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Daily Bulletin

Friday, January 23, 1998

University of Waterloo • Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
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New co-op system is on the way

A new, web-based computer system being produced for UW's co-op department will simplify things for both students and employers when it's introduced a year from now, the department is promising.

"The new system will take advantage of new World Wide Web-based technology," says Olaf Naese of co-op education and career services. The existing system dates from 1988, before the world was Webbed. He adds: "Current systems are inadequate to meet CECS demands today, not to mention demands arising through the turn of the century. In addition, the old system functions are outdated and subject to daily maintenance problems which affect both students and employers."

Among the features of the planned new system: students will submit job applications on-line; job postings and interview schedules will be available for students to view on the web; employers can use the web to submit jobs and provide interview information; employers will be able to view student applications and interview schedules on the web; students and employers will be able to rank each other via the web following the interview.

The project is a partnership among Academic Software Incorporated, UW's information systems and technology department, and CECS. "Although the project will commit services from within CECS, a high level of attention to the core needs of our students and employers will be maintained," Naese says. "Full implementation is expected during the 1999 winter term."

Anyone interested in learning more about the ASI Project is invited to attend an open house on Friday, February 6, at 10 a.m. in Davis Centre room 1304.

Driving instructions: step one

A graduate student who attempted to drive down the stairs from Hagey Hall to the Ring Road Wednesday evening will be billed for "services provided" when a tow truck was called to winch the car off the stairs.

According to Elaine Koolstra, manager of parking services, the gate to the Hagey Hall service area, where the car was parked, was locked as usual around 6 p.m. The student, discovering her car was trapped inside the service area, decided to exit via the stairs, but the car's undercarriage became stuck on the first step. The car was not damaged.

Occasionally people find their vehicles stuck behind locked gates and simply phone UW police to let them out, said Koolstra. No fine is assessed. "I'm not sure what this person was thinking."

Earlier admissions next year

Would-be students may get the good news from university admissions offices as early as mid-March next year, under new rules approved by the Council of Ontario Universities. It's "the first major change" in university admissions in Ontario in at least 25 years, says UW's director of admissions, Peter Burroughs. Associate deans of UW's faculties will meet next week to discuss the new rules and how UW will respond to them.

All students looking for first-year university admission in the province do their paperwork through the Ontario Universities Application Centre, and universities honour a single deadline date, June 10, before which they can't make offers of admission. That will change starting in 1999, as "universities are free to make an offer of admission to Ontario secondary school students at any time following the completion of the first semester, and upon the receipt from OUAC of all relevant information."

The high school semester ends in late January. OUAC is expected to deliver applicants' names to the universities to the end of January, with first-semester marks following by March 10. UW can then, if it wants to, start making early "conditional" offers of admission to students. Conditional offers can be turned into firm ones -- or rescinded -- in August when students' OAC marks are available.

Burroughs says UW is likely to make admissions offers in March and April for some programs, in parts of arts and science, but not for programs where there's more intense competition and the admissions committee can't know from one year to the next whether the cutoff mark is going to be 85, 87 or 89. Mid-term marks from second-semester high school courses will reach the universities in early May, and that's when the intense work of admissions to the more competitive programs will be taking place. Besides mid-term marks, admissions committees typically look at such other information as scores on the Descartes math competition, details provided on UW's own admission information forms, and sometimes personal interviews.

Under the new rules, universities can't "encourage or compel" a student to reply to an offer of admission before June 1, although students are free to say yes if they want to. Meanwhile, they "could conceivably have up to three months in which to

make a decision regarding their university education", says Bonnie Patterson, president of COU. They could make campus visits and find out more about the institutions during that time. Some students might even know whether UW is interested in them before they attend the Campus Day open house that's traditionally held during March break. (Campus Day this spring will be March 17.)

Notes on a winter weekend

It's snowy today, but not hard enough for the gate arms on the parking lots to be kept open, let alone to close things down. It does provide an opportunity, though, for a reminder of what will happen if the big storm does come. According to UW's storm closing procedure, the university will close iff the Waterloo County Board of Education closes all its schools. (The WCBE is now the Waterloo Region District School Board, by the way.)

The athletics department will hold its annual Hall of Fame Dinner on Saturday night in South Campus Hall. Four people are being inducted into UW's athletics hall of fame this year:

UW's Alzheimer Education and Research Project is much involved in the Walk for Memories event -- a fundraiser sponsored by the Alzheimer Society of Kitchener-Waterloo. It's a two-hour indoor walk at Fairview Park Mall, starting at 9 a.m. Sunday. Information: 742-1422.

Home sports events this weekend include basketball games on Saturday in the PAC (Athenas at 12 noon, Warriors at 2:00), and a Warrior volleyball match against McMaster, tonight at 8:00.

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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