How the Sun's looking on the last day of summer

Daily Bulletin

'We have virtually 100% employment'

Co-op student on the job: Ginette Taylor, third-year kinesiology student, beside a pulp machine at the Fletcher Challenge Canada plant in Crofton, British Columbia. She was actually employed by ErgoRisk Management Group.

There are 3,528 students employed in the fall work term, and just 5 who were scheduled to work but don't have jobs, Lumsden said. That's a 99.86 per cent employment rate. In the fall term a year ago, there were 3,205 students with jobs and 2 without.

As usual, almost half of the co-op students at work are in engineering. Figures for those scheduled to work this term: applied health sciences 174, arts 256, accounting 2, engineering 1,593, architecture 93, environmental studies 88, mathematics 1,115, science 186, teaching 26.

"These figures reflect the first wave of enrolment expansion," says Lumsden, pointing out that his department had to find jobs for some 300 more students than last year.

Says his memo: "We are fortunate that the Canadian economy is strong. We continue to work with co-op employers to maintain current co-op positions and to add to them wherever possible. We also continue to develop new co-op opportunities with potential employers."

UW president David Johnston has been providing leads on new co-op jobs regularly, he said, and he'd like other people to do the same: "If you are aware of a co-op opportunity just call the CECS office . . . and we will follow up."

Courses for staff members this fall

Well, one part of it, anyway -- a half-day session titled "Put Laughter in Your Life", one of the new listings for this term. A brochure about the training program, under the title Get Up and Grow, will be in the mail to staff members early next week.

The laughter course will be offered on the afternoon of October 19. "Participants," says the brochure, "will gain an appreciation of the importance of humour and laughter in the workplace through an exploration of the theoretical basis for humour and its therapeutic value. One of the most important discoveries is the way in which humour is linked to reducing stress while enhancing creative ability." And sometimes there's nothing you can do with your job except laugh at it anyway, right?

A couple of other new sessions are also listed:

• "Project Management", a full-day workshop dealing with "the basic principles of project management, the tools of project management, the role of the project leader and team members".
• "Minute Taking Made Easy", a half-day session on producing meeting records "that are accurate, complete, and concise".

The heart of the staff training and development program continues to be the Leadership 2000 series, which last year replaced the former "FrontLine" and "Working" programs. Leadership 2000 is designed to cultivate leadership skills of staff who don't occupy managerial positions, says Katrina Di Gravio of the human resources department. "UW has always had a collaborative culture," she adds. "We're just enhancing that."

Leadership 2000 has six half-day modules, under the general title of "Skills for the Collaborative Workplace". They start with "The Leader in Each of Us" and move on to "Basic Principles of the Collaborative Workplace", "Proactive Listening", "Giving and Receiving Constructive Feedback", "Handling Emotions Under Pressure", and "Giving Recognition":

The program gives managers, supervisors, team leaders, and individuals the skills they need to interact with others and to meet the expanding demands of their jobs. Each module is designed to provide the appropriate interpersonal skills for dealing with the diverse and complex challenges in today's workplace and to enhance leadership roles, support team endeavours and improve individual performance.

The Leadership 2000 program is provided by Achieve Global, a US company with Canadian offices, which has provided training and development programs to the university in the past. "The programs are used by many Canadian universities, which pay a licence fee to run them," said Di Gravio.

RIM executive speaks, and more today

Jim Balsillie, co-chief executive officer and chairman of RIM, "will share with us his adventures in the New Economy," said accounting student Norman Woo, director of ASEC. His talk on "RIM and BlackBerry -- Leading the Wireless Data Revolution" will start at 4 p.m.

Woo said the students picked Balsillie as guest speaker because RIM is a well-known Canadian success story. "RIM has a window on the future. Waterloo students are interested in learning what it takes to succeed in the New Economy." He added that Balsillie and his co-CEO, Mike Lazaridis, have transformed RIM from a small pager company founded in 1984 into a world leader in wireless communications, one of the leaders in the converging telecommunications and hand-held computing markets.

Also happening: "Wild Writers We Have Known" -- a collaboration between The New Quarterly (a literary magazine based on campus), the Stratford Festival and Porcupine's Quill Press -- begins tonight at 7:30 at the Paul D. Fleck Marquee at the Festival Theatre in Stratford. The four-day event celebrates short fiction through readings, performances, critical inquiry and conversations with 20 Canadian writers. For more information or tickets, contact the Stratford Festival box office at (800) 567-1600.

The Waterloo Region Residential Energy Efficiency Program, based in UW's faculty of environmental studies, will hold a series of seminars this fall, with the first one scheduled for noontime today. Speaking at 12 noon (Environmental Studies I room 221) will be Ian Rowlands, the environment and resource studies professor who is the powerhouse for REEP. He'll talk about "Green Power and Electricity Restructuring in Ontario". Future seminars will be October 19 and November 30.

Exhibitions in the two East Campus Hall art galleries will have their opening celebrations tonight, an event that also marks the opening of the renovated gallery space. "(An)Other Canada" and "The Aurora on All 3 Channels" are the two show titles, and the artists involved will be at tonight's celebration, from 5 to 7 p.m., says curator Carol Podedworny. Former UW president James Downey, during whose tenure the gallery renovations were funded, will speak at the opening, and everyone is welcome to check out the improvements and the exhibitions. The renovations provide exhibition spaces of 3,000 and 1,000 square feet, with 20-foot ceilings, dry-walled surfaces and a new paint job.

Tonight also brings a seminar on "Critical Paths to Creating Your Own Enterprise!", from 5:30 to 7:30 in Siegfried Hall, St. Jerome's University. "This will be the first in a series of seminars designed to bring expertise, resources and information to new and would-be entrepreneurs," says John Cullen in UW's department of co-operative education and career services.

Michael Bird of Renison College will speak tonight at the Joseph Schneider Haus museum in Kitchener. He was curator of an exhibition of work by 19th-century furniture-maker John Gemeinhardt, which has been running at the Haus since July, and he'll speak tonight (8 p.m.) about Gemeinhardt's work.

Also tonight and also in downtown Kitchener will be the annual "Take Back the Night" women's march "as a symbol of our basic human right to be where we want, when we want, alone or with another, without the protection of men and without the threat of violence". The march will start with a gathering at the Victoria Park clock tower at 6:30 p.m.

Graduate students who want refunds of their Graduate House fee have until Friday at 4:30 p.m. to claim it at the Grad House, says Graduate Student Association administrator Rose Vogt (gsa-mgr@watserv1).

All students are encouraged to take part in UW's ACM Programming Contests, says computer science professor and ACM coach Gordon Cormack. "The 2000-01 season will be the 25th year of the ACM Competition, which attracts teams from thousands of universities worldwide. The first stage consists of Waterloo's local competition, held September 23" -- that's this Saturday -- "and 30. On each day, you are given five problems to solve in three hours using C, C++ or Pascal. . . . Based on the results of the Waterloo competitions, two teams of three students will be selected to represent Waterloo at the East Central Regional Competition." He might have added that UW's team came second in the world in the ACM contest last winter.

The talk of the campus

Catharine Scott, the associate provost (human resources and student services), reported briefly about orientation at Monday's meeting of the UW senate, and couldn't say enough good things about the leaders who made it all happen. She also told senate proudly that UW's first-year students generally manage to avoid serious injuries during a week of boisterous activity, apart from a fair number of slips and falls. "They're not in automobile accidents," she said, "they're not sick from alcohol poisoning, they're not in fights. But they seem to fall down a lot!" Scott added that the toga party on Saturday night, September 9, three thousand people strong, was a huge success and didn't disturb the neighbours much: there was one phone call to the UW police about the noise, and the city of Waterloo received no calls at all.

The deadline to register for the eighth annual Downey Tennisfest is Monday September 25. Registrations should go to Shirley Fenton, in the Computer Systems Group, Davis Centre. Her extension is 4074. The event will be held Sunday, October 1, from noon to 6 p.m. The cost is $20 for tennis, $20 for dinner, or $35 for both. Participants sign up as individual players, as partners are assigned for each match. Tennis balls are provided at the "fun and friendly round robin event".

Math professor Steve Furino has been appointed associate dean at St. Jerome's University, dean and vice-president Kieran Bonner has announced. Bonner said the job of associate dean, "which has not been filled since 1995, is being reactivated in recognition of increased importance of technology-related initiatives", especially the college's involvement in the UW Student Information Systems Project. Furino has been spending his time on SISP for the past three years.

A couple of days ago the Bulletin noted the arrival of Marilou McPhedran as UW's planner in residence for this term. The school of planning reports that there might still be a little space in the course that McPhedran will be teaching, which is being held on Thursday evenings. It's Planning 474K and 674K, "Building Healthy Communities: Local to Global Human Rights". M. J. Bauer in the planning school (mjbauer@fes) can provide more information.

Among the needs listed lately by the local Volunteer Action Centre: horseback riding volunteers for the Central Ontario Developmental Riding Program . . . "pro-choice, non-judgmental volunteers with excellent communication skills" to do counselling for Planned Parenthood . . . people to "provide emotional support" and help with child care for the parents of newborns, through Cradlelink . . . off-stage supporters at K-W Musical Productions. There will be a volunteer fair at Conestoga Mall, on Waterloo's north side, this Friday and Saturday, and VAC people will be there with information about some 140 organizations that are looking for volunteers.

Finally, it's been pointed out that I misspelled the name of computer science professor Brendan Frey in Friday's Bulletin. Sorry about that.

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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