Daily Bulletin

Alicia Keursten, fourth-year psychology student, is spending the summer as a groundskeeper for St. Jerome's University. She tends one of the colourful flowerbeds at the college.

3,762 say yes to Waterloo

As of July 7, a total of 3,762 people had said they were coming as full-time first-year students in September. The target enrolment is 3,735.

The idea is to meet that target on November 1, after the inevitable adjustments and dropouts of September and October. Traditionally, some faculties -- especially arts -- gain from last-minute arrivals in September, while others -- especially engineering -- need extra students in September in order to make the November target after there's some attrition.

November targets and current confirmation figures for the six faculties: applied health sciences, 267 (335); arts, 1,002 (927); engineering, 750 (753); environmental studies, 281 (268); mathematics, 830 (914); science, 600 (562). The independent studies has a target of 5, and 3 confirmations so far. "These data," says the registrar's office, "do not include 114 applicants to year 2 who, by virtue of transfer credit assessment, will be confirming to year 1 programs."

Within faculties and even departments, there are big variations -- mechanical engineering and computer engineering each have 160 spaces to fill on November 1, but mechanical currently has 192 confirmations and computer engineering 153. Kinesiology will take 67 students in co-op and 67 in regular; so far there are 79 confirmations to regular and 99 to co-op.

Those who said no explain why

Survey forms went to 5,760 students who were admitted to Waterloo in the spring of 1997 and had said by mid-July that they were going to other universities or making other plans for September. Some 2,246 of them returned the questionnaires. A report on the findings has been issued by Tina Roberts, director of undergraduate student recruitment.

Survey of those who did come Results of a survey of last year's first-year students are to be presented at an open meeting on July 30, says Catharine Scott, associate provost (human resources and student services). Kelly Foley, who works for Scott as first-year experience coordinator, did a survey of all the residents of Ron Eydt Village -- some 900 first-year students -- in the second week of September, the first week of November and the last week of February. "These times," says Scott, "represent some important gateposts for first-year students -- the week after Orientation, the week before their first midterms in the Fall, and a few weeks after midterms in the Winter term. We wanted to find out when intervention by the University's multiple support services would be most helpful and what type of programming would assist these students as they encountered difficulties. "Students were asked questions about a variety of issues concerning their first year at university -- their major concerns, their confidence level in their academic choice, alcohol behaviour, to whom they went for help when worried or stressed, their confidence in approaching a faculty member for help, their attitudes about work, procrastination and home, etc."

She says these were the top five reasons students gave for not choosing Waterloo:

• Applicant did not receive a scholarship.
• UW is too far from home.
• Financial reasons prevented applicant from attending.
• UW's academic reputation is not as strong as the reputation of the school the applicant is attending.
• UW does not offer the applicant's program.

And since many students report financial problems, she says, there's also a need to provide financial planning information to students -- preferably before they get to their last year of high school and have only a few months to make their plans.

"For virtually all programs," she writes, "many applicants indicated that UW's distance from their home prevented them from attending the University of Waterloo. Additional research is needed to determine 'how far is too far' and if there are ways to overcome this obstacle."

As for other universities having better academic quality or reputation, "It is interesting to note that the three top Ontario competitors cited by applicants were the University of Toronto, Queen's University, and the University of Guelph. Applicants attending an institution outside of Ontario listed McGill University. Academic reputation is one of the most important university selection factors, and we should continue to promote our outstanding academic reputation in our promotional materials."

Other notes from the report: "Not being accepted into a co-op program was one of the main reasons why both Applied Health Sciences and Environmental Studies applicants declined our Offer of Admission. Since co-op has limited enrollment targets, it is important that we continue to promote the benefits of our regular system of study and show how these students are just as successful after graduation as co-op students. . . .

"In the past we have spent very little time promoting the benefits of living in a 'university town'. This year's view book will feature a two-page spread on the City of Waterloo. . . .

"Applied Health Sciences and Engineering applicants indicated that their perception that our students do not have time for a social life influenced them to decline our Offer of Admission. . . .

"The media regularly focuses on our technology-oriented programs, which at times overshadow some of our other programs. We are all working hard to present a balanced view of the strengths of our University and the variety and quality of the programs available to students."

A few announcements and notes

The Federation of Students will sponsor a forum on tuition fee issues tomorrow at 5 p.m. in Arts Lecture room 105. "It's hard not to be confused about deregulation," says Robin Stewart, vice-president (education) of the Federation. Stewart will be on the panel for tomorrow's forum along with UW provost Jim Kalbfleisch and others, addressing such issues as steadily rising fees, provincial government deregulation for "professional" programs, and how likely it is that UW will double its enrolment in some technical programs and thus qualify for deregulated fees there too.

A brown-bag workshop for teaching assistants is set for this Friday, sponsored by the teaching resource office. The topic: "Academic Publishing". Says a flyer: "How can you get a jump start on others competing for academic positions? Get published." A panel of three faculty members will talk about how, at 12 noon in Math and Computer room 2035. Preregistrations for the session should go by e-mail to trace@watserv1, or phone ext. 3132.

Finally . . . in yesterday's Bulletin I quoted from a recent UW news release that mentions "Star Trek's Dr. Spock". Unless somebody has recently given him an honorary degree, the pointy-eared fellow is plain Mr. Spock. "Dr. Spock" is a pediatrician.

UW web site of the day

"Goldenrods are members of the genus Solidago L. (Compositae: Astereae)," writes John Semple of UW's biology department, and as an authority on goldenrods and such related plants as asters and goldenasters, he provides a web page that's dense with pistillate rays, disc florets and chromosome base numbers. But the green-and-gold beauty of the goldenrods is there as well, in a series of clear photographs.

The goldenrods web page also includes a listing of Semple's scientific articles, and a link to his home page. From there it's easy to jump to the pages on asters and goldenasters, or to Biology 221 ("Introduction to Fungi, Algae and Plants").

Says Semple: "I have been studying asters, goldenasters and goldenrods for more than 25 years and have UW Biology Series publications on the Asters of Ontario, the Goldenrods of Ontario and monographs on two groups of goldenasters. This research has involved a great deal of field work all over North America and to museums in Europe. I have accumulated a large reference collection of 2 X 2 slides of most kinds of asters, goldenasters and goldenrods in N.A.

"I decided to begin putting these on the web and to provide web pages on the asters, the goldenrods and the various kinds of goldenasters. The latter pages are the most complete and have the most illustrations. In time I plan to expand the number of pictures of goldenrods and asters. The WWW has become a rich source of information on native plants providing low resolution illustrations and distribution maps. My web pages are my contribution to this data base. My illustrations will be linked into several sites covering floras in the states in the U.S. Regrettably, at this time there is no web site on the Canadian flora."

CAR

Editor of the Daily Bulletin: Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
credmond@uwaterloo.ca | (519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
| Yesterday's Bulletin
Copyright © 1998 University of Waterloo