Daily Bulletin

Tuesday, July 29, 1997

OSAP squeezes co-op students

Under the new rules, single dependent students are expected to be living at home during their work terms. As a result, the expected work term contribution has increased, says Charlene Shaw, coordinator of student financial aid at UW. Whereas, in the past , the minimum expected contribution from "pre-study period" income (which includes work terms) was $1,120, single dependent students will now be expected to contribute a minimum of $2,087 to their education expenses.

"It's unrealistic to expect students to gain employment where their parents live," said Shaw. "You get work where you can." She is participating in an appeal launched by the Ontario Association of Financial Aid Administrators to have the government change the regulation. They're hoping to have a change made by the end of the summer, but there has been no response so far from the education ministry.

One student worried about the change is Carrie Warner, a co-op student in English, who discovered in a recent visit to the OSAP online site that she was eligible for "a whopping $400" loan for the fall term. "Many of us co-op students are scared," she said. "We simply won't have the money to pay our tuition." In the past, she has been eligible to borrow between $1,000 and $1,700 per term from OSAP.

During this work term, not only was she living away from home in Toronto, where expenses are relatively high, but since her father died less than a year ago, she has also been trying to assist her mother financially. It wasn't until the end of July -- near the end of her work term -- that she learned the rules had changed. Warner had already planned to work part time during the fall term and apply for bursaries to help meet expenses, but now she may try to squeeze in additional work between the end of her work term and the beginning of classes in September.

"It isn't looking good," she says.

Under the new OSAP regulations, part-time students -- those taking less than a 60 per cent course load, at UW less than 1.5 credits per term -- are no longer eligible for OSAP at all. While they may apply for student aid through the Part-Time Canada Student Loan Program and the Special Opportunity Grant for High Need Part-Time Students, the loans will cover direct educational costs only, including tuition, compulsory fees, a book allowance and small miscellaneous allowance. Rent, food, clothing and other living expenses are not covered.

Paper on research is published

No one can say precisely what is the appropriate balance between basic and applied research, and the distinction between the two is often blurred. Both are important for advanced studies and economic development, but there is a growing concern that capacity for basic research has been weakened unduly and needs strengthening.

There is a type of research, labelled here as "integrative/interpretive", that should be recognized as an essential activity of university professors. Its support must come primarily from the operating budgets of universities, but wider recognition of its importance should extend beyond university governance bodies to public awards.

An appropriate balance of research activity across the spectrum of intellectual inquiry needs to be maintained. . . .

Support for externally sponsored research in the universities should normally include overhead costs. In the case of the federal granting councils this coverage has not occurred and is unlikely to occur in the near term. To reduce the distorting effects and to provide incentives for Ontario to draw a fair share of the federal awards, supplementary overhead funds need to be distributed, in larger amounts than is currently the case, but still on the basis of success in peer adjudicated competitions. The erosion of the base operations of universities at this time makes all the more important the need for additional funds rather than re-allocated funds to resolve this problem.

CHIP off the old bloc

"The goal of the CHIP is to provide in one location a variety of helpful services designed to meet the various computing needs of students, faculty and staff at the University of Waterloo," says Bob Hicks of IST, who offers more information:

The CHIP has two area, the Help Desk and General Services. The Help Desk tracks and resolves problems, provides software consultations, and is a hardware repair dropoff and pickup facility. The Help Desk phone extension is now 4357 (HELP). General Services is the place you go for dialup server accounts, site licensed software, colour printing and much more.

During the summer we will be making a number of improvements to our facilities, including . . .

• new PCs connected to Polaris for printing;
• new PCs for faster, easier ftp;
• automating the process of adding funds to your dialup server and printing accounts;
• a smaller room (located beside the CHIP), called the "microCHIP", that will have extended hours for printing, scanning and ftp. A Help Desk advisor will be available until 10:00 p.m. Monday to Thursday, in the fall term to help with problems.

And these two other notes

The physics department presents a talk by A. W. P. Fung of Bell Laboratories, today at 3:00 in Physics room 308. Topic: "Organic Thin-Film Transistors: Science and Technology". . . .

Waterloo Web site of the day

Here's a new site -- "so recent", says UW safety director Kevin Stewart, "that it appears in draft form and we encourage feedback on its content." It includes information that lab users need to have about such topics as spills, chemical data sheets, compressed gases, fume hoods, radiation safety and lasers.

Says Stewart:

The health and safety program manual development on the Web was initiated to provide current health and safety info to all members of the campus community. The hard copy versions of UW's manual had become somewhat outdated and it was a logistical problem ensuring that info was current. Intention with the web documents is to allow persons to verify they have relevant info rather than perhaps having a paper copy of document that includes outdated procedures. Of course paper copies are still needed for many areas and they will continue to be available on request to Safety Office.

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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