Daily Bulletin

Graduates eye the job market

They won't quite be alone; the Graduating Student Employment Service is there to help, says the folks in UW's department of co-operative education and career services. There's no time like the present, as term 4A begins for most of those students, to find out how the employment service will work.

An information session about it is scheduled for 3:30 today, and will be repeated at the same time tomorrow, in the Humanities Theatre. It runs about an hour, it's free, and if you are a graduating student next spring you probably ought to plan to be there.

Session topics, says Cara Francis from the CECS department, including the interview and application process; employer information sessions; important dates and deadlines; workshops; the computer ACCESS system; and career fairs.

You wanna know about career fairs? The next one is almost at hand: Tuesday, September 29, at Bingeman Park on Victoria Street in Kitchener. Co-sponsored by the careers offices at UW, Wilfrid Laurier University, the University of Guelph and Conestoga College, it will bring in dozens, if not hundreds, of employer representatives, and is open to all students and alumni. "As in past years it promises to be excellent," says a note from CECS.

Even sooner than that, by the way, is the "Go high tech, stay local" Information Technology Career Fair organized by a number of local firms that want to hire engineers, technical writers, quality assurance people, programmers and other such folks. It's taking place tomorrow from 2 to 7 p.m. and Friday from 10 to 4, in the Davis Centre. ("Bring copies of your resume.")

So how do you like the soup?

And there's something primal about soup, if you stop to think about it. "For centuries, soup has been the first resort of a special dinner and the last resort of weary providers with tired vegetables and hungry children," says a soup web site "And it's a lot more than that. Thackeray has versified on it; Queequeg has rhapsodized about it; George Santayana has waxed downright Proustian for its sake." Miss Manners asks: "Who warms you in the winter and cools you in the summer? Yet who also is capable of doing honor to your richest table and impressing your most demanding guests?"

So point your web browser to the survey page and answer a few questions: where do you eat soup? how often? and how good is it? Send in your answers and get a discount coupon for your next bowl of soup, food services is promising.

"If you do not have access to a printer or the internet we will be more than happy to forward a survey to you," Buchholzer says -- just give her a call at ext. 5865 or e-mail jbuchhol@mc1adm.

Dean of arts ballot planned

I am writing to provide a brief update on the work of the Dean of Arts Nominating Committee. This Committee was established under Policy 45 to seek the successor to Dean Hendley, who will complete his second term in June 1999. The Committee has met three times to review issues and challenges affecting the Faculty, and to discuss desirable attributes of the new Dean.

The Dean of Arts position was advertised both internally and externally, with a deadline of July 24th. At the Committee's most recent meeting, there was an initial discussion and screening of nominations and applications. Several individuals were asked to submit candidates' statements, and referees have been contacted. The Committee will be interviewing these candidates during the week of September 21st prior to establishing a short list. During the week of September 28th, the Committee will try to schedule opportunities for Arts faculty, staff and students to meet with those on the short list.

Policy 45 ("The Dean of a Faculty", section IV.B.2) states that: "After screening candidates, the committee shall select the person it regards as most suitable for the position, and shall submit its recommendation for the appointment of that candidate to the regular faculty members of the Faculty." In accordance with past practice, the Committee will also send separate, colour-coded ballots to Arts staff members and definite-term appointees, and to faculty members of the four Federated and Affiliated Colleges. Policy 45 also states that: "If the committee feels that two or more of the candidates are well qualified, it may choose to submit the choice between these to the members of the Faculty."

The ballot results and other feedback received will be considered by the Committee in recommending an appointment to the President. The Committee hopes to complete its work in time for the October meetings of the Senate and the Board of Governors.

Did you hear the one about . . .

A tourist walked into a pet shop and was looking at the animals on display. While he was there another customer walked in and said to the shopkeeper "I'll have a C monkey please".

The shopkeeper nodded, went over to a cage at the side of the shop, and took out a monkey. He fit a collar and leash and handed it to the customer, saying "That'll be $5,000". The customer paid and walked out with his monkey.

Startled, the tourist went over to the shopkeeper and said, "That was a very expensive monkey. Most of them are only a few hundred dollars. Why did it cost so much?"

The shopkeeper answered, "Ah, that monkey can program in C -- very fast, tight code, no bugs, well worth the money."

The tourist looked at the monkey in another cage. "That one's even more expensive -- $10,000! What does it do?"

"Oh, that one's a C++ monkey; it can manage object-oriented programming, Visual C++, even some Java. All the really useful stuff," said the shopkeeper.

The tourist looked around for a little longer and saw a third monkey in a cage of its own. The price tag around its neck read $50,000. He gasped to the shopkeeper, "That one costs more than all the others put together! What on earth does it do?"

The shopkeeper replied, "Well, I haven't actually seen it do anything, but it says it's from the University of Waterloo."

On a day with an east wind blowing

The computer science department has a seminar speaker this afternoon, Ludwig Staiger of the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. Topic: "How Much Can You Win When Your Adversary Is Handicapped?" It sounds like a discourse straight out of Damon Runyon, especially when the abstract begins by explaining, "We consider infinite games where a gambler plays a fair coin-tossing game against an adversary. The gambler puts her stakes on heads or tails, and the adversary tosses a fair coin, but has to choose his outcome according to a previously given law." But there's serious mathematics here ("the upper bound on the exponent provided by the maximum Kolmogorov complexity of sequences in F"). Good old reliable Nathan -- er, that is, Staiger -- will speak at 3:30 in Davis Centre room 1304.

A news report yesterday said Kitchener is a possible site for the 1999 Ontario Games for the Physically Disabled, sponsored by Sport for Disabled Ontario. Kitchener city officials said they'll also make a try for the Ontario Summer Games in 2000. Kitchener would organize the events alone, said the city councillor who's pushing both programs, but he admitted that neighbouring Cambridge and Waterloo would "provide some venues" -- conspicuously including UW's Ron Eydt Village as a place for athletes to stay. The disabled games, running four days in mid-July, attract about 200 athletes; the Ontario Winter Games, between 2,200 and 3,000.

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