Daily Bulletin

Expansion will be 36 per cent

"After several months of discussions and negotiations with the Ministry of Education and Training, Waterloo yesterday received a letter from the Minister accepting our proposal for participation in the enrolment expansion program with increases in numbers we can manage. This is very good news inasmuch as it will enable us to expand an area of considerable strength without distorting the character of the institution."

The central issue was the rule, which was part of ATOP when it was announced last spring, that a university's enrolment in the high-tech fields had to be doubled or it wouldn't qualify for the special government funding. "Our enrolment is already highly concentrated in these areas," provost Jim Kalbfleisch told the board, "and doubling would have a very large impact on the entire university. We were also concerned about finding enough high-quality faculty, students, and co-op positions."

So, after much negotiation, the government has agreed that UW can grow by less than the full 100 per cent. Kalbfleisch gave some details:

Total undergraduate CS enrolment will increase from 1531 in 1997-98 to 2000 at steady state in 2003-04. This will require a first-year class of about 600 students starting in 1999, up from about 500 in 1998.

Total undergraduate E&CE enrolment will increase from 941 in 1997-98 to 1367 at steady state in 2003-04. This will require a first-year class of about 355 students starting in 1999, up from about 255 in recent years.

Overall, Waterloo's undergraduate IT enrolments will increase from 2472 in 1997-98 to 3367 in 2003-04, an increase of 36%.

The government will pay a per-student grant based on the growth from the average of the past three years, which Kalbfleisch calculates at $5.9 million a year for UW when full enrolment is reached in 2003.

There will also be one-time "start-up funding" of $8.3 million, as long as UW can find private sector support to match that amount. Downey told the board that the private support can include gifts of equipment and other indirect help, "but we will also need some hard cash!" He said a "mini-campaign for funds" is being launched.

He added that not everything is signed and sealed yet; "the challenge is for us to prepare and submit plans to the government" with all the details of how UW will manage the expansion. Those plans are due next month.

President-designate visits campus

Johnston, a law professor and writer on information technology who was formerly principal of McGill University, is here for only a few hours, and will spend them on the third floor of Needles Hall (although I hear that he made a good impression at the first-floor coffee counter on his way upstairs).

He'll have breakfast with the president, the provost and the secretary of the university, and lunch with leaders of the Federation of Students and the Graduate Student Association. In between will come meetings with the vice-presidents, the executive council, and leaders of staff and faculty groups, as well as a brief media interview.

Centre for mathematical 'tools'

The Mathematics of Information Technology and Complex Systems Network, or MITACS, is one of three new "networks of centres of excellence". Science minister Ron Duhamel said Ottawa will provide "close to $14.5 million" for MITACS over the next four years. Said his announcement: "The new NCEs will join forces with 11 existing federally funded networks that conduct cutting-edge research in sectors of critical importance to Canadians, such as health and biotechnology, information technology, human resources, and natural resources."

UW researchers involved in MITACS, which is based at the University of Toronto, come from applied mathematics, statistics and actuarial science, electrical and computer engineering, accountancy, computer science, and combinatorics and optimization. UW involvement is being coordinated by Mary Thompson of the statistics department.

The science ministry said the new mathematical centre "will harness Canadian mathematical power for the 21st century, developing new mathematical tools which will be crucial in many sectors of our economy. For instance, these new tools will help among others to unlock the genetic code of biological materials, to analyse environmental factors that affect our health, and to evaluate risks that impact on costs and prices."

MITACS had its formal launch last week at Toronto, where the Fields Institute for the Mathematical Sciences -- formerly based at UW -- will play a large role in the new network. Tom Brzustowski, president of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, said, "Already the MITACS network pools the talents of 174 eminent researchers from 22 universities with partners from 34 companies and 8 other organizations to offer creative solutions to complex issues critical to our future."

Steven Halperin, director of MITACS, called the centre "truly a national proposal. With nine project leaders from the West and others in Ontario and Québec, it binds the country with mathematical ties as surely as the railroads provided physical ties a century ago."

The MITACS web site explains that it "was created to bring together leading researchers in the mathematical sciences to focus on the problems of mathematical modeling and management of large scale complex systems and the mathematics of information technology". Research supported by MITACS will be in the general areas of biomedical modeling, the mathematics of information technology, and risk modelling and resource management.

Besides MITACS, "networks of centres of excellence" announced last week were the Canadian Arthritis Network and the GEOID Network (Geomatics for Informed Decisions).

Report defends investment in arts

"This will dispel a lot of mythology about these university disciplines," said SSHRC president Marc Renaud. SSHRC also announced the creation of CareerOwl, an innovative "electronic hiring hall" to connect post-secondary students with employers who need their skills.

"There's no question that it can be tough entering the job market today," said Renaud. "CareerOwl uses the latest communications technology to help make the connection between students and jobs." To attract job-seekers to sign up, CareerOwl is offering a chance to win one of two $1,000 scholarships -- the first to be drawn in November and the second in December.

The need to address the employment prospects of Canadian students is one of the things discussed in The Employability of University Graduates in the Humanities, Social Sciences and Education: Recent Statistical Evidence, a report that cites Statistics Canada data to show that university graduates are still being sought by employers.

It says investing in the humanities and social sciences is a smart economic choice because it can help Canada prosper in an evolving "knowledge-based" world economy. It casts a critical eye on society's fascination with technical skills and notes that the social sciences and humanities are the traditional background for the teachers and managers who are key figures in a new "knowledge-based" economy.

A cost-benefit analysis based on Statistics Canada data claims that the rate of return to society on investment in the social sciences (9%) and education (10.2%) outstrips the rate of return for engineering (7.9%) as well as the rate of return for math and the physical sciences (7.4%). The rate of return on the humanities (7.8%) "is also impressive", SSHRC says in a news release.

Feds' annual meeting, and more

Quelques arpents I said in a recent Bulletin that the triangles of land that UW has been trying to sell, since they're now cut off from the north campus by the realigned Fischer-Hallman Road, added up to about eight acres. Don't know where that factoid came from, but in reality the total area is less than three acres, I'm advised.

The career development seminar series continues today with a session on "Interview Skills: Preparing for Questions", at 1:30 p.m. in Needles Hall room 1020. Next Monday: "Interview Skills: Selling Your Skills", at 1:30 in the Student Life Centre multipurpose room.

The InfraNet Project today presents Dennis Bennie, chief executive of XDL Capital Corporation, speaking on "The State of High-Tech Venture Capital: A Provincial Opportunity". (He argues that the growth of Silicon Valley in northern California "has cost our country, and nations round the world, a heavy price as the best and the brightest are lured to the Valley" -- but it doesn't have to be so. "XDL is reversing the trend, to the north.") Time: 2:30 p.m. Place: Davis Centre room 1302.

And . . . the United Way campaign continues. There are three days left, and the goal hasn't been reached yet. As of yesterday afternoon, pledges had reached $98,197, or 73 per cent of the $135,000 target. If you haven't pitched in yet, you might cast your eye over a United Way list of what $500 will do -- that's $10 a week for the coming year. It could provide 100 hot noon meals for shut-in seniors (through Community Care Concepts); or an hour of individual support for eight people calling the crisis line (Woolwich Community Services); or 5,000 pounds of food for hungry families (the Food Bank); or a 24-hour parenting course for 14 people (K-W Counselling); or ten days of safe shelter for women (Anselma House). And those are just five of the 50 agencies that receive much of their support through United Way donations.

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