Daily Bulletin

ES graduates shape the city

They're featured in the new issue of the University of Waterloo Magazine, along with several other UW environmental studies students and recent graduates who -- in the words of writer Patricia Bow -- "are having an impact on the shape of Waterloo".

Chang and Garneau were among the winners in last spring's competition for ES students to design "public spaces" in the city centre, as City Hall and a developer make plans to replace Waterloo Town Square with new streets, shops and plazas.

"This is not a public space," says Chang about what a visitor to the Erb, Caroline and King Street area finds nowadays. "It's just a transition space, a parking lot. There's no place to relax, nowhere to meet. And the buildings are closed -- there's no connection between them and this space. People come here, but they don't stay."

Chang and Garneau, both architecture students, were one of five teams that had various proposals for complementing the planned new commercial development. "Several projects," Bow writes, "depicted a more flexible use of public space: roadways that could be closed for festivals, pools that convert to concert stages or skating rinks."

She goes on: "The architecture program includes design studio courses with a strong local focus in each year of the curriculum. The students absorb ideas and approaches from the classroom and around the world and apply them to sites in Waterloo Region. The results they come up with often impress city planners and architects." She goes on to talk about faculty design and research work that also has an impact on the built environment in Kitchener-Waterloo.

The article is complemented by the magazine's cover photograph: Sunshine Chen, a 1997 architecture graduate who now works for the city government, perched high above the Seagram barrel warehouse on Caroline Street. "Everyone on the Seagram team at the city is a UW person," says Chen, whose final-year thesis was a proposal for "mixed-use development" on the derelict Seagram lands -- much like what's now being built there.

Cultural centre marks 10 years -- from the UW news bureau

"It's also a training ground for emerging arts administrators who graduate with a unique blend of cultural knowledge and business skills," said CCM director William Poole.

Students learn about financial planning and budget development, cultural policy and marketing of the arts. As well, they gain experience in programming, board-management relations, grantsmanship and approaches to generating private-sector support through co-op placements.

David Cheoros, director of the Edmonton Fringe Festival, is a graduate of UW's cultural management specialization. He said, "I was hired by Fringe Theatre Adventures as its festival director because I had already experienced every aspect of a fringe festival: as a staff member, volunteer, performer, in any of a dozen different festivals. And, I had administrative experience with many different art forms -- ballet, orchestra, musical theatre, a writers' organization. Much of that experience came though my UW co-op work placements."

There is only one other undergraduate co-op program in this field, at the University of Toronto at Scarborough.

CCM was established in 1989, thanks to the support of the Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation and the Chalmers family of Toronto -- some big players in encouraging private sponsorship of the arts in Canada. Poole was administrative director and academic principal of the National Ballet School. Previously, he held senior positions with the National Ballet of Canada and the Shaw Festival.

One milestone in the centre's 10-year history is the creation of an extensive website. Launched in 1997, it provides Canada's cultural managers with a variety of on-line tools. Resources include the results of studies, a bibliography of Canadian cultural management and policy, and links to many arts agencies/organizations, to name a few.

CCM opened its virtual school in February. Named the Cultural Management Institute, it offers mid-career professional development training free-of-charge. CCM continues to develop complementary on-line services. "In the works is a whole range of new on-line tools that will assist the working cultural manager to meet daily on-the-job challenges. This will constitute a management performance support system for the cultural sector," Poole said.

The centre's accomplishments and future plans will be highlighted at the 10th anniversary celebration today at 5 p.m. in room 1301 of the Davis Centre. Speaking will be UW president David Johnston; arts administration graduate Sarah Sheehan; CCM director William Poole; and John Hobday, executive director of the Bronfman foundation.

Plan for a Jewish studies program

Appearing that day will be David Novak, chairholder in Jewish studies at the University of Toronto, who will talk on "Christianity and the Holocaust".

"How much," Novak asks, "did the anti-Judaism of Christianity contribute to anti-Semitism in general and Nazi ideology in particular? Are contemporary Christians responsible for the anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism of the past? How valuable are current Christian efforts to build a new relationship with Jews and Judaism after the Holocaust? How much rethinking of Christian theology can reasonably be expected of contemporary Christians?"

Coming later in the series: "A History of the Relationship Between Poles and Jews", December 1; "A Brief History of Heresy in Jewish Thought", January 25; "The Untold History of Canadian Jewry", March 1.

Meanwhile, the senate undergraduate council gave approval on Tuesday afternoon for creation of the Jewish studies program "as an academic unit in the Faculty of Arts". The proposal will now go to the senate itself.

"Jewish history, culture, civilization and religion are filled with a wealth of traditions, achievements, and knowledge passed down through the centuries," the undergraduate council was told in the agenda material. "It is the goal of the Jewish Studies program that this treasured heritage be shared with an international community of Jews and non-Jews who are seeking wider knowledge and understanding. The purpose of establishing the Jewish Studies program is to permit the offering of courses which bear directly on Jewish civilization and its importance for the Jewish and non-Jewish world.

"The committee is currently searching for a Chair in Jewish Studies, to be hired by July 1, 2000, and would like to have an academic structure in place so that the Chair could develop and offer courses beginning September 1, 2000.

"There are currently four Jewish Studies courses offered through Distance Education at UW under the Arts designation which we would like to have re-designated to Jewish Studies. A fifth one has been prepared and we expect it will be approved and offered in Winter 2000. . . .

"We propose that Jewish Studies take the form of an option, a minor and a diploma. . . . Jewish Studies is an interdisciplinary program of study which may be taken in conjunction with many existing programs in Arts and other faculties."

Other happenings this day

The anthropology section of UW's department of anthropology and classical studies holds an annual event of note today: the Anthropology Silver Medal for Academic Excellence will be presented to alumnus Janet Gardner, an invited paper will be presented, and then, at a reception, the department will announce this year's winner of the Sal Weaver Memorial Tuition Scholarship, in memory of anthro professor Sally Weaver, who died in 1993. The medal presentation and the lecture are scheduled for 4 p.m. in Engineering Lecture room 204. This year's invited speaker is Michael Spence, of the University of Western Ontario, talking about "Government and Sacrifice in Ancient Teotihuacan", with slides of his research there at "the largest city of its time in the New World". Jacqueline Macpherson at ext. 2520 can provide more information.

The school of optometry today presents the 11th annual Clair Bobier Lecture in Vision. This year's speaker is Jake Sivak, former director of the school and currently UW's dean of graduate studies; he'll talk on "Developmental Strategies and Optical Limitations of the Eye: A Case for Evolution?" The lecture begins at 7:30 in Optometry room 347; a reception, sponsored by the Clair Bobier Endowment Fund, will follow.

Also today:

• Career development seminars in Needles Hall room 1020: at 1:30, resume writing, and at 2:30, letter writing.
• At 4:00, in Physics room 145, a talk in the "distinguished lecturer series" of the Guelph-Waterloo Centre for Graduate Work in Physics: Paul Corkum of the National Research Council speaks on "Ultrashort Pulse Science, From Femtoseconds to Attoseconds".
• At 7:00, in the Environmental Studies II "green room", the first Arriscraft Lecture of the fall term, by Montréal architect Gilles Saucier.
• The Math Society's movie night, with "Bambi Meets Godzilla" and "Braveheart", starting at 7:00 and 7:45 in Davis Centre room 1304.

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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