The David Suzuki take on the climate change conference

Daily Bulletin

Co-op students vs. co-op employers

The "first ever Employers vs. Students soccer game", starting at 1:00 today, is designed "to foster a closer relationship between employers and students", organizers say, and will be followed by a networking session.

Says Simon Woodside, the Co-op Soc's "campaign manager":

Microsoft Corp. is flying their players in from Redmond, Washington, to join experienced players from Open Text, PixStream, Nortel and other companies. The student team will be made up of students quickest to respond to the call, and promises to counterbalance their opponents' experience with youthful energy.

The game will be held on the field between the Mathematics and Biology buildings at 1 p.m. The networking session afterwards will be held at an indoor location and food and drinks will be provided for all participants and spectators.

Who will win? The student, or the CEO? Both, in fact, win in co-operative education. This symbolic game is aimed to highlight the benefits of the co-op program at UW. The players will determine who wins the soccer game, but when it comes to co-op everyone wins.

As for the Co-op Society itself, here's how its web site explains its purpose: " Co-op Society is an organization that will deal with co-op students and the Co-op department. It will represent co-op students. It will provide services for co-op students. An executive, a council, and an office in the new building. Co-op student get-togethers, resume help, a housing match system between streams and so much more.

"Co-op Society is the next step in the evolution of co-op services and representation at the University of Waterloo. The current groups do an admirable job of supporting students, but few have heard of the alphabet soup of groups (CSAG, CSS, etc.) that exist now. Co-op Society will bring all representation into a single focused group that has direct representatives from each group of co-op students.

Today in co-op Job posting #2 in the "continuous" placement phase will be available at noon. . . . Students who got winter term jobs in the recent match process are having "acceptance of employment" interviews with coordinators. . . . Architecture and teaching option students will see their job match results as of 11 a.m.

"We're campaigning to create a Co-op Society at UW. We're working with the Feds, Feds council, the Co-op department, the faculty societies, and the student body to make something that everyone is happy with."

Said Woodside yesterday: "We're starting a petition this week to call on the Federation of Students to hold a referendum this winter on the new society. We'll need 1,800 signatures by the end of the term, but we think we can do it. We also need volunteers to collect signatures."

The new society hasn't been officially recognized by the university either, but "we do need some kind of student representation," says co-op education director Bruce Lumsden. Lumsden said he's been invited to be on hand for the kickoff of today's game.

A new book by Jan Uhde of UW's fine arts department and his wife, Yvonne Ng Uhde, is the first book written about cinema in Singapore. Just issued by Oxford University Press, it's the product of research that Uhde has been doing since 1995; three years ago he spent a year at Singapore's Ngee Ann Polytechnic to work on the project.

Environmental studies welcomes visitors

As part of a broader Environmental Studies Day open house, students and guests will learn about geographic information systems (GIS) and current issues in geography, environmental studies, and planning.

GIS is a computer-based tool for mapping and analyzing objects and events. It combines the power of a database with the visualization capabilities offered by maps. The technology is used throughout the world to solve problems in areas such as environmental protection, health care, land use, business efficiency, education, social inequities, and much more.

For example, GIS helps police make neighborhoods safer, helps energy providers supply us with continuous power and helps health officials keep communities free from disease. Most people are unaware of it, but they are probably benefiting from GIS technology when they change the ownership of a parcel of land, catch a bus, use an automated teller machine, receive an overnight delivery, or stop at a fast food restaurant.

To start Environmental Studies Day, geography professor Ellsworth LeDrew will explain his research on the use of satellite imagery to determine the health of coral reefs in Fiji. John Theberge of the school of planning will then talk about his work with wolf packs in Algonquin Park. Later, students and guests will participate in small group discussions on topics such as improving energy efficiency in Waterloo Region, environmental journalism, planning in Kitchener-Waterloo, sustainable transportation, and natural hazards and climate change.

Session leaders include environmental studies professors and students, Environment Canada researchers, and staff from the City of Waterloo and the Regional Municipality of Waterloo.

Last year, nearly 2,000 organizations in 91 different countries sponsored GIS Day events. This year's GIS Day is expected to be even bigger. With interest and support from individuals, schools and universities, government agencies, as well as private and public organizations, this year's goal is to show three million children and adults the benefits and significance of GIS technology.

A new student site on the web -- by Avvey Peters

The site was founded in April of this year by third-year students Adil Dharssi (computer engineering) and Amit Shah (mathematics) as Ads4Students.com -- an online classified ads service for students. To place an ad, students need to provide their e-mail address as a login. They can also ask to be notified automatically when someone replies to their ad.

The response to the site was "overwhelming", says Dharssi, so he and Shah expanded the site with the help of Wilfrid Laurier University graduate Amin Lalji to bring a greater variety of services to students. "We found that together the three of us could bring many positive skills and experiences to the table," says Dharssi.

From the new partnership, Website4Students.com was born. The new and improved site has an expanded classified ads section that's tailored to a geographical area -- students can more easily search for housing, textbooks or other items in the Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Hamilton or Toronto areas. In addition, the site has a news and commentary component called "Have Your Say", where students can submit articles and post their views on numerous subjects, unedited.

"Being original on the Internet is a task that many have failed at," says Dharssi. "Free speech and classifieds are not, by any means, original, but empowering Canadian students with a voice and a chance to be heard by their peers is an idea that we've seen relatively little of. This is our whole philosophy."

Dharssi and his partners plan to expand the site in January, with increased regional content, and a cooperative advertising campaign with other student-run companies who have expressed interest in Website4Students.

All beautiful the march of days (first line of a contemporary hymn)

Heather Cain, a former environment and resource studies student at UW who's described as a "Clayoquot Sound activist", will speak at noon in the Environmental Studies I courtyard about that British Columbia controversy.A "Heather was arrested and given a severe sentence for her civil disobedience at Clayoquot," says ES student Sarah Anderson. "She intends to appeal this sentence in hopes that her case will not set the precedent for overly severe sentencing of civil disobedience. Come out and see her slides and hear her talk!"

The monthly intellectual property forum this time round will deal with "Using UW's TTLO to Commercialize your Intellectual Property" (12 noon today, Needles Hall room 3001).

The InfraNet Project presents a talk by John McLennan, chief executive of AT&T Canada, under the provocative title "Will Exploding Bandwidth Satisfy Customers or Blow Up Communications Companies?" For example: "New applications are diving demand. Big bandwidth pipes cost billions to build. Who will pay?" McLennan will speak at 2:30 p.m. today in Davis Centre room 1302.

Malcolm Gladwell, writer with Waterloo roots whose book The Tipping Point has been on the best-seller lists of late, will speak at 3:30 at Siegfried Hall, St. Jerome's University, on "Understanding Social Epidemics".

Toronto writer Shyam Selvadurai, whose recollections of boyhood in Columbia are reflected in his novel Funny Boy, will read at St. Jerome's University (room 325) at 4:00 today. "Shyam's magical prose," organizers promise, "casts its spell again in his second book, Cinnamon Gardens, a story that unfolds amid lush, fragrant gardens and fixed Sri Lankan propriety."

A general meeting of the Graduate Student Association will be held today to clarify several of the association's bylaws. The meeting is set for 6 p.m. in Needles Hall room 3004, and will address ambiguity in the wording of bylaws relating to fees, referendums and election procedures, says GSA president Bill Bishop. Also on the agenda is a review of the position of Angela Kyveris, GSA vice-president (student affairs) on the association's council, board and executive. Having missed five out of six council meetings because of a conflict with her work as a teaching assistant, Kyveris is automatically deemed to have resigned. However, says Bishop, her schedule has now changed to eliminate the conflict and Kyveris has asked to be reappointed since the conflict was beyond her control.

The basketball Warriors, female variety, will host Wilfrid Laurier University in the PAC main gym at 6:00 tonight. (Meanwhile, the men's volleyball team has a game tonight at Windsor.)

Check today's Gazette for the official ad inviting nominations and applications for the position of vice-president (university relations), which UW is now filling. The search committee is working with the help of consultants Janet Wright and Associates.

And as we move into winter, health services is about to begin its flu shot clinics -- shots will be available starting Tuesday, November 21. Advance information is available at the Flu Clinic Info Line, phone ext. 3308.

CAR

Editor of the Daily Bulletin: Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
credmond@uwaterloo.ca | (519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
| Yesterday's Bulletin
Copyright © 2000 University of Waterloo