Daily Bulletin

Serious talk about higher fees

The occasion was a meeting of the senate finance committee, which couldn't take more than a vague look at the 1998-99 university budget because there are still too many unknowns. Provost Jim Kalbfleisch did say it looks to him as though the university will have to find another $7 million in the coming year to cover expected salary increases and other new costs, including a desperately needed 6 per cent hike in what's spent on library materials.

Government grants are frozen for the year, and a 10 per cent tuition fee increase would provide a little less than $4 million in money that UW can actually spend. "We're going to have to ask for the full 10 per cent," Kalbfleisch warned, and that won't solve the whole problem.

The big question is what the Ontario government meant when it said that fees in "professional" programs will be "deregulated", allowing increases higher than 10 per cent. Which students does that label cover? How high can UW choose to raise their fees? And how big an increase would be wise?

"It's been an interesting few weeks in Deans' Council," said Kalbfleisch. "This is still very much a matter of discussion. My own position is that if we have room, we will have to take it." He spoke of an increase of "15 to 20 per cent" for fees in some programs. He also noted that administrators haven't even started talking to student leaders on the subject, as they're required to do before bringing proposed fee increases to the board of governors for approval.

David Burns, the dean of engineering, led the criticism of big fee increases, especially if it means that students in his faculty will end up paying more than students in equally expensive, but not "professional", science programs.

"Why are we doing it, other than expediency?" he asked. "I'm not sure why we'd increase engineering student fees, other than we'd like more money." Engineers would want to know, he said, how much of the extra fee they were paying was going back into improving the quality of their own education, rather than being soaked up by other parts of the university. In particular, Burns said, it is "grossly unfair" that the government requires 30 per cent of all new fee revenue to go into a university-wide pot for bursaries.

Beth Jewkes, an associate dean in engineering, asked Kalbfleisch and UW president James Downey what the effect might be if the university deliberately didn't start charging differential fees. "Well, there are budget consequences," said Downey mildly, and Kalbfleisch jumped in to add that there are going to be "budget consequences" anyway, with cuts a near certainty. Higher fees are "one step that might bring some relief", he said.

Downey told the meeting that the Ontario government clearly intends to "offload much of the responsibility for ensuring access" by pushing universities to raise fees and use some of the money for bursaries to help students who otherwise couldn't afford higher education. "The position of this university," he said, "has been that if you're going to deregulate, you should deregulate everything," so that fees could be set without producing the kind of unfairness Burns was describing.

But that's not going to happen, and Waterloo is waiting to see which programs will come in the "deregulation" category. "I think computer science will be deregulated," Downey predicted, but he doubts that the province will agree to deregulate fees in all co-op programs, as he has suggested.

Really, he said, he prefers "the old system", with "the provincial government providing a level of funding that will allow us to maintain quality", but those days are gone. Instead, Ontario government funding for universities has dropped 15 per cent in two years, while the average funding for public universities in the United States has gone up 11 per cent.

The situation is "desperate", said Downey, and it's too late to have qualms about taking money from students to preserve the quality of university education.

Federal budget aids education

Commentators are calling the budget, available on-line from Ottawa, "the education budget" for its emphasis on learning and technology. "People, regardless of their income level, who are serious about getting an education should have that opportunity," said Martin. Education almost overshadowed the other news in the budget, including minor tax cuts, bigger credits for child care costs, and the first balanced budget in thirty years.

There was also special funding for climate change research, which should come as good news to people in a special research centre at UW that, just by coincidence, is opening today.

Martin's help for students and young people entering the work force comes under the rubric of the Canada Opportunities Strategy, which includes the previously announced Millennium Scholarships. Here's a tidy summary of his measures, from this morning's Star:

• The Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation -- the largest investment ever made by Ottawa to higher education students -- which will provide a 10-year, $2.5 billion endowment fund to grant 100,000 scholarships a year to low- and middle-income students. The fund money will not be available until the year 2000.
• Canada Study Grants that give single-parent students, both full- and part-time, up to $3,000 per year in relief, out of the Canada Student Loans Program. . . .
• Individuals will be allowed to claim a 17 per cent federal tax credit on the interest portion of payments of federal and provincial student loans.
• Extension of the education tax credit to include 250,000 part-time students. . . .
• Beginning next year, Canadians will be allowed to withdraw, tax-free, from their RRSPs to support full-time education and training for themselves or a spouse. . . .
• A revamped Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) where money invested can grow, tax-free, until the child is ready to go on to post-secondary education. It will include a new program, called the Canada Education Savings Grant. For every dollar invested up to $2,000 a year, the federal government will provide a grant equal to 20 per cent of the total.
• The elimination of employment insurance premiums paid by employers who create jobs for Canadians between the ages of 18 and 24.

Global warming researchers are here

EARG's arrival in the faculty of environmental studies "has raised the profile of the climate change issue on campus and is creating new opportunities for collaborative research," says Jean Andrey of the department of geography, who played a major role in bringing EARG to UW. There are also EARG branches at the University of Toronto and University of British Columbia.

EARG's grand opening event today is being held in conjunction with the Soil and Water Conservation Society (Ontario Chapter) annual meeting. The morning events, with a $40 admission charge (students free), take place in the Davis Centre. Topics include the impacts of climate change on hydrology, agriculture and water resources. The keynote address will be presented by Jim Bruce, a former assistant deputy minister with Environment Canada.

The afternoon presentations are free, and will be held in Environmental Studies I room 132. Dave Etkin of EARG will address natural hazards and climate change, and Ian Burton, also of EARG, will discuss adaptation to climate change. An open house and poster display will follow in the ES1 foyer until 4:30.

Issues related to the work of EARG were aired at a symposium held in Toronto in the last week of November. The "Canada Country Study Symposium" was held to review findings of the first-ever national assessment of the social, biological and economic impacts of climate change on Canadians.

Andrey, who was the lead author on the transportation sector report of the Study, told the symposium that global warming would reduce overall transportation costs in Canada because of shorter and less harsh winters. In the north, however, winter transportation costs might be increased, and unstable permafrost would mean higher maintenance costs for roads and railways.

The shipping season, she said, could lengthen for areas that currently have to contend with sea ice for all or part of the year. A rise in sea level would mean deeper drafts in harbours and channels -- but it would also bring significant damage to the infrastructure along Canada's Atlantic and Arctic coasts. Projected reduction of water levels on the Great Lakes, she said, "will generally translate into significant negative impacts for commercial navigation".

Another speaker was Geoff Wall, also of the geography department, who gave the symposium a review of how climate change might affect tourism and recreation. "The length of the operating season is of crucial importance" for tourist businesses, he noted. "Any changes in season length would have considerable implications." For example, boating on the Great Lakes could suffer serious damage, and so would downhill and cross-country skiing.

A third speaker was Linda Mortsch, then of Environment Canada, who has recently come to UW, and who was co-author of the report's section on water resources: "There will be increased demand for water at a time when there are declines in streamflow, lake levels and groundwater in many areas of Canada."

The undergrad calendar is out

There are no completely new academic programs, although I notice that "Legal Studies" is now "Legal Studies and Criminology". But there are new courses listed, old courses gone, new faculty members appearing and old ones missing, and various updates to the fine print. Among the new features inside the book: a regional map that shows where Kitchener-Waterloo is relative to Thunder Bay, Montréal, Cleveland and Chicago.

Registered students and alumni are entitled to one free 1998-1999 calendar during the period March 1998 to March 1999, says Bonnie Bender of the registrar's office. "Please present your WatCard at the registrar's office to obtain your free copy. If you need another one for any reason during this period, you will have to purchase it at the UW bookstore." The price is $7 plus GST.

The Web version of the 1998-1999 undergraduate calendar will be available in the next couple of weeks, Bender says.

The talk of the campus

People have been asking what was the very last book added to the library's Watcat, the soon-to-be-obsolete electronic catalogue. (Trellis, a joint database with Wilfrid Laurier and the University of Guelph, will come on line in April.) I asked Linda Teather of the library staff, and she had the answer. The last new record in Watcat was for the 1931 edition of The Dancing Master by Pierre Rameau, just added to the rare books room in the Dana Porter Library.

In the Films for Awareness series sponsored by peace and conflict studies, tonight's showing (7 p.m., Conrad Grebel College room 156) is "Never-Endum Referendum", about the jockeying between federalists and separatists in Québec.

Members of UW's team head off for Atlanta tonight to take part in Saturday's ACM programming contest. Hopes are high, says coach Gordon Cormack, after practice sessions in which Christopher Hendrie, Derek Kisman and David Kennedy did well in simulated competition against other universities.

Tomorrow morning at 10:30, T. C. Lethbridge of the University of Ottawa will speak on "A Survey of the Relevance of Computer Science and Software Engineering Education". He's sponsored by the computer science department. Location: Davis Centre room 1302.

A rally against Canadian involvement in the possible war against Iraq -- which seems a bit less likely after yesterday's good news -- is scheduled for tomorrow at 12 noon in the Student Life Centre. Abe Elmasry of the electrical and computer engineering department -- a prominent figure among Canadian Muslims -- will speak. A march will follow, to the office of local Member of Parliament Andrew Telegdi.

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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