Daily Bulletin

Loonies, quarters and even smaller coins are welcome as the United Way continues its coin drive at the Student Life Centre today and tomorrow. It's a way for students to take part in the annual campaign to support 50 local charitable and service organizations. The first results are in from the staff and faculty canvass for the United Way: as of yesterday noon, $39,920 in donations and pledges had been received towards the $140,000 goal.

Program in 'design and manufacturing'

It would be "the fourth such privately funded program offered at Waterloo", information from the senate graduate council says. It's also the most ambitious, involving the UW departments of mechanical engineering and management sciences, as well as engineering and business schools at Toronto, Western and McMaster. It would also draw on Materials and Manufacturing Ontario, a research "centre of excellence" in which UW is a partner.

"The intent of the proposed program," says the documentation, "is to have the four Universities pool their considerable strengths in Design and Manufacturing and to offer a new modular structured program at the masters level. Students would enrol in the University of their choice and receive the Masters degree from that University. . . .

"In preference to existing formats, graduate courses will be presented in two four-day sessions (Thursday to Sunday inclusive) separated by a six-week period. The format and content of the presentation materials will be unique, relevant and maintained at a very high standard."

Students would take such courses as "Intelligent Manufacturing Systems", "Flexible Manufacturing Workcells for Mass Customized Production", "Strategic Management of Technology" and "The Science and Engineering of Thermal Spray Coating".

Says the proposal: "The objective of this degree program is to prepare design and manufacturing engineers who are able to deal with today's confusing array of competing design and manufacturing technologies, standards, innovations and business opportunities. . . .

"It has been both necessary and useful to establish a working entity, identified as the Advanced Design and Manufacturing Institute, ADMI, to coordinate and promote this Masters Degree in Design and Manufacturing . . . and provide the marketing interface with the industrial base whose engineering staff will enrol in the programs. Students participating in the program will most likely have graduated from a School of Engineering some four to five years previously and will be gainfully employed in Industry."

The proposal says that if all the necessary approvals are given, the program would start with three courses being offered in the fall of 2000.

It's unique in Canada, the proposal says, but is based on something similar offered at Britain's University of Warwick.

ES lecture addresses Holocaust

Construction at Auschwitz: illustration from Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present by Deborah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt, reproduced at the Nizkor Project web site.

Says van Pelt: "Any field of history is the object of legitimate historical debate. Holocaust historians, however, not only engage each other but also face the question of whether, and how, to engage Holocaust denial. The history of Auschwitz has become a focal point for deniers. This lecture will address the manner in which the challenge of the deniers has both disfigured and shaped legitimate historical research into the history of Auschwitz."

Robert Jan van Pelt lists his academic interests as including "the history of human thought with special reference to a society's concept of symbolic immortality; the relationship between dialogical philosophy and contemporary themes of architecture". For more than a decade, that interest has included a study of the architecture of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where Jews, Poles and other Holocaust victims died by the hundreds of thousands.

His book on the subject was published in 1995 and he has been involved in plans to reconstruct buildings at Auschwitz as a museum.

Kinesiologists discuss life in space

The symposium "Physiology of Life on the International Space Station" will be the opening event of the CSEP meeting, to be held at the Bristol Place Hotel. Admission is $10; university students can obtain free admission courtesy of the Canadian Space Agency by pre-registration.

"This symposium promises to be an interesting review of current research on the topic of living in outer space by a former astronaut and research scientists," says Hughson. He says speakers will present an up-to-date perspective on the problems to be encountered by male and female astronauts during the construction and habitation of the International Space Station and with their return to Earth.

Speakers will include Drew Gaffney, currently of Vanderbilt University, who was a scientist/astronaut on the Spacelab Life Sciences mission in 1991; Victor Convertino, a career scientist with NASA and now the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research; Kevin Shoemaker, University of Western Ontario; and Maureen MacDonald, Wilfrid Laurier University.

Another session at the CSEP annual meeting is "Heart Disease: Exercise and Nutrition", organized by Mike Sharratt, UW's dean of applied health sciences. A third is "Insulin Resistance Syndrome and Exercise", jointly organized by Arend Bonen of UW and a colleague. Still other topics are "Nutraceuticals, Exercise and Health", "Muscle Wasting and Aging"; and "Gender Differences in Metabolism". A special part of the meeting will be the symposia of the National Fitness Appraisal Certification and Accreditation (FACA) program.

And in the graduate student symposium, UW's Jason Wilkes will speak on "High Fat Diet Induces Muscle Insulin Resistance".

Peace lecture looks at environment

The speakers tonight are Mary Louise McAllister of the department of environment and resource studies and David Seljak of St. Jerome's University. They'll speak at 7:30 p.m. in Davis Centre room 1304.

The discussion will begin, WPIRG says, with "a description of the philosophical views that have shaped 20th century perspectives on natural resources and the environment. Various approaches and policies that could be taken to reconcile competing world views and reduce environmental conflict will be detailed. The discussion will be illustrated with examples taken from Canada and elsewhere."

McAllister teaches in the areas of natural resource policy and mining, environmental studies, public consultation and conflict resolution, public administration, the politics of information technology, and local governance in urban and remote regions in Canada. Most recently, her research has expanded into Latin American issues, specifically mining activities in Brazil. Seljak, who teaches religious studies, is developing a CD-Web course on spirituality and ecology for the UW distance education program. He is the director of the St. Jerome's Centre for Catholic Experience -- which is co-sponsoring the WPIRG series -- and the Institute for Studies in Theological Renewal. His research interests are in social ethics, religion and modern society, and religion in Canada.

Subsequent lectures in the series will deal with "targeted sanctions" against Iraq (October 16), peace education (November 9), "lessons from Kosovo" by economist Mel Watkins (November 24), and "spirituality and peace" (December 7).

About stuffing . . . and stuff

The Imaginus poster sale continues in the Student Life Centre today and tomorrow.

Representatives of several teachers' colleges (sorry, "faculties of education") will speak today in Davis Centre room 1302 -- at 9:30, 10:30, 11:30, 2:30 and 3:30.

The women's rugby Warriors host the University of Toronto at 3 p.m. at Columbia Field.

Mirjam Cvetic of the University of Pennsylvania speaks today on "Strings Shedding Light on Black Holes" -- now there's an image for you! -- as the physics department colloquium series continues, in Physics room 145 at 3:30 p.m.

The teaching resources and continuing education office holds a workshop today on teaching dossiers -- 4:00, Math and Computer room 4041. This "skills-based workshop", intended mostly for teaching assistants, will be repeated on November 1.

A meeting of Co-op Student Services, one of two new organizations meant to represent co-op students, will start at 4:30 today in Student Life Centre room 2134. "Meetings will be held weekly at that time and location," says organizer Simon Woodside, a math student. All co-op students are invited.

Tom Brzustowski, president of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, will visit UW tomorrow to discuss the recommendations of the controversial federal report on "Public Investment in University Research: Reaping the Benefits". He'll be available from 11:00 to 12:30 tomorrow in Needles Hall room 3001.

"Big Brothers please!" says a note from the Volunteer Action Centre. "Do you have a few hours a week to share some laughter and fun with a boy from a father-absent home? Couples can spend time with a young boy, male volunteers are needed to provide one-to-one friendship and positions are also available in a recreation program for small groups of boys." The VAC, at 742-8610, has more information.

In yesterday's Bulletin, noting the death of UW custodian Julio Mendes, I said he had worked in the Humanities building; actually his post was South Campus Hall.

And in yesterday's Bulletin, I said a little about UW's readiness to face the year 2000 -- electronically, that is to say -- and included a link to a web page about aspects of the Y2K issue. Maybe it wasn't the best page to choose for a link, a reader quickly suggested. That page, I was reminded, "is part of IST's Business 1999 Project. This page may have useful links and information regarding Y2K computer issues, but I question how up-to-date this page is. This page was last updated on March 31, 1998. The scope of this project dealt more with the university's corporate year 2000 problems and not so much with the end users' Y2K issues. May I suggest that people be directed to IST's main Year 2000 Information page or to the IST Y2K Project for admin support. I believe these two sites contain more appropriate, current, specific information for the personal computer end user."

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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