Daily Bulletin

Thursday, July 3, 1997

Waterloo enters its fifth decade

Completely meaningless coincidence: there's another educational institution that can also date its founding to July 3, 1957, namely the Correction Academy of the City of New York.

Co-op students face reality

"We're dealing with the real world out there," says Keith Kenning, associate co-op director of field services. "We tell students, 'If you run into any problems, get in touch with us'. We advise students of their options, then leave the decision to them," he added. "Each situation is unique."

In the event of a strike, students may decide whether to cross the picket line. When there is civil unrest in a foreign country, a student may opt to stay at the placement or return home.

"If the work term credit is in jeopardy when a placement is disrupted early in the term, we try to arrange an alternative placement," said Kenning. For now, Gandalf students are back on the job, and co-op officials expect business as usual in Hong Kong, he added, although the changes may affect the next group of students due to head out. "Current visas are still being honoured."

Latest word from the co-op department is that 3,435 students have co-op jobs this term, while 208 students who wanted jobs didn't find them. That's a 93.94 per cent placement rate, a little below the rate of 94.35 per cent last year (when 3,240 students got jobs and 183 didn't).

Hundreds of students will find out next Monday where they'll be working in the fall term, as student and employer ranking forms are to be matched by a computer process over the weekend. Meanwhile, students who didn't get interviews earlier this term, or who weren't ranked by employers, should turn their eyes to Needles Hall again, as the first "continuous phase" listing of jobs will be available at noon today.

This week's staff job listings

• Building serviceperson II (painter), plant operations.
• Senior architectural technologist, plant operations, grade USG 8.
• Programming assistant, office of ethical behaviour and human rights, one-year position (will consider a secondment).

Listen for the fire alarm

The rest of the story

Conferences continue in the Ron Eydt Village conference centre. Several groups of hockey players, trainers and referees have come through in the past few days, and arriving today are some 350 participants in a youth conference of the Presbyterian Church in Canada.

"Does spending a week with 12,000 young people between the ages of 11 and 17 sound like fun?" asks Doug Mulholland of UW's computer systems group. "If so, the upcoming Scouts Canada Jamboree in Thunder Bay from July 12-20 is the place to be. Several UW members will be travelling with their youth groups to attend this event." Among them: Mulholland himself, and Scott Davis of the co-op department. "To help raise travel money, a painting has been donated to Doug and Scott's group and is on display at the University Club. Asking price is $395, including a charitable receipt for $95." He notes that the jamboree theme is "Wake the Giant!" and adds, "Can't say for sure how much sleep anyone will get during that week."

This week's excitement on the third floor of Needles Hall involves a squirrel that's appeared in the enclosed patio area, having climbed in over the roof, and that now can't scrabble up the plate-glass windows to make its escape. Unsuccessful attempts were made yesterday to trap it, or to chase it up a ramp of planks onto the roof again. This morning it's munching on crackers that sympathetic NH staff have provided, and somebody's going to call in the professionals to make a rescue.

Waterloo Web site of the day

Marj Kohli, of the information systems and technology staff, is among thousands of Canadians caught up in the search for roots and ancestors. The growth of genealogy as a study and hobby is obvious in the wealth of listings she's provided on her web page -- from the Ontario Cemetery Finding Aid to specialized sites about Jewish, Acadian and Italian genealogy.

The site, Kohli says, "is used by a great number of people and is linked to by 20-30 other web pages (including the National Archives of Canada)". Its most popular single feature is a section headed "Young Immigrants to Canada", she explains:

These pages deal with the immigration of children to Canada from 1833-1939. This was a time when children between 2 years and into the late teens were brought to Canada and placed out for adoption or as labourers on farms, domestics, factory workers and some young women worked as cooks in lumber camps. It includes the children known as "home children" as well as those who came from workhouses, reformatories and industrial schools, and many other organizations.

I have received mail from people across Canada, the USA and Britain about this topic. Some of the mail comes from organizations who were involved in the movement and who still exist today while some is from the children themselves or their descendants. Estimates of the number of children who came to Canada in this way are between 100,000 and 125,000. It is also estimated that well over 1,000,000 Canadians can trace their roots to one of these children. I have been researching this topic for several years now and hope in future to have it published.

CAR

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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