operations department. The job is being done by Sax Construction and is expected to take six weeks, he reports. Churchill notes that the departments affected -- finance and purchasing -- are working in temporary quarters, and the moves went well:

They are either content or are too busy to complain. Purchasing are in the former ECH dance offices, Finance is partly in Math and Computer and partly in the lower floor of the ECH office wing. Payroll of course has already moved permanently to GSC. The co-operation and tolerance has been great considering the disruption involved. Stores; IST, both phones and computer wiring; and the contractors and Plant Operations crews doing temporary alterations; all came through and did an excellent job.

Just a few other notes

The co-op department -- busy this week, even if it is "reading break", with employer interviews -- reminds students about several presentations that are scheduled for next Tuesday. Titles include "Introduction to Self-Assessment", "Researching Occupations", and "Information Interview". There are sign-up sheets outside the career resource centre on the first floor of Needles Hall.

Health services will be closed this morning, opening at 1 p.m.

A talk on engineering education is scheduled for 2:00 this afternoon in Engineering II room 1307C. The speaker is Jim Tien of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, whose topic is "Individual-Centered Education". Says an abstract of his talk: "The traditional structure of engineering education remains, even though current exigencies require a fundamental restructuring. . . . This paper proposes to restructure the very nature of how higher education is delivered -- from a group-centered activity to an individual-centered approach that would allow any one to access educational material or multimedia courseware at any time from anywhere."

At last report, there was just one sit-in continuing, of the three that began on Ontario campuses last week to protest tuition fee increases. The first such occupation, at the University of Toronto's Simcoe Hall, ended late in the week, and the occupation of the president's office at York University came to an end Sunday morning after university police told the demonstrators what would happen if they didn't leave. An occupation of the president's office in the University Centre at the University of Guelph is still going on.

CAR

TODAY IN UW HISTORY
February 18, 1980: Frank H. Epp, history professor and former president of Conrad Grebel College, is the unsuccessful Liberal candidate for Parliament from Waterloo, in an election in which Pierre Trudeau unseats Joe Clark as prime minister.

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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