The University of St. Andrew's, on St. Andrew's Day

Daily Bulletin

Italian treaty to be signed today

Research contacts initiated by civil engineering professor Frank Saccomanno and Italian and French studies professor Gabriel Niccoli will be formalized today with the signing of a memorandum of agreement between the Canadian and Italian universities.

In cooperation with the Canadian Calabrese Cultural Foundation of Toronto -- of which Niccoli is a founding member -- UW, St. Jerome's University and the University of Calabria "will explore the possibilities for cooperation in education and research; will encourage direct contact and cooperation between their faculty members, departments and research institutes. This initiative will encourage joint research activities in specific areas of common interest, exchange of information including but not limited to exchange of library materials and research publications; exchange of faculty members for research, lectures and discussions; and exchange of graduate and undergraduate students for study and research."

Calabria, with a student population of around 25,000 and some 450 full-time professors, "has forged joint research activities and scientific/didactic collaboration with over seventy universities around the world, in sixteen countries, from all over Western Europe to Russia, and to China," according to the UW international programs office. "The research activities of its six Faculties are consistently competitive not only at the national level but in the fields of Political Science, Engineering, Economics, and Mathematics, at the international level."

In facilitating the collaboration between Calabria and UW, the Canadian Calabrese Cultural Foundation of Toronto is acting on its mandate "to pursue, promote, and develop cultural and scientific links both with Calabrian/Italian and Canadian institutions of higher learning and with business and intellectual leaders from both sides of the Atlantic in order to foster a veritable renaissance of the ancient Calabrian heritage which is the cradle of our western humanism."

Festivity at the bookstore Tonight (5 to 7 p.m.) brings the bookstore's annual "holiday celebration", described as "a special evening for faculty, staff, and friend to meet special guests". It promises music by the Primavera Quartet, refreshments, discounts, and three guests -- Sandra Sabatini (The One with the News), Edna Staebler (one of the women featured in Women of Waterloo County), and Ken McLaughlin of St. Jerome's University (Hespeler: Portrait of an Ontario Town).

Book celebrates Waterloo County women

Now best known for the day care centre that was named in her memory, Marsden was a lecturer in the Germanic and Slavic department (originally coming to UW as a teaching fellow in 1960), assistant dean of women, and finally dean of women from 1977 to her retirement in 1985.

After her retirement, no new dean was appointed, on the theory that women had become well established in the university. But during her years as dean, her office in the Modern Languages building was an important influence in turning UW from an almost entirely male institution to one that had room for both sexes. Marsden also played a role in the creation of the women's studies program. On her retirement she was made an Honorary Member of the University.

She is the only person closely involved with UW to have her own chapter in Women of Waterloo County, which was produced by the Kitchener-Waterloo branch of the Canadian Federation of University Women. Nancy-Lou Patterson, now retired from UW's department of fine arts, is mentioned more than once in a "thematic" chapter of the book, about the characteristic Waterloo County art of quilting, on which Patterson is a recognized expert.

Among other women who are profiled in the book and whose lives touched on the university is Edith MacIntosh, who became the first woman to be a member of the UW board of governors when she was mayor of Kitchener 1975-1976. The second woman on the UW board was Kitchener's Elizabeth Janzen Dreger, who is also the topic of a chapter in the book.

Says the publishers' modest news release:

This substantial, well-written and well-designed book, 320 pages in length and superbly illustrated with almost 90 historic photographs, contains original biographies of 33 individual women and two thematic articles. The book features a Preface by noted Canadian journalist and women's advocate Doris Anderson, followed by an historical introduction. Based on painstaking original research and extensive personal interviews, all the articles are footnoted, and the volume is thoroughly indexed.

The remarkable lives of these Women of Waterloo County span the last 200 years, and the women are highly diverse in their accomplishments: a Mennonite fraktur artist, an industrial chemist, a much-published poet. Some of the women profiled gave tireless volunteer leadership in organizations that have defined Canadian society; others achieved "firsts" in librarianship, in education, in political life.

Women of Waterloo County sells for $25, and will be one of the books featured by the UW bookstore at its "holiday celebration" this afternoon. It's also for sale at other local bookstores and galleries.

Prof was finalist for art award

The Ontario Crafts Council nominated Roberts for the award, as well as for a Governor General's Award, which will be announced next year.

In the past year alone, Roberts's ceramic sculpture has appeared in Arts 2000, an exhibition at the Gallery Stratford; Drawing on the Figure at the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery in Waterloo; Voyage, a juried national ceramic exhibition in Trois-Rivières, Québec; IAC 2000, an international ceramic exhibition in Frechen, Germany; and A Fine Line, a group exhibition at the Mississauga Art Gallery of crafts by artists included in the book, A Fine Line: Seventy Years of Studio Crafts in Ontario.

She was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1997, and in 1988 to the International Academy of Ceramics. Her work is represented in Canadian Museum of Civilization, the Royal Ontario Museum, and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, as well as in numerous other public and private collections both in Canada and abroad. Instrumental in the formation of the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery, she served as board chair from 1983 to 1991, overseeing the start of construction in 1992.

Roberts began teaching in the fine arts department in 1977 after completing a BA at the University of Guelph and an MA at Claremont Graduate School in California. She served as department chair from 1985 to 1988.

Notes on the last day of the month

Matthew Choptuik of the University of British Columbia will speak on "Recent Developments in Numerical Relativity" at 4:00 this afternoon in Physics room 145.

Architect Raymond Moriyama will give the last of this term's Arriscraft Lectures tonight. Says Moriyama, one of the country's most prominent architects, on his web site:

Thirty years ago I started exploring new ways of learning about science and technology with the Ontario Science Centre. Many projects later, I have become even more excited about learning. The Bank of Montreal's new Institute for Learning marks a turning point in its history. The new facility was designed to promote the Chairman's vision of a new culture based upon collegiality and teamwork, creativity and excellence. A building for the future, the Institute houses the latest communications learning technologies.

I am now following up on many of the ideas generated by the Institute for Learning with a new building for Seneca College on the York University campus. This project is the first to result from an Ontario Government initiative that promotes partnering - between universities, colleges of art and technology, and private industry. For me, it is an opportunity to study the impact of new technologies on the learning process and to understand how architecture can help students develop a sense of self-esteem and respect both for themselves and society.

The basketball Warriors, women's branch, play tonight at the University of Windsor.

Happening tomorrow:

• A noontime seminar by Daniel Scott of Environment Canada on "Assessing the 'Social' in Socio-Technical Potential of Residential Energy Efficiency" (12:00, Environmental Studies I room 221).
• Another hour-long session of training in the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (2:00, Davis Centre room 1304).
• Another attempt at getting a quorum for the annual general meeting of the Mathematics Society (2:30 p.m., Math and Computer room 3001).

Friday evening brings the UW Choir joining with the University of Guelph Choir for a concert at Guelph's River Run Centre (8 p.m.). Saturday afternoon, instrumental chamber ensembles present "Small Groups, Big Sound" in the Conrad Grebel College chapel (2:30 p.m., free admission). Saturday night at 8:00, the Chamber Choir performs "Tidings of Comfort and Joy" at St. John's Church in downtown Kitchener (tickets $8, students $5).

Missing from today's list of events is an art exhibition that was originally announced as opening on this day. The appropriately titled "Interrupted Viewing", works by UW fine arts alumni Darlene Cole and Dana Holst, will now be opening January 4 in the East Campus Hall gallery.

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