Daily Bulletin

Disk finds Year 2000 problems

Waterloo 36, Toronto 18 The football Warriors demolished another league opponent on Saturday, beating Toronto's Varsity Blues 36-18 at University Stadium. Next stop: a semifinal game this Saturday against Wilfrid Laurier University (University Stadium, 1 p.m.) en route to the Yates Cup, the Churchill Bowl, and finally the Vanier Cup. The men's basketball team played in the House-Laughton Invitational on the weekend in Ottawa. On Friday night they defeated the host Carleton Ravens by a score of 76-64. In the Saturday championship game they lost to the defending CIAU national champion Bishop's Gaiters by a score of 79-58. Mano Watsa, Waterloo's All-Canadian point guard was named to the all-star team.

The program on the diskette will give one of three reports, IST says:

• Your machine passed the Year 2000 test.
• Your machine passed the test, but you will have to do a one-time clock adjustment.
• Your machine failed the Year 2000 test.

IST has some good news for Mac users: only PC users need to bother with the diskette. "Note that Apple Macintosh computers are Y2K hardware compliant and do not need to be tested."

The department also warns that the program only tests hardware -- the computer itself. "You may have programs (software) that are not Y2K compliant." The Licensed Software web page maintained by IST contains links to software vendors' Year 2000 information.

If you work in one of the academic support units on campus, this diskette, along with colour coded stickers, should already be available from computing support staff in your area, IST says. "Contact your local support person for details. Concerns about faculty PC compliance testing should be discussed with your local computing support staff or faculty computing office."

Flexible pensions are explained

"The flex feature," a memo explains, "allows Pension Plan members to make additional voluntary tax-deductible contributions without affecting their RRSP room. However, there are complexities and potential difficulties that members need to consider before deciding to contribute."

A longer memo was sent across campus last week providing more information:

The Flex feature allows you to make additional voluntary tax-deductible contributions. Each year you decide whether or not you wish to contribute. If you do, your contributions go into a personal Flex Account and earn tax-sheltered interest at the same rate as the UW Pension Fund. You use the balance in your Flex Account to improve your UW pension by purchasing Flex Options at the time you retire.

For most Plan members, the maximum amount you can contribute to your Flex Account in a calendar year is 9% of T4 earnings minus the amount you are required to contribute to the UW Pension Plan. . . .

There are three principal Flex Options that you can purchase, singly or in combination, at the time you retire: * Improved early retirement pension. . . . * Bridge benefit. This replaces CPP and Old Age Security payments from your early retirement until you are 65. * A larger joint and survivor pension if you have a spouse, or a longer guarantee period if you are single. If you plan to work at UW to age 65, only the third option will be available to you, and you will need to be careful not to accumulate too large a Flex Account.

The money in your Flex Account must be used to purchase Flex Options and cannot be withdrawn for other needs or emergencies. . . . Most Plan members will want to make full use of their RRSP room before contributing to a Flex Account.

33 men and 11 women last year

The report says it reviewed 37 proposals for "probationary" appointments -- faculty posts that should eventually lead to tenure -- as well as three for tenured appointments and 4 for definite-term appointments. Of the 40 tenured and probationary appointments, 31 candidates were men and 9 were women; the 4 definite-term candidates were two women and two men.

"The relatively large number of reviews in the last three years," says the report, "arises from the Special Early Retirement Program. While most of the appointments resulting from SERP have now been filled, new appointments as a result of the Information Technology expansion will likely lead to many new proposals in the next few years. Apart from the IT expansion, based on advertising to date, UARC anticipates that there will be 24-30 proposals for 1998-99."

The report comes from K. S. Brown of the statistics department, the chair of UARC, and is on the agenda for this afternoon's meeting of the senate executive committee. Other agenda items are as diverse as graduate and undergraduate program changes -- including a new "biostatistics subspecialization" in the stats department -- and graduation hoods for two new degrees being offered by UW, the Bachelor of Social Work and Master of Taxation. The senate executive meeting starts at 3:30 today in Needles Hall room 3001.

Scenes in the passing parade

Al Evans, retired from St. Paul's United College but still very active there, is the noontime speaker today as the Kitchener Public Library continues its "Issues and Ideas" series. His topic, at 12 noon, is Euthanasia.

Sheila Ager of the anthropology and classical studies department speaks this afternoon on "Age Cannot Wither Her: The Many Faces of Cleopatra" (3:30 p.m., Modern Languages room 246). At left, that's Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra (1963).

Ten institutions -- from Wilfrid Laurier to Dalhousie, and including two from the United States -- will be represented this afternoon at an MBA Education Fair. Anybody interested in doing a graduate degree in business would be well advised to stop by the Paul Martin Centre at Wilfrid Laurier University between 4:30 and 7 p.m. to meet people from the business schools; admission is free.

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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