Daily Bulletin

Advice: you'll never walk alone

The UW force and Waterloo Regional Police are still looking for a man in his early 20s who apparently stabbed a UW student on a pathway from Columbia Street to Bearinger Road. The victim, whose name still hasn't been made public, is in Grand River Hospital.

Police say the suspect is about six feet two inches tall, with a slight build and shoulder-length brown hair worn in a pony tail; he was wearing glasses and a blue track suit.

"Members of the UW community are reminded that normal safety precautions should be followed," said a bulletin issued by the university police yesterday. For example:

• "Follow a major road or well-lit path at night. Shortcuts may save time, but tend to be more dangerous."
• "Walk with confidence at a steady pace near the curb. Avoid dark entrances and shrubs."
• "Do not walk home alone at night. Make arrangements with a friend to meet and walk home together, call for a ride, or use one of the resources offered by the University."

Accomplishment on 1997's plan

It answers each of the report's 38 recommendations (some of them with multiple parts), saying what changes at UW have happened in response to those suggestions. Among the major happenings of the past two years: progress on a "technology park" for UW's north campus (recommendation 2.3) and creation of the Centre for Learning and Teaching Through Technology (recommendation 8). Here are a few of the other recommendations, and the report's commentary on progress:

1.4 Accord high priority to establishing competitive scholarship programs at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.

A very high priority has been placed on creating competitive scholarship programs with private sector partners. Through ATOP approaches, a number of new scholarship endowments have been established in Mathematics and Engineering. The Bell Emergis and Nortel partnerships, for example, have allowed UW to create endowments in support of a significant increase in IT enrolment. The Faculty of Arts has recently received a commitment of $500,000 for scholarships. Overall, funding for scholarships increased by almost 20% in 1998/99 over the preceding year to about $1.5M.

UW needs to continue to work aggressively to develop funds for scholarship support. 'No scholarship' or a 'bigger scholarship' continue to be among the most frequently stated reasons why students choose not to come to UW, particularly for top students.

2.4 The university should explore additional opportunities for full-cost-recovery programs, for example in continuing education and professional upgrading.

Continuing Education programs operate on a full cost recovery basis, as do the following: Education Program for Software Professionals; MASc program in the Management of Technology by distance education; MTax program; programs offered by the Consortium for Graduate Education in Software Engineering involving UW, Toronto, Queen's, Western, Ottawa, York and Carleton. The following full-cost recovery programs are currently under consideration: Masters in eCommerce; MASc or MEng in Advanced Design and Manufacturing with Toronto, Western and McMaster; Certificate in multimedia design for writing professionals.

6.3 Develop a standardized process for end-of-term evaluation of undergraduate courses, teachers, and teaching assistants, with the goal of providing better information to individual teachers and ensuring more uniform treatment of this information by chairs and deans for performance and course reviews, teaching assignments, and tenure proceedings. A standardized evaluation could include a core set of common questions with additional questions tailored for local requirements. Numerical summaries of course evaluations should be made available to students.

The Federation of Students took the initiative earlier this year to organize a workshop and presentation to Senate. FAUW has established a small working group. With input from the Director of TRACE, this issue will be a Deans' Council priority in 1999-2000.

7.3 Pay closer attention to the planning and maintenance of teaching facilities and equipment, such as classrooms, laboratories, computing infrastructure, and audiovisual equipment. Planning for maintenance and upgrading is a requirement when developing budgets.

TRACE recently surveyed faculty about UW teaching facilities; instructors' concerns and suggestions have been forwarded to the appropriate agencies. A plan for minor repairs is being developed and action taken on a systematic basis. TRACE, working with the Office of Space Utilization & Planning and others, conducted a walking tour and inspection of all rooms in the central teaching inventory [i.e. those rooms centrally assigned by the Scheduling Office in the Registrar's Office]. The next step is the development of a plan to upgrade and improve the facilities, taking into account the funds required. A small committee, chaired by the Associate Provost, Academic and Student Affairs, will be developing a multi-year plan. This initiative will take into account the growing need for new or replacement instructional equipment [e.g. VCR's, PA systems, data projectors]. As part of the exercise, for example, recommendations are being developed on priorities for installation of data projectors in central teaching rooms. Significant enhancement of classrooms will require significant investment of resources.

UW utilization of classrooms continues to be excellent by provincial standards. Nevertheless, changes recently introduced, including a multi-Faculty timetabling committee, have resulted in even better use of existing classroom space.

27 Reduce the time spent in committee meetings, while still providing for appropriate consultation, representation, and participation in decision making.

This is good advice but very difficult to implement or monitor. Despite complaints about the amount of committee work, people generally seem reluctant to reduce committee size or meeting frequency, or to delegate responsibility to individuals or subcommittees.

29.1 It is critical that UW proceed with current information systems projects and apply the resources needed for an early completion of these projects. Anticipated system problems in the year 2000 add urgency to this task.

A number of new information systems have come into production use since Building on Accomplishment was released. The most important examples are the library automation system TRELLIS and the PeopleSoft Human Resources and Payroll system. Good progress is being made on the much larger Student Information Systems Project, with some components expected to be in production by late 2000. CECS is reviewing all co-op policies and procedures to ensure they remain relevant and appropriate to prevailing conditions in the academic and work environment. The new CECS.online system is expected to go live in spring 2000. Overall, the group in IST dedicated to supporting legacy applications and ensuring Y2K compliance has made excellent progress and has completed the bulk of the work on major systems.

33.1 Work towards equitable access to the electronic workplace for all faculty, students, and staff. Points to consider include standardization to a minimum number of supported computing environments; facilitation of information mobility (transport between platforms, transparent format conversions); access to "home" environments from different parts of campus; economies of scale through pooling of software and hardware purchases.

Through the efforts of the University Committee on Information Systems & Technology, chaired by Associate Provost Jay Black, progress has been made on a number of fronts to improve the campus computing environment. Waterloo Polaris, an important part of the strategy, has undergone significant technical evolution from its origins as Watstar and continues to become more supportable and standards-oriented. Improved off-campus connectivity is now available through the agreement to promote Bell's 'Sympatico High Speed Edition' service as UW's preferred method of high-speed access to the campus network from off-campus locations. UCIST regularly obtains significant economies of scale through internal and external negotiation, particularly for software licensing.

This week's staff positions

• PAMI secretary, systems design engineering, grade USG 4.
• Administrative coordinator, undergraduate studies, faculty of applied health sciences, grade USG 5.
• Research technician, earth sciences, grade USG 5.
• Executive assistant, dean of science, grade USG 13.
• Operations assistant, cooperative education and career services, grade USG 4.
• Technical secretary (CEMC), dean of mathematics, grade USG 4.

Happening today (and not)

United Way half way Progress report on the United Way campaign, from co-chair Sharon Lamont yesterday: "As of noon, we are past the 50% point, having raised $73,864." And she reminds faculty and staff members that their donation forms must reach the UW United Way office by this Friday, October 15, to be eligible for the "day off with pay" draw. The annual Arts United Way Chili Lunch starts at 12 noon today in Humanities room 280.

Retired fine arts professor Virgil Burnett will speak at 1:30 this afternoon (East Campus Hall 1219) as an exhibition of his work, sculpture and painting 1995-1999, opens in the Fine Arts Studio Gallery. A reception to mark the opening begins at 5 p.m. in the gallery. The exhibit will continue through November 18.

The senate research council will meet at 1:30 p.m. in Needles Hall room 3004.

Ted Schrecker of the University of Western Ontario will give a special lecture this afternoon in the department of environment and resource studies (3:30 p.m., Environmental Studies II room 173). His topic: "Hard Choices on Health, Economics and the Environment". Schrecker -- who has published extensively on environmental health and environmental ethics -- will give a second talk at UW later this fall, on "the relative significance of environmental hazards and economic deprivation". His article "Money Matters" appears in the summer 1999 issue of the UW-published journal Alternatives.

Babette Brumback of the University of Washington will speak at 3:30 (Math and Computer room 5158) on "Potential Outcomes, Confounding, and Conditional Independence", as the statistics and actuarial science seminar series continues.

The Math Society is holding one of its movie nights tonight, in or near Davis Centre room 1302. There are two double bills, and let me see if I can get this right: "Pushing Tin" at 7:00 and "Message in a Bottle" at 9:30, or "Entrapment" at 7:30 and "The Rock" at 9:30. Admission for two movies is $2.

What's not happening today is an Arriscraft Lecture in the school of architecture. Prominent Canadian architect Douglas Cardinal was to have appeared tonight, but the event has been cancelled. The series will now begin October 21 with an appearance by Gilles Saucier of Montréal.

Tomorrow morning, the joint health and safety committee will meet at 9 a.m. in Needles Hall room 3004.

Friday and Saturday nights, Second Company will present Mozart's "The Magic Flute" in the Humanities Theatre -- more about that extraordinary opera in tomorrow's Bulletin.

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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