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Thursday, August 30, 2001

  • 'Single and Sexy' ready for the stage
  • Computing courses are scheduled
  • Government spending down, CAUT says

[Hinchcliffe]
Peter Hinchcliffe, English professor at St. Jerome's University, officially retires September 1. A specialist in Canadian literature -- and one of the founders of UW's The New Quarterly -- Hinchcliffe has spent most of his career at St. Jerome's: he came to Waterloo in 1969, after four years at Huron College at the University of Western Ontario.

'Single and Sexy' ready for the stage

For the thirteenth year, hormones are about to sweep across the Theatre of the Arts stage. It's the annual production of "Single and Sexy", which is expected to entertain more than 4,000 new students in the coming week -- and give them something to think about.

"Single and Sexy" is always billed as the highlight of UW's orientation week, "replacing the traditional frosh lecture", as a brochure puts it, "with a high energy, entertaining, nonjudgmental, powerful presentation of scenarios and attitudes frosh are likely to witness or experience".

All this and talent too! The cast of "Single and Sexy" this year consists of Marc André Barsalou, Jungwoo (Elliott) Chae, Cindy Hackelberg, Lauren Miller, Chris Collins, Mia Praught, Dave Grant and Christopher Douglas. The show is directed by Darlene Spencer of the drama department and produced by Denise Angove of health services.

Every year the show is brought up to date, so it's changed quite a bit since the first shambolic performances in 1989. Here's how news writer Pat Bow described some of its contents two years ago: "Though a synopsis of the action may sound depressingly serious, the actual performance is, in a word, fun. It skips from sight gag to song to dream scene to TV parody in the flick of a sneaker sole. Bouncy skits like 'Genital Jeopardy' and the straight/gay wrestling bout have audiences laughing out loud. Later, though, comes a moment of emotional intensity when one of the friends forces another to face the fact that he raped her."

A preview performance is scheduled for 1:30 Friday afternoon. Then here's the schedule during orientation week: Tuesday 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.; Wednesday 5:30 p.m.; Thursday 12 noon and 4 p.m.; Friday 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. Various groups of first-year students are scheduled to come to each performance, but in general anybody's welcome to see the show.

Admission is free. The Theatre of the Arts is on the main floor of the Modern Languages building.

IST repels hackers

A note was posted yesterday afternoon by Doug Payne, manager of network systems integration for the information systems and technology department: "From about 1100h until 1230h today, all services on the campus network were severely disrupted by some sort of denial-of-service attack. Portions of the network had to be physically disconnected for short periods in an effort to track it down. Measures have been implemented which should prevent a recurrence of this specific attack. Investigation continues."

Other notes today

It's "College Week" on the CNN news channel, and that's meaning some worldwide exposure for UW. Early morning co-anchor Colleen McEdwards is among CNN on-air personalities who are wearing T-shirts and otherwise showing the colours of their alma maters this week. McEdwards is a Waterloo graduate in English and Russian.

UW's Carousel Dance Centre will hold a second open house tonight from 6:30 to 8:30, at its studios in East Campus Hall, with an eye to enrolling kids for fall classes. A third open house is scheduled for September 5 (next Wednesday) at the same times.

As Warrior football camp continues, another group of athletes with a lower profile have also been staying in Ron Eydt Village and getting in shape for the coming season. About 25 members and wannabe-members of the Warrior field hockey team will wind up fall camp today.

Advance note: an information session about the Weight Watchers at Work program will be held Monday, September 10, at 12 noon in Humanities room 373. Information about the program is available from Karen Stevenson of WW at 886-3262.

Computing courses are scheduled

The information systems and technology department (IST) is offering computing courses in September to UW faculty, staff and students. The following courses are planned: The following courses are part of the Skills for the Academic e-Workplace program, and are offered to faculty, grad students, and staff with instructional responsibilities: Information about the courses, along with a registration form, can be found on the web. There is also information about a workshop called "Parallel Programming on the IBM SP". New courses will be taught every month, and advertised at the same web location.

Government spending down, CAUT says

Spending on post-secondary education by provincial governments has gone down for the second year in a row, "despite an increase in federal cash transfers intended to support universities and colleges", says a report from the Canadian Association of University Teachers.

The study, The Growing Funding Gap, measures spending in "real" terms (discounting dollars for inflation) and calculates funding per capita. It says provincial spending on colleges, universities and training fell 3.2 per cent in 2000-01 from the previous year. The drop was the biggest in Ontario (9.0 per cent), followed by Alberta (5.6 per cent).

"The latest funding decline means real per capita expenditures are now about 20% below the levels of 1992/93," the report notes. "Put another way, to bring provincial spending back to where it was in 1992/93 would require an immediate investment of more than $2 billion."

The report says spending on post-secondary education fell in most provinces even as Ottawa increased the Canada Health and Social Transfer payments to the provinces in support of post-secondary education, health care and social services. Many of the provincial premiers have demanded that Ottawa further boost its CHST payments.

"Ottawa has good reason to be skeptical of the intentions of the premiers," the report notes. "The real per capita cash portion of the CHST rose more than 17% between 1998 and 2000, and yet real per capita spending on post-secondary education fell by nearly 4% over this period."

It goes on to say that "core" funding, the part of government spending that goes for regular operations of universities, actually rose somewhat this year, for the first time in three years. (In addition to operating funds, governments provide other transfers such as research grants and building funds.) "Even with the latest boost in operating funding," says the report, "core provincial support for universities and university colleges remains nearly 27% lower than 1992/93." It adds that Ontario's grants are the lowest in Canada. Québec's grants are the highest, with Newfoundland occupying second place.

CAR

[UW logo] 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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