Daily Bulletin

Average faculty salary: $85,200

Full-time faculty members 2000-01

That's up from 711 full-time faculty a year ago, and an average salary on April 30, 2000, of $83,830.

The numbers are part of a package of "supplementary data" attached to UW's draft budget for 2001-02, presented to the university senate a few days ago. They show that the number of faculty at Waterloo has gone up steadily since a low point of 664 in 1996-97, the year right after the budget-cutting Special Early Retirement Program.

Of the 758 faculty members this year, 568 have tenure and 161 are on probationary appointments leading to tenure; just 29 are on definite term appointments. The figures don't include part-time faculty members, those on reduced load, and senior administrators.

Another chart in the "supplementary data" package shows the number of staff positions in various parts of UW. There's a total of 1,523.5 positions for staff paid from the operating budget. That doesn't include staff in the self-supporting "ancillary operations" such as the bookstore, food services and graphics.

There are a total of 444.6 positions in the six faculties and 1,079.1 in other departments of the university, the chart shows. The departments with the largest number of staff are plant operations (332.0), the library (138.8), information systems and technology (117.0), co-op education and career services (80.3), the registrar's office (51.4), development and alumni affairs (39.0), finance (38.8), distance and continuing education (34.0), and the research office (32.2).

Remarks about UW's residences

"UW has 53 residence buildings grouped into six complexes. We have a new building under construction just to the west of Village I (William Lyon Mackenzie King Village), and are doing extensive renovations and additions to other facilities that will give us a total of over 4,300 beds by this September -- all with high speed Internet connectivity.

"When combined with the facilities of the Colleges, students will have just under 5,100 places to stay on campus. In aggregate, UW students pay between $25 million and $30 million for on-campus residence and meal plans. Approximately 40 per cent of the students who come from outside the Region of Waterloo can be accommodated in residence. Because of the Co-op system our residences are full in the fall, about 85 per cent full in the winter and about 50 per cent full in the summer term. That gives us about a 5 per cent higher overall yearly occupancy rate than traditional 8 month universities. This fall, for the first time, UW will offer a guarantee of residence to each first year student.

"But this is not the real residence story. When we were 20 years old the distinctions that we may have known amongst study, play, employment, dining, socializing, recreation, learning and even entrepreneurship were far more clear than they are now.

"And things are much more interchangeable now: day and night blur into one another, worlds are portable, social status is adjustable, accessibility is more negotiable, cultures are shareable, and there is not just a truce in the battle of the sexes -- they have joined forces.

"To oversee this milieu of youth we have five full-time residence life staff and over 70 senior student dons whose mentorship guides the university life of all the Villagers. It is a rewarding job full of the joys and sadness that accompany the daily lives of young people under pressure. They do a great job and we are proud of them. For them and all the staff in housing, I would like to welcome you into their home.

"As you may note, things are pretty empty here since exams are over and the dons had their farewell barbecue yesterday. There were tears for those graduating, tears from those graduating and tears from the residence life staff -- not because staff are sad to see people go but because a mere week from now a new term will start all over again."

There was a chuckle at the concept of 4,300 beds with Internet connectivity. "Not the beds -- the rooms," Walker hastened to explain.

Bits and the occasional byte

Maybe the best article in print in recent days was "How to survive a really bad school", by Mark Bourrie, in Saturday's National Post. He describes life at Lake Superior High School in Schreiber and Terrace Bay, north of Superior, ranked 568th of 568 schools in the (lately discredited) Fraser Institute statistics about Ontario schools. "I was academically and psychologically unprepared for university," writes Bourrie, who crashed and burned at Western and then at Ryerson. The punch line: "He graduated in 1990, at the age of 33, with a BA in History from the University of Waterloo. . . . He has written six books."

The joint health and safety committee will meet at 1:30 today in Needles Hall room 3001.

The workshop series on "Reducing Poverty in Urban Areas", sponsored by UW's Heritage Resources Centre, continues tonight (7 p.m. at Kitchener city hall) with a session on "Local Government and Poverty".

A workshop on "Novel Approaches to Hard Discrete Optimization" is under way in Ron Eydt Village and the Davis Centre, continuing through Saturday. There has recently been "breathtaking progress in algorithmic nonlinear optimization", the conference web site notes, and there's some reason to expect more developments as researchers compare notes over the next three days. UW's Henry Wolkowicz (combinatorics and optimization) and Tony Vannelli (electrical and computer engineering) are among the organizers.

Also in the Ron Eydt Village conference centre for a couple of nights: a tour group of some 35 people from Ridgetown High School.

The bookstore, UW Shop and TechWorx in South Campus Hall are closed today and tomorrow for year-end inventory. The computer store and TechWorx in the Student Life Centre are open today but will be closed tomorrow for the same reason.

Advance note: a reception and dinner in honour of mechanical engineering professor Gordon Andrews, who's retiring, will be held May 11 at the University Club. Ethel Spike in the mech eng department, phone ext. 6740, has details.

The faculty of science has announced the name of its valedictorian for spring convocation: Will Leckie, graduating with a degree in physics. A valedictorian speaks at each convocation ceremony on behalf of the graduating class.

News from beyond the campus

The Ontario government has announced the choice of Dale Patterson, an executive of the Canadian Medical Discoveries Fund, to chair its new Postsecondary Education Quality Assessment Board, which will have the job of advising the government on new degree programs to be offered by Ontario colleges and new institutions wishing to offer degrees in Ontario. Patterson is a former chair of the board of Ryerson University.

The University of Toronto is entangled in another academic freedom dispute after charges that the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and U of T withdrew a researcher's job offer when he made comments about Prozac that weren't congenial to the manufacturer of the popular antidepressant. U of T president Robert Birgeneau says the allegations, from the Canadian Association of University Teachers, are "groundless and offensive".

Similarly, the CAUT has charged that Simon Fraser University has been "attempting to block the appointment of David Noble as the J. S. Woodsworth Chair in the Humanities". Says CAUT president Tom Booth: "It appears as if the SFU administration does not like Noble's politics and is trying to kill the appointment."

A new medical school in northern Ontario should be open by September 2002, health minister Tony Clement announced on Tuesday. The school will have more than one campus and will make use of "some of the newest techniques for e-learning," Clement said. Although the sites haven't been officially announced, it's expected the new school will have campuses in Thunder Bay and Sudbury. Unofficial reports say the government will also set up a satellite medical campus in Windsor, likely affiliated with the existing medical school at the University of Western Ontario.

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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