Daily Bulletin

How to avoid late fees

Undergraduate students who are here now, and will be back on campus in the January-to-April term, should pick up their schedules and fee statements on the second floor of Needles Hall, an announcement says. (Students who are off campus this term have been sent their documents by mail.)

Next step after getting the fee statement, of course, is to pay the fees -- either by mail or at a Needles Hall drop-box.

"Avoid paying late fees," says a memo from Carmen Roecker in the registrar's office. "Cheques may be postdated to January 4, 2000, but must be received at the Cashiers Office by December 15, 1999. Late fees will be assessed on all payments received starting December 16. The absolute last day to pay fees for the Winter 2000 term is January 31, 2000."

She notes that if payment is received by December 3, a fee receipt and sticker will be mailed to the student's home address. Those received after this date and before December 10 will be available for pickup in the registrar's office beginning January 4, 2000. "Payments are processed in the order that they are received -- please make yours early.

"If you are a part-time student, your fee receipt and sticker will be mailed, regardless of the date we receive your payment."

A few other notes from the registrar's office:

• The English Language Proficiency Exam (ELPE) will be held December 8, 1999, in the PAC beginning at 7 p.m..
• The university is closed from December 24, 1999 to January 3, 2000.
• Spring 2000 Convocation Dates have changed: June 14 at 2 p.m. for Applied Health Sciences, Environmental Studies, and Independent Studies; June 15 at 2 p.m. for Arts; June 16 at 2 p.m. for Science; June 17 at 10 a.m. for Mathematics, and 2 p.m. for Engineering.

TV channel airs UW lectures

CLT -- available in this part of the country on Rogers digital television -- is owned by Moses Znaimer's CITY TV group of companies, including MuchMusic and CHUM radio, and is "Canada's first national educational television service". Says CLT executive Daniel Brainin: "Our approach is to be to education what Much is to music."

Partnerships with existing institutions are a big part of CLT's plan. Under the arrangement with UW, the channel will broadcast and rebroadcast ten videotaped non-credit courses created by UW faculty members through the part-time studies and continuing education office -- altogether some 300 hours of television.

And UW will get free air time on CLT which, the channel says, "can be used for a wide variety of purposes such as marketing, strategic communications, profile-building, revenue generation, student recruitment, distance learning, course enrollment and community accountability".

The air time will give UW "a great opportunity to promote its programs and do on-air marketing across the country", featuring every major aspect of the university to millions of viewers, says Martin Van Nierop, director of information and public affairs. He said UW will be preparing several types of commercials (including five-minute and half-hour "edumercials") that will feature UW's high reputation in all areas of academics and research, co-op, academic-industry partnerships and distance education opportunities. Those commercials are "currently in early production" through his office.

He added that the non-credit courses will also point viewers to other distance education offerings through the Web.

CLT announced last week that as well as the link with UW, it has launched "strategic partnerships" with Alberta's Athabasca University and Nova Scotia's Mount Saint Vincent University. The partnerships run through December 31, 2000.

CUPE settles without a strike

A ratification meeting has been set for Tuesday at 3 p.m. to allow some 300 plant operations and food services staff to make the final decision on the proposed agreement, said union president Neil Stewart. "It's up to the membership now. We did our best. We'll have to see what they think of it."

Union reps went into conciliation with a strike mandate. Negotiations between the university and the union broke off in July. At the request of both parties, conciliator Mary Beth Furanna was appointed by the Ontario ministry of labour to assist with the process.

The new contract would also need to be ratified by representatives of the employer, the UW board of governors.

Notes about math contests

Meanwhile, results are on hand from two of UW's own contests, the 1999 Special K and Big E mathematics competitions, held on November 20. A total of 14 first year students wrote the Special K competition, says Small. The winning students, in order, were David Nicholson, Luis Serrano and Thomas Mulcahy; runners-up were Nabeel Kaushal, Jack Wang and Masoud Kamgarpour.

A total of 25 upper year undergraduates wrote the Big E competition. Winners, in order: Derek Kisman, Peter Tingley, and Sabin Cautis. Runners-up: Byung Kyu Chun, Soroosh Yazdani, Joel Kamnitzer.

And Small offers (without the answer) a question which appeared on both competitions: "How many sets of four distinct points forming the vertices of a trapezoid are there if the points are chosen from the vertices of a regular n-gon, where n is an integer greater than or equal to 4?"

What's what in a white whirl

The Kitchener Public Library continues its Monday noon-hour series of talks by faculty members from UW and Wilfrid Laurier University, and today's speaker is Ian Rowlands of the department of environment and resource studies, speaking on the Waterloo Region Residential Energy Efficiency Program.

This term's tourism lecture series, sponsored by the geography and recreation and leisure studies departments, winds up today with a talk by Richard Butler of England's University of Surrey. He'll speak (3:30, Arts Lecture room 113) on "The Future of Tourism".

Members of the Waterloo Advisory Council, representing employers of UW co-op students and graduates, will gather at UW tonight to begin their twice-annual meeting. This evening brings a reception and dinner at the University Club, with talks by Frank Dunn of Nortel Networks (on "The Global Business Challenge") and Veronica Chau, vice-president (education) of UW's Federation of Students, on "Student Issues, 2000 and Beyond". Tomorrow in a day-long meeting, WAC members will hear from deans and other UW leaders (one specific session is titled "Quality of Incoming Students") and tour the faculties that interest them.

Toronto writer and editor and film researcher and producer Rachel Zolf will be at St. Jerome's University today to read from her poetry. Her recently-published book Her Absence, This Wanderer examines, says an announcement, "memory, identity, erasure, and dislocation as the narrator faces the long shadow of Holocaust family loss, her own loss, on a journey to Poland and the Czech Republic, a journey to and through absence." She'll be reading at 4:00 in the common room (room 221) at St. Jerome's; admission is free.

And . . . the fine arts department's open house and miniature art sale continues today (and tomorrow) from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in South Campus Hall. But I'd think the supply of miniature artworks for sale would be much depleted by now.

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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