Daily Bulletin

Off to Everest this summer is earth sciences student Trisha Morrow. She was featured in yesterday's Gazette, talking about her plan to climb the highest mountain (at least the bottom 5,000 metres of it) and collect trash along the way, as part of a Canadian Youth Abroad project. Morrow will give a presentation about the organization and her Himalayan plans at 8:00 tonight in the multipurpose room of the Student Life Centre.

UW donors hear about wolves

John Theberge, a UW professor of environment and resource studies, and Mary Theberge, a full-time wolf researcher and illustrator, will make their presentation at a breakfast in South Campus Hall for members of the President's Circle.

The Theberges have spent more than 30 years conducting field research in the Yukon, Labrador, British Columbia and especially Ontario's Algonquin Park -- the last refuge for wolves on the southern-most boundary of their territory.

Throughout history, they say, the wolf has been shrouded in myth, plagued by superstition and falsehoods. The Theberges' quest to study the true nature of these mysterious creatures has taken them from freezing nights under star-lit skies to heated controversy in executive boardrooms and the news media.

Their research has included the role wolves play in the wilderness ecology and how humans can co-exist peacefully with them. It has become one of the most sustained scientific study of wolves ever undertaken in Canada. The Theberges have collaborated on many scientific and popular articles as well as four books: Wolves and Wilderness; Kluane: Pinnacle of the Yukon; Legacy: The Natural History of Ontario; and Wolf Country: Eleven Years Tracking the Algonquin Wolves. They were jointly awarded the 1994 Equinox Citation for Environmental Achievement.

Staff election under way Voting continues (through April 12) in the election of a staff representative on the UW board of governors. Unionized staff have been sent paper ballots; non-union staff are being asked to vote electronically.

Students vote for board member

There are five students on the 36-member board: the president of the Graduate Student Association, another grad student, the president of the Federation of Students, and two other undergraduates, elected from among the student members of the UW senate. Christine Cheng, current president of the Federation, says it's the custom for senate to elect whoever is nominated by the Federation president in consultation with the student senators, and this time they're going to turn the decision over to students at large.

"It will be the first time," says Cheng, "that undergraduate students will have a say in who they would like to represent them on the board of governors."

There are four eligible candidates: Richard Banton, senator from arts; Dan Mader, mathematics; Albert Nazareth, science; and Ryan Stammers, at-large.

Electronic "polls" will open Monday at 9 a.m. and close April 17 at 5 p.m., says Cheng. The starting point for casting an electronic ballot is the Federation of Students home page.

Renison students take Japanese honours -- from the UW news bureau

Seven students represented Renison at the 18th annual Japanese Speech contest held on March 4, with five of them winning prizes. Results were made available late last week.

Angela Tang took the grand prize of a trip to Japan with $1,000 spending money, while Jon Roegele placed first in the beginner's level category. Both Tang and Roegele have won the right to progress to the Canadian National finals in Ottawa.

The other members of the Renison team at the Ontario competition were Phillip Huang (the Sanyo prize winner in the beginner's category); Sylvia Chang, (third prize in the intermediate category); and Mustafa Al-Mosawi (the Canon prize winner in the intermediate category). Al-Mosawi also placed in this category at last year's contest.

Akiko Maruoka, director of the Japanese language portion of the East Asian Studies program at Renison, said the top performance of her students was "fantastic," noting that the students have consistently won prizes in the Ontario competition in past years. "Their on-going success is very encouraging not only for Renison but for all the schools with relatively small programs in Japanese," she said.

"Our students have been taking the first place finishes over the past few years showing that students from smaller Japanese programs also have the opportunity to excel. It proves the calibre of UW students and effectiveness of our teaching methods."

The provincial competition hosted 41 participants from 12 Ontario universities and colleges. To ensure fairness, native speakers of Japanese were permitted to compete only in a special category. Judges evaluated each speech on grammar, pronunciation and delivery.

Award for researchers Tomorrow is the nomination deadline for UW's first annual Awards for Excellence in Research. The awards, approved by the UW senate, are much like the existing Distinguished Teacher Awards, with recognition of the winners coming at convocation each year and including a cheque for $1,500. They "are established to recognize distinguished research achievements of UW faculty members", guidelines say. Each year two recipients are to come from engineering, mathematics and science, and two from arts, environmental studies, applied health sciences and the church colleges. From the guidelines: "The nominators, normally unit heads such as Department Chairs, will be expected to provide all relevant information needed for adjudication." The committee choosing the award winners will be chaired by the vice-president (university research), with the other members named by the senate research council.

Happening on a raw spring day

The "Focus on Web Design" series, being held this month by LT3 (the Centre for Learning and Teaching Through Technology) and the WatCHI group has come to a premature end. A session on "navigation systems and website usability", scheduled for this afternoon, has been cancelled. The LT3 web page has some consolation: anyone interested in the presentation material can find it on the web. Material from previous sessions is also available.

"Identified by Sight", an exhibition of work by this year's fourth-year graduating class from the fine arts department, opens today in the UW art gallery in Modern Languages. The show runs through June 15. A reception to launch the show will be held today from 4 to 6 p.m. in the gallery.

A one-hour program about the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System, presented by UW's safety office and satisfying the legal requirement for WHMIS training, is offered at 2:00 this afternoon in Davis Centre room 1304. The session involves a video and brief quiz, and is open to all staff, faculty and graduate students who haven't previously taken WHMIS training.

Rediña Caracaz (right), long-time secretary to UW's deans of mathematics, is retiring, and will be honoured with a reception this afternoon at the University Club, starting at 3:30.

The department of statistics and actuarial science presents a talk today by Amy Wu; she'll speak on "Detection in Signal Processing" at 2:30 in Math and Computer room 5158A.

Floyd Marinescu, who spoke last week on "Enterprise Java APIs", is back today with a sequel. He'll speak on "Real World J2EE -- Implementing a Web Portal", at 4:30 in Davis Centre room 1304. The talk is sponsored by the Computer Science Club.

There's something special at the Graduate House tonight: a "coffee house and open mike" evening, including "live musical performances by local artists, poetry reading, palmistry, book signing, and beer, beer, beer". The event is a fundraiser (tickets are $5) for graduate planning students who are off shortly to the annual conference of the American Planning Association in New York. Music starts at 8 p.m.

"Super Puppets", "a collaboration of three mind-blowing one-act plays", continues today through Saturday in Studio 180 in the Humanities building. The three one-act plays, "Flesh and" Blood (Colin Thomas), "The Root of All Squares" (Sam Varteniuk) and "Cascando" (Samuel Beckett), are being directed by drama students Stephen Bailey, Ted Pegg and Sharon Adams. The actors are also drama students. Evening performances are at 8:00 tonight through Saturday, and there will be a 12:30 matinee performance of "Root" and "Cascando" today. Donations will be accepted at the door, with all proceeds going to Anselma House.

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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