The day Canada got its flag

Daily Bulletin

Watch this space as it turns into a construction site and then a residence. The present parking lot F, between Village I and Ron Eydt Village, is the future site of Mackenzie King Village, a 320-bed residence that will be ready for September 2001. Construction is scheduled to start in early May. When F lot closes, Villagers will have to take their business to the nearby J, S and V lots, says parking manager Elaine Carpenter. F lot has been a favourite because of its handy location between the residences, she says, adding that its closing will likely mean the other lots are filled to capacity -- but "the consensus is that there will be sufficient space."

Student voting begins today

Balloting on campus continues tomorrow. Votes from off-campus co-op students are due back March 1, and both sets of ballots will be counted then.

For the first time, some on-campus students are being invited to vote electronically, and if all goes well, plans are to have the election fully electronic next year, says Federation staff member Avvey Peters. This year, voting with the mouse is only for students in environmental studies and independent studies, who can get to the polling booth from the Federation web site.

Other students will find their ballot boxes in building lobbies as usual:

Arts -- Arts Lecture Hall
AHS -- Matthews Hall
Engineering -- Carl Pollock Hall
Science -- Biology I
Optometry -- Optometry
Mathematics -- Math and Computer (third floor)

Candidates for Federation president are Chris Farley, history; Steve Kennedy, applied math; and Windy Rader, political science. Candidates for VP (education) are Amber Christie, psychology, and Mark Schaan, political science. Candidates for the two other vice-presidencies were acclaimed when nominations closed in mid-January. Shannon Willis (economics) will be VP (administration and finance), and Desiree Taric will be VP (student issues).

Also being elected this week are three student senators. Candidates for the at-large seat are Matt Pippo, Stephen Skrzydlo and Ryan Stammers. Candidates for the arts seat are Richard Banton and Adam Baxter. And candidates for the engineering seat are Charles Bergeron and Ian Tien.

Candidates for both Federation positions and senate seats have posted their statements on the Feds' election web site. And there was extensive coverage of the candidates and issues in last week's issue of Imprint.

Looking ahead to convocation -- a notice from the registrar's office

Wednesday, June 14 (2:00 p.m.) -- Applied Health Sciences, Environmental Studies & Independent Studies
Thursday, June 15 (2:00 p.m.) -- Arts
Friday, June 16 (2:00 p.m.) -- Science
Saturday, June 17 (10:00 a.m.) -- Mathematics
Saturday, June 17 (2:00 p.m.) -- Engineering

Questions concerning convocation should be directed to the Registrar's Office 888-4567, ext. 5378.

Master's and doctoral students planning to graduate at Spring 2000 convocation must complete a graduate studies Intention to Graduate Form and submit it to the Graduate Studies Office by March 1, 2000. The Graduate Studies Intention to Graduate Form is available through the Graduate Studies Website. Hard copies of the form are also available in the Graduate Studies Office, Room 3021, Needles Hall, or from department Graduate Offices.

Questions concerning convocation should be directed to Penny Pudifin, Convocation Co- ordinator, Graduate Studies, e-mail ppudifin@uwaterloo.ca, phone ext. 2845.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

The senate undergraduate council will meet at 1:30 today (Needles Hall room 3001) with an agenda that includes UW's admission requirements for the fall of 2001, policy on new co-op programs, and curriculum changes in most of the faculties. Among the proposals: an honours co-op program in "environment and business", and a program offered jointly by UW and Humber College that would lead to an environmental science degree from this university and a diploma in civil engineering technology from Humber.

The joint health and safety committee will meet at 1:30 in Needles Hall room 3043. Among the agenda items: smoking, dough mixing machines, recent fire alarms, and incidents involving students working with sulphuric acid.

The history department presents a colloquium today by Dennis Duffy, of the University of Toronto's Innis College, under the title "Inventing Algonquin Park: Logging and Erasure". The talk starts at 3:30 in Humanities building room 334.

Looking ahead to tomorrow . . . the InfraNet Project will sponsor a lunch session at the Waterloo Inn starring Jeff Chisholm, vice-chair of the Bank of Montreal and president of its mBanx Direct subsidiary. Chisholm will be talking about "Smart Communities, E-Business, and the Future of the Financial Services Industry".

Also at noon tomorrow, the teaching resources and continuing education office presents "Preparing Students for Group Work", a skills-based workshop aimed largely at graduate teaching assistants. Led by Maria Nelson and Torsten Nelson, TA developers in the TRACE office, the session will start at 1200 in Math and Computer room 5158.

At 4:30 tomorrow afternoon, Eileen Schuller of McMaster University will speak at St. Jerome's University on "The Jewish World of Jesus".

And tomorrow at 7 p.., John McCallum, chief economist of the Royal Bank of Canada, will speak (in the Humanities Theatre) on "Will Canada Matter in 2020?"

Paul McKone, president of the staff association, announces that "The UW Staff Association invites any and all interested UW staff to attend a forum this Friday, February 18, to discuss issues of concern to the staff. Topics will include: Staff Compensation, Performance Appraisals, and anything else the assembled masses wish to discuss. The forum will be held in the Davis Centre, room 1302, starting at noon, and running until approximately 1:00 p.m. Bring your bag lunch and bright ideas!"

The talk of the campus

Changes in UW residence fees were approved by the board of governors earlier this month, including a 2 per cent for students living in the UW Place complex (formerly UW Apartments). For non-students in UW Place, though, the hike is a little steeper: 100 per cent, taking the monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment to $1,200. Bud Walker, UW director of business operations, was quite clear in saying that the intention is to get those tenants out of the building, although by law they can't actually be evicted. "As of Monday," he said, "there were still about 50 non-students in the building, and we think the 100 per cent increase should do that." Most of the apartments in the complex are to be converted into residence-style rooms over the next couple of years. In the Student Villages, meanwhile, rents are going up by 2 per cent, and student representative Robin Stewart told the board of governors that the increase was happening with "overwhelming support" from Villagers themselves.

As the 1999-2000 fiscal year moves toward an end (on April 30) things are continuing to look brighter, provost Jim Kalbfleisch told the board of governors at the same meeting. When the year's budget was approved in April 1999, it showed a deficit of more than $2 million. By the time of the October board meeting, that was down to $525,000, partly because of last September's unexpected boom in first-year enrolment. And there have been some savings since then, the provost told the board this month: he's now foreseeing a deficit "perhaps as low as two or three hundred thousand dollars".

"We are really starting to max out," says Judy McCrae, UW's director of athletics and recreational services, who notes that the Physical Activities Complex is in heavy use from the time it opens (6:45 a.m. on weekdays) until it closes at midnight. "Weekends now, we're open at the crack of dawn," she says, "and we stay open Saturday nights now." Hours are similarly long at the Columbia Icefield and the north campus gym, and demand from campus recreation teams and individual exercisers does nothing but row. Athletics staff are looking for ways to fit more activities into the available space, McCrae said last week. "We're going to look at non-traditional times, such as Friday nights," she said, and it's possible the PAC will extend closing time to 1 a.m.

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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