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All day, all night With the rebirth of the Columbia Lake Townhouses as a first-year residence, it will now have a 24-hour reception desk like the other three Villages. Here are the desk phone numbers: Village I -- 888-4086 Ron Eydt Village -- 888-4448 Mackenzie King Village -- 888-4567 ext. 6900 Columbia Lake Townhouses -- 888-4567 ext. 3837 Housing director Gail Clarke says the desks will be staffed day and night starting tomorrow, to welcome some international students who are expected to be arriving in residence early.

Holiday weekend brings new students

(Today, on the other hand, "looks like a ghost town" on campus, as one of my colleagues put it. Lots of people are taking a day off before the long weekend and the September rush, I guess.)

Sunday and Monday, more than 4,000 new first-year students will be moving into "the Villages", which have grown in number from two to four. Besides Village I and Ron Eydt Village, there's the brand-new Mackenzie King Village, receiving its first residents ever, and there's the Columbia Lake Townhouse complex, which will now be part of the first-year residences.

"We're going to be ready for them at 7:00 in the morning!" laughs Gail Clarke, director of housing and residence administration. Officially, new students are supposed to arrive between 8:30 and noon if their homes are within a three-hour drive of Waterloo, and in the afternoon if they're coming further than that.

Students have been assigned Sunday or Monday as arrival day in a pattern that will balance demand for the access roads, Clarke said. University police will be on hand to direct parents to the right drop-off spot and then the right parking lot, and there will be "dozens and dozens of orientation leaders" helping with quick unloading.

While students meet their roommates and explore the Villages, parents can have a cup of coffee in the central lounge areas of each residence, including the new patio at the Columbia Lake Townhouse community centre.

Once students get settled and say their goodbyes, the orientation program gets rolling. Villagers are promised an "alcohol awareness pizza dinner" as their opening meal Monday night, followed by opening ceremonies at 6:00. The evening's big event is a show by hypnotist Mike Mandel, starting at 8:00 in the Physical Activities Complex.

At the four church colleges, Monday brings such activities as barbecues, airband practice at Renison, and a "clock dance" at St. Paul's, all aimed at building a sense of community and friendship. (And I don't wish to alarm anybody, but St. Jerome's seems to have "secret agent training" on the calendar for Wednesday.)

For first-year students not living in residence, there are activities under the aegis of the off-campus dons. Sign-up and information booths are scheduled for noon to 4 p.m. Monday in Federation Hall, and the off-campus students will join Villagers to watch the hypnotist on Monday night. Tuesday morning starts off with faculty-based events for both residence and off-campus students.

Campus-wide highlights later in orientation week include Monte Carlo Night on Thursday and the record-setting Toga Party on Saturday night. And then there's the second football game of the season: the Warriors visit the McMaster Marauders on Saturday, September 8. Buses will run to Hamilton for those who want to see the game first-hand, and there will be a video feed to Waterloo's new Galaxy cinema complex for those who choose not to make the trip.

Warrior quarterback Jordie Holton goes to the air in last year's season-ending game against the McMaster Marauders. Mac was victorious 44-20, keeping the Warriors out of the Yates Cup game for the Ontario championship for the first time in five years. Last season, Holton was third among league-leading passers, and with a year's experience he should be even stronger this fall.

Welcome to Monday night football

"Expectations are set high for the 2001 Warriors," insists head coach Chris Triantafilou. "Last year's young players have grown into seasoned veterans and are looking forward to great success on the field. With second-year quarterback Jordie Holton combined with running-backs Jay Akindolire and Mike Bradley, the Warrior offense could be explosive.

"Defensively, we have many returnees. They have worked hard in the off-season, and if they play together as a unit, they look to be a physically dominant force in the OUA."

Speaking of the OUA -- the Ontario Universities Athletics league -- it's been realigned again. This year's season schedule sees the Warriors meeting WLU, McMaster, Ottawa, Windsor, Western, Guelph, York, and Toronto, before advancing to the quarterfinals and semifinals, the Yates Cup provincial championship game, the Churchill Bowl and the national Vanier Cup.

Now about those running-backs -- the "dynamic duo", as Chris Gilbert of UW's athletics department has chosen to call them. Here's the word from Gilbert on veteran tailback Mike Bradley and fullback Jay Akindolire, who was the 2000 "freshman of the year":

Mike had been looking to build on his OUA Player of the Year season of 1999 when he led the country in rushing and was named first team All Canadian. Unfortunately a severe ankle sprain cut his season in half. Even with this injury, Mike managed to garner a second team OUA All Star selection and finished fourth in the province in rushing.

While many Warrior fans were disheartened with the injury, the Warrior coaching staff had complete faith in their newest weapon, Jay Akindolire. Jay was one of the most highly recruited athletes in the country last year. Coming off a London high school championship with Regina Mundi and an Ontario Varsity Football League championship with the London Falcons, Jay's name was at the top of everyone's recruiting list. While he was never promised a starting job with the Warriors, extensive scouting convinced Coach Triantafilou and Coach Bingeman that they had found the ideal fullback for the option offense, tough, strong, explosive and fearless up the middle. Their faith was justified as Jay won the starting role after coming in half way through the first game of the season and kept it for the whole year.

Jay went on to rush for almost 700 yards in his first season, good enough for third in the league with 3 touchdowns and the second best average per carry. Heading into the 2001 season, expectations have been raised. Mike has rehabilitated his ankle and focused his training to make his final year of CIAU football his best. Opposing defenses know that if they key on him too much, Jay, who has gained 15 pounds while getting stronger and faster, will rip them up. Factor in the growth and maturity of quarterback Jordie Holton and his backup last year, Mihro Hadjinnian, and you can begin to see the excitement the Warriors attack will have for the 2001 season.

Other notes before the holiday

• UW police: on duty 24 hours, 888-4911.
• Student Life Centre: open 24 hours, turnkey desk 888-4434.
• Maintenance emergencies: phone ext. 3793, 24 hours a day.

The Dana Porter and Davis Centre libraries will be open noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, but closed Monday.

The parking office will be open Monday.

The bookstore, UW Shop, computer store and Techworx will be open noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday and Monday, but closed Sunday.

Gary Griffin was honoured at the 25-Year Club reception last spring, as one of the guests who had reached 35 years of service at UW. President David Johnston prepares to hand over a token of esteem.

Griffin winds up long career

Since 1978, Griffin has variously been associate dean of arts (for undergraduate studies and later for computing), acting dean of arts (while the dean was acting provost in 1987-88), advisor to the vice-president on interdisciplinary programs, director of independent studies, and maybe a few other things, as well as TRACE director.

Now he becomes just a psychology professor again, the role he has played at UW since arriving in 1966 after completing his PhD at the University of Wisconsin. His undergraduate degree was from Colgate. Griffin was one of the wave of American academics who came to UW in the late sixties, and who are now retired or will soon leave. Griffin has announced early retirement for next year. Meanwhile, beginning September 1, he is taking a year's leave -- "terminal leave" is the official label for it.

During the year, he says, he has extensive reading planned, particularly in the area of the biological basis of behaviour, and he intends to continue with a research project that he began at TRACE, studying the Certificate in University Teaching program and how much it affects young teachers' confidence and skills.

As for retirement activity, he mentions travelling, hobbies ("I grow orchids . . . I used to love to cook"), and a long-developing interest in architecture. He says he will do serious "informal" study in that field, and travel to see architectural sites of interest. And then there are the grandchildren.

Through the years of administrative work, Griffin has continued to do some teaching, especially since taking over TRACE, where he realized that "the optics" meant he needed to be a teacher himself. (He won one of UW's distinguished teacher awards in 1977.) He has also done research, mostly about teaching techniques, and notes that "the literature in education often comes with a social science methodology," which makes it particularly accessible to psychologists. His successor as TRACE director is also a psych professor, Barbara Bulman-Fleming.

"I think I've had an impact," says Griffin, though he insists that when things get done they're the result of "team effort". In TRACE, he mentions the CUT program in particular, as well as the founding of the Teaching and Learning Technology Roundtable. Before that, he takes pride in having stabilized the independent studies program, which "was a nightmare" of interpersonal hostility when he took it over in 1988, and his role in raising the quality of incoming students year by year when he was associate dean of arts.

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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