Daily Bulletin

SL 101 earlier next year

Designed to familiarize new students and their parents with UW before September, Student Life 101 provides an opportunity to meet people at UW, including academic advisors and staff from a variety of departments, learn about student services, and tour the campus. The full-day event was topped off with a barbecue at Federation Hall.

Some 50 student and staff volunteers rolled out the welcome mat to convey Waterloo as "warm and welcoming". In addition, staff and faculty wearing yellow "Ask me!" buttons helped answer questions and point visitors in the right direction.

Although the clean-up for the event is still underway, plans for next year's Student Life 101 are already being discussed, says Scott. This year, activities began at 9 a.m. and ran through 6 p.m. -- a change from the noon to 8 p.m. schedule the first year. However, fewer folks stayed for the barbecue, so organizers are considering moving it up to noon next year.

It's also likely the event will be scheduled a week later next year, she adds, to ensure that students' schedules are available to allow them to shop for books. This year, because of the huge chemistry conference scheduled for August 9-13, Student Life 101 was held a week earlier.

Phone books, and other news

Here's a reminder that the information systems and technology department is offering four computing courses in August to UW faculty, staff and students: Administering Your Windows 95 System (today); Manipulating Lists in Excel (August 12); Using the Slide Show Feature in PowerPoint (August 19); Introduction to WordPerfect V8 (August 20). There is still room in all of these courses, says Bob Hicks of IST. More information about the courses, including the registration form, can be found on the web.

"The creation of a national swim centre" is to be announced today at a 2:30 news conference. It's happening at the athletic complex of Wilfrid Laurier University, well-known for its Olympic-sized pool, but an advance announcement says "the area's two universities" -- that means Laurier and UW -- are involved as well as Swimming Canada, Swim Ontario, local government and the famous Region of Waterloo Swim Club.

The department of statistics and actuarial science today hosts N. K. Mandal of Calcutta University, speaking (3:30, Math and Computer room 5158) on "De La Garza Phenomenon Revisited".

I didn't receive this week's positions available list in time to have it in the Bulletin on Wednesday, the usual date, but the list is now available. Here are the staff jobs it includes:

• Janitor, housing and residence operations, 12 midnight to 8 a.m.
• Janitor, housing and residence operations, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
• Acquisition team leader, finance, grade USG 6.
• Reimbursement specialist, finance, grade USG 5.
• I/O operator, information systems and technology, grade USG 4.
• Coordinator for Ontario Research and Development Fund and Canada Foundation for Innovation, research office, grade USG 8.
• Research hydrogeologist, earth sciences, grade USG 9.

The University of Windsor is doing just fine for national media coverage this week -- yesterday major attention to a breast cancer study in its nursing school, today a report on CBC radio about how the sagging value of the dollar is helping it attract more students from just across the United States border.

And . . . in yesterday's Bulletin I said that Ed Jernigan was associate dean (undergraduate) in the faculty of engineering. That may come as a surprise to Gerry Schneider, who's finishing his term as associate dean, and Wayne Loucks, who is about to take over. In fact, Jernigan is director of admissions for engineering.

University heads to meet in Ottawa

Waterloo's James Downey is serving this year as chair of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, which will hold its once-in-five-years General Conference in Ottawa, August 16-21. Keynote speaker for the event will be Julius Nyerere, former president of Tanzania, who is considered one of the towering figures of the (no longer just "British") Commonwealth.

The ACU represents the leaders of "468 member universities in 34 countries or regions of the Commonwealth" -- from 136 in India to one in Lesotho. Traditionally, much of its work involves administering scholarship programs, especially on behalf of the British government, and operating a recruiting service that finds professors for universities in developing countries. But in recent years, a Commonwealth Higher Education Management Service has been introduced, to do research and provide consulting help for institutions and governments.

"It's an organization that you don't belong to just because you get something out of it," says Downey, noting the various ways in which the ACU provides help to universities in the less-developed "south" from the experience of universities in such lands as Canada, Britain and Australia. However, "it does give you something: it gives you access to a world of experience." Canadian universities shouldn't see themselves solely in comparison to the United States, he suggests. "There may be other points of reference, other kinds of experience which are relevant."

Some 600 university presidents and other officials are expected at the Ottawa conference, which will address "Leadership and the Management of Change", looking at the role of universities in social, economic and technological change, and what kind of leadership can be of value.

UW web site of the day

Andrea McKenzie created this site when she was teaching English 208C last summer (in the intervals of being a mathematics lecturer and a PhD student in English), and says it was fun. ("And other people seem to enjoy it.")

It starts with a picture of Alice, the visitor to Wonderland, and has pretty much the links one would expect on a course page: Schedule, Assignments, Writings, Gallery, Kidstuff . . . "Kidstuff"? Yes; that would be a set of links to web sites for children, or for people who work with children. Among the possibilities there are the Nancy Drew Home Page and "Project Youth-Link" from the federal department of Canadian heritage. There's also a long list, arranged alphabetically by author, of web pages specifically about children's books, from the giant peach to the black cauldron.

Several essays by students in English 208C are also on the site, including one on "The History of Nursery Rhymes and Mother Goose". And there's a gallery of children's illustrations from old magazines (including some L.M. Montgomery covers and paintings by Arthur Rackham).

Says McKenzie: "The site design isn't great, but as I said, the students enjoyed it, and people from outside UW have sent comments."

CAR

Editor of the Daily Bulletin: Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
credmond@uwaterloo.ca | (519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
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