Daily Bulletin

Money to burn: Vidya Naran, a third year science student, amazed visitors to the Science open house Saturday with her demonstration. The flame actually burns only the isopropyl alcohol mixture in which the five-dollar bill was dipped before it was lit. (Photo by Barbara Elve.)

United Way wraps up this week

"As of noon Friday, UW has raised $107,103," says Sharon Lamont of the library's user services department. She's co-chair of the United Way campaign on campus, along with Winston Cherry of statistics and actuarial science. The givings bring the campaign to 76.5 per cent of its $140,000 goal.

Lamont said 531 individuals had donated as of Friday, including 22 with gifts of $500 to $999 over the coming year and 24 with gifts of $1,000 or more. "The highest single donation is $2,640."

Participation rates in the larger UW departments range from 11 per cent upwards, Lamont said. Arts, at 16 per cent, is leading science (14), math (13) and engineering (11), but applied health sciences (28) is well ahead of environmental studies (15). Leading the whole campus is the office of development and alumni affairs, with a 31 per cent participation rate.

Pension plan 'very well funded'

Of that amount, some $115 million is in real return bonds, and the rest, just about half a million dollars, is in stocks and other investments. Says Mercer:

The market value of the Pension Plan assets (excluding real return bonds) at January 1, 1999, was $545 million and the actuarial value (net of real return bonds) was $490 million. The actuarial value is based on a three-year average rate of return, so that the impact of a market gain or loss is spread over a three-year period.

Measured from the actuarial value, the Plan had a funding excess of $56.5 million at January 1, 1999. In addition, the Plan had reserve funds of $29 million to pay the future costs of plan improvements in 1985 and 1998. It is not known whether Revenue Canada would treat the reserves as part of plan liabilities or as part of the funding excess, and it would be a lengthy and costly process to obtain a definitive ruling.

If the reserves were treated as excess, then the total funding excess would exceed the Revenue Canada maximum surplus limit (10% of liabilities). Even if the reserves were considered liabilities, the excess would slightly exceed the limit. If this valuation were filed, UW would be required to cease contributions. Hence, the Committee agreed that the 1999 valuation would not be filed. Since the 1998 valuation was filed, it is not necessary to file again until 2001.

In summary, the Pension Plan continues to be very well funded.

It says the yield on pension plan investments during 1998 was 7.98 per cent. Since the pension plan was created in 1969, the yield has been as high as 24 per cent (in 1985) and six times, most recently in 1994, there has actually been a year-to-year drop in the fund's value. Over the thirty years, the geometric average gain has been 10.54 per cent per year.

There are currently 1,041 pensioners, the report says, and another 286 people whose pensions have been "deferred". The pension plan has 2,541 "active members" (current faculty or staff), 90 more on long-term disability, and 10 "suspended".

Student systems are coming along

On the contrary, says Black, "our project team of more than 30 is on track" and next summer will bring "the first components" of what will eventually be a complete new Student Information System.

The Student Information Systems Project was launched in 1992, and really got rolling at the beginning of 1997 when officials announced that the university would buy a major software package from PeopleSoft Inc., which was already providing the software for the Human Resources Management System. SISP is a project to overhaul computer systems for everything UW does in the areas of student liaison and recruitment, admissions, financial aid, scholarships, graduate earnings, course scheduling, academic advising, student scheduling, registration, student accounts receivable exam scheduling, marks processing, enrolment reporting, transcript production, and convocation,

Shelling out: UW president David Johnston was quick to write a cheque for a ticket in the year 2000 Dollars for Scholars raffle. Bonnie Oberle of the development and alumni affairs office had no hesitation in accepting his money.

Staff from such departments as the registrar's office and the graduate studies office, as well as from IST, have been working full-time on SISP, with others brought in to help with particular parts of the project. "The project team is intending to start its communication plan with the campus shortly," Black said this week, "and will be involving more people in validating its current prototyping and solution design work."

Meanwhile, similar projects at other universities have been having a rocky time. Said the Chronicle of Higher Education last month: "Frustrated by projects that run months behind schedule and go millions of dollars over budget, officials of many colleges and universities that are buying administrative-computing systems from the PeopleSoft Corporation have been complaining more and more loudly. At Cleveland State University, financial aid was delayed, and incorrect bills went out last fall. At the University of Wisconsin at Madison, reports of grades for the spring semester couldn't be printed. At Boise State University, independent auditors are investigating cost overruns. Each of those situations arose because of problems in new student-administration systems from PeopleSoft."

Black says any number of people at UW have made sure he sees the Chronicle article, and asked whether UW is in line for the same problems. "I made a special appearance at Dean's Council last week to talk about it," he told colleagues in an e-mail memo recently.

No, says the associate provost, there are no horror stories at UW. He cites four reasons:

• " We decided to fix our legacy systems for Y2K, rather than installing PeopleSoft SAS under a tight deadline."
• "The software was much more immature in its previous releases, and the consulting market for assistance almost inexistent. We have been able to evaluate the software, learn about it, and wait until what amounts to the third release."
• "Many of the universities were essentially unprepared to work with this kind of enterprise software, and are installing all three of financials, HR, and SA at the same time, with the attendant changes in business processes. We've been able to stage things, and develop our expertise more gradually."
• "Our project team has had the time to develop a deeper understanding of the software and its abstractions, which is paying dividends in their ability to identify and seize opportunities to change the ways we do business. A number of these ideas will be coming into the open shortly as the working groups start validating the team's initial solution designs."

Also happening A blood donor clinic in the Student Life Centre runs today through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. "Giving blood," a flyer reminds us, "is everyone's responsibility. We hope to collect 200 units to ensure enough blood is available for area hospitals." The tourism lecture series continues today with a talk by David Telfer of Brock University, on "Tourism and Agriculture" -- 3:30 p.m., Arts Lecture room 113. Friends of the late Reg Friesen will be gathering Friday at 4:30 at the University Club to reminisce in his favourite venue. Pam Van Allen in the faculty of science (phone ext. 2064) is taking reservations. Here's a reminder that the Fall Saturday Tour of UW, aimed at future students and their parents, will be held this Saturday. Preregistration for the spring term 2000 is scheduled for November 3 to 5. Says the registrar's office: "If you are considering a faculty change next term, you should contact the appropriate advisor of the faculty to which you wish to transfer. Pre-register with your department/faculty advisor." Fee statements and schedules for the winter term, for students who will be here then, will be available for pickup starting November 15.

Three libraries host conference

About 200 participants are expected for the conference, being held at a hotel in Guelph. It's hosted by the Tri-Universities Group of libraries: UW, the University of Guelph and Wilfrid Laurier University.

"The Web: Portal to Information" is the theme for this year's conference. UW president David Johnston, giving the keynote talk this morning, gives the World Wide Web another nickname as well: "the magic door".

Speakers as the conference continues will deal with technical aspects of library computer networks, image file formats on the web, customized web pages for library users, and the experience of one library system (in Halton Region) in digitizing unique materials related to local history.

Bill Oldfield, of the systems department in UW's library, was in charge of planning for the conference along with counterparts from Guelph and WLU.

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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