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Daily Bulletin

A record number of jobs (and students)

"The situation appears to be great -- and it is, to a point," says Olaf Naese in the department of co-operative education and career services, who says there are 4,534 co-op students "scheduled to work" in the winter term 2001. For winter 2000, the number was 4,251, so there's a 6.7 per cent increase.

Some of those students will go back to jobs they had in previous terms, or find their own jobs. As of the middle of last week, Naese said, there were 3,721 students expecting to go through co-op interviews, which will start on Thursday. A year ago, 3,658 students were girding for interviews.

"Our job recruiting and marketing efforts must be paying off," says Naese, "because as of this morning there were 3,586 position openings in our system compared to 2,849 openings around the same time in 1999." That's a 26 per cent increase, he notes, and brings the total back past the record of 3,248 set in the boom year of 1990.

The co-op department will be stretched thin trying to look after all the employers who have signed up. "It's absolutely nuts down here," said Naese, noting that his colleagues on the first floor of Needles Hall are worried about basic things such as how to fit 100 employers a day into 50 interview rooms at peak times.

True, there are still more students than jobs -- but jobs will keep coming in through October, November and December, as they did last year, when UW ended up with a winter term employment rate of 98 per cent. Typically, Naese said, about half of the students looking for work get placed in the "job match" process at the end of a month's intensive interviewing, and the other half find jobs gradually over the weeks that follow. "If we're only short 125 jobs," he said, "then we're not in bad shape. But you can't put round pegs in square holes!"

And that's the problem: some of those jobs are square holes for which it's hard to find pegs. The job boom is especially strong in "information technology" -- computing -- jobs for upper-year students. But the co-op department has thousands of junior students, and students from less technical fields of study, who also need work this winter.

"We are still short on jobs for all junior level co-op students," says Naese. "We could also use more jobs for students at all levels in arts, AHS, ES and science."

He said one part of the increase is particularly noticeable: more American companies are coming to Waterloo looking for Canadian students to fill vacant jobs.

Extra postings: Because there are so many jobs, two extra postings have been added to the schedule, #7 on October 6 and #8 on October 11, Naese said. "Most of the jobs for these two new postings have been viewable in Student Access before September 27 under 'Jobs to be posted'. . . . The total application limit of 24 has not been changed."

The co-op department had more application "bins" built this year, he said, so that each posting could include 340 jobs rather than the previous 240 at a time -- but even that has turned out not to be enough.

System staggers: The boom in jobs and co-op students this term has meant problems with Web access to job information, says Dave Thomas of the co-op department.

"The system was build by consultants from a major software supplier," he said. "We implemented it late last term and it appeared to be working fine with exception of a few bugs that were fixed. When we went into full production this term it turned out to be a disaster when the number of users went up. It appears that the performance issues are not the UW network or the server. The problem appears to be in the software itself not being efficient. We are currently trying to identify the exact problem so that the vendor can 'tune' the product to get it to a level of suitable performance."

Meanwhile, he noted, the old character-based (Telnet) access to the system is back in use as an alternative, "and we have reinstated postings in Engineering Lecture Hall and Math and Computer" as well as in Needles Hall.

Empty space will soon be filled

COM is the nondescript brick building along the ring road at the northeast corner of campus -- one of three buildings, along with General Services and the powerhouse, that surround the plant operations service quadrangle.

Part of COM is already occupied by the UW police (security department), and their space is to be expanded, says Marita Williams, UW manager of space utilization. A locker room and showers will be added.

Some of the space, as previously announced, will go to the university archives, which have been displaced from 156 Columbia Street because UW's lease on that rented building is coming to an end this month.

And the largest share of the space in COM will go to the graphics department, which is currently based on the General Services Complex next door, Williams said. "They will be retaining some space in GSC," she said, and turning over some space to the human resources department, which is next door to graphics in GSC.

The renovation work that goes with these various moves was scheduled to be finished by the end of October, but may stretch on through the fall term, Williams said last week. "It takes time!"

And by the way, what about a new name for the Commissary building, since it no longer houses a commissary? "We haven't decided yet," she said.

Another note from Marita Williams of the space office: the official abbreviation for the still unbuilt Centre for Environmental and Information Technologies will be EIT. "I am sorry that the building cannot be coded as CEIT, as it is known," she writes. "However, the building table has space for three characters only."

Talking internationally Tomorrow brings the Work/Study Abroad Fair, to be held in the great hall of the Student Life Centre from 11:00 to 3:00. "There are 25 educational agencies participating in this event," says a memo from the international programs office, "representing institutions from the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia. Several interesting possibilities exist for Canadians to become involved in international work and study abroad programs. In addition to study abroad opportunities, UW currently offers 80 international student exchange programs with universities throughout the world." And this from Drew Knight in the international programs office: "Several foreign delegations will be on campus shortly to discuss collaborative opportunities with UW faculty, staff and students. They include delegations from Lund University, Sweden (October 3), Japanese IT Business Forum (October 6), Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore (October 25), Université Claude Bernard Lyon, France (October 26), and Universidad de Oriente, Cuba (November 11)." About both matters, Knight or his colleague, Maria Longo, can be reached for more information at ext. 2288 or 3999.

So here we are in October

• The "Bridging the Gap" lecture series in the faculty of engineering will begin -- see more on this topic below.
• The UWStudent.Org student media group will have a meeting for people interested in "producing content, technology or contributing organisationally". It'll be in Humanities room 334 at 5:00 this evening.
• The career development workshop series in the career services department will continue with "Selling Your Skills" today at 1:30 and "Career Research Package" tomorrow at 2:30.

World Vegetarian Day today brings an exhibit of food and games in the Student Life Centre, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. -- and, I'm told, "the launch of the student-made cookbook The Lazy Vegetarian". Better find out more about that one! Today's events are sponsored by the Vegetarians for the Environment, Animals and Healthy Living group, an offshoot of the Waterloo Public Interest Research Group.

The executive committee of UW's senate will meet at 3:30 today in Needles Hall room 3004. Agenda items include word on a progress report about the Building on Accomplishment planning report of three years ago: sounds as though an update will be coming to the senate itself, which is scheduled to meet October 16.

An information session will be held tomorrow about the Women in Science and Engineering program of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. It starts at 12:30 in Needles Hall room 3043. Says a note from the graduate studies office: "The Women in Engineering and Science program encourages women to pursue careers in math, science, physics and engineering. As a WES student, you'll work alongside some of the leading scientific minds in the world, using cutting-edge technology at one of the National Research Council Institutes across Canada. . . . Candidates must be enrolled full time in their second year of an undergraduate program in science, engineering or mathematics."

The talk of the campus

Parking lot C, south of University Avenue and west of Seagram Drive, is back in operation after months of work, the first time it had been repaved in thirty years. The job included new trees and other plants, designed partly for appearance and partly for security. "We have a few items not completed as yet," says Elaine Carpenter, UW's manager of parking services. "The cameras and help lines are not installed, but will be in the near future. Everything else is pretty much completed. WatCard is also available, as before." Carpenter added that her department is adding WatCard readers at two other parking lots, M and X, which should be ready for use shortly.

Pat Lafranier of the client services unit in information systems and technology (IST) sends word of the "retirement" of the computing system called nh1adm (that's "nh" as in Needles Hall). She writes: "The long serving Unix system called nh1adm will finally be retired after 10 years of reliable service. This system has supported a variety of services and applications which have all been moved to other servers. If you have any questions or concerns about this retirement, please contact Pat Lafranier at ext. 6433 (pllafran@ist) as soon as possible."

Two different programs called "Bridging the Gap" are coming along in the near future. Briefly, here's what they are:

• A pre-retirement program run at the Rockway Centre in Kitchener and recommended by UW's human resources department. Three six-week workshops are planned, one that starts October 17, one in the winter and one in April and May. The cost is $45 per person or $75 for a couple, and Wendy Fifield at 741-2507 or wendy.fifield@city.kitchener.on.ca can provide more information.
• A series of talks on non-technical issues aimed at engineering students and sponsored by the dean's office, the Sandford Fleming Foundation and the Engineering Society. The first talk for this term will be given tomorrow at 11:30 a.m., when Tony Davis -- co-founder of Delrina, Delano Technologies, and Brightspark -- will speak in Carl Pollock Hall room 3385. his topic: "Building World Class High-Tech Start-ups -- The Excitement, Risk and Rewards".

The needs of local service organizations are endless: the Volunteer Action Centre this week is soliciting help for the K-W Chamber Orchestra, the Sunnydale Community Centre (which runs a program for preschool children learning English), and the Providing Alternative Choices for Women group which supports prisoners. And this note: "Support the work to end sexual violence against women and children. The Kitchener-Waterloo Sexual Assault Support Centre is accepting calls from women interested in volunteering on the 24-hour crisis line or in public education." An information night will be held October 12 -- call 571-0121 to find out more.

Here's a note from UW planning student Delia Paterson:

"Loud is good, fast is better, loud and fast is best!" Your Warriors need you! The UW Warriors Band is looking for fine and talented musicians to support our UW athletic teams to victory. Interested individuals must play an instrument (or have a desire to learn how); be (somewhat) interested in sports love to have a good time. Benefits include instruments to use at your disposal (we even have a whatchamacallit!); free admission to every UW Warriors game we play at (including away games during the football season); paid transportation to all UW Warriors football away games (we even went to Halifax in 1998)!

Finally, I said in the Bulletin on Friday that Martha Foulds graces UW's development and alumni office with her presence. "Martha no longer works in ODAA," an e-mail note quickly reminded me. "Martha is the alumni and communications officer for the faculty of engineering."

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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