Daily Bulletin

Plans for the new co-op building

The new three-storey structure is the long-awaited Co-operative Education and Career Services Building, which will go to UW's board of governors for approval tomorrow. It's expected to cost about $8.7 million and provide about 43,000 square feet of space -- a bit smaller than the present Environmental Studies II.

Drawings being presented to the board show that the other side of the building faces directly on the Arts Lecture Hall. A driveway to the building leads up from the ring road right across from the entrance to parking lot H.

The building and properties committee, which is recommending the building design to the board tomorrow, gives this summary of what it's like:

Connection to underground pedestrian and mechanical tunnels will provide access to AL, HH, SCH and if a canopy is constructed between SCH and DWE, CECS would then "connect" to most South Campus buildings; requirement for 100 interview rooms (not possible within budget above grade) was accommodated by provision for 30 rooms below grade at tunnel level; ground level provides for reception, facilities for paging and for telephone interviews, a lounge area for students awaiting interviews, a small café, Career Resource Centre, 50-seat meeting room, interview rooms; second level provides for administration/files/personnel, offices, interview rooms and a 100-seat meeting room; third level provides for administration and more interview rooms (some of which are office size to provide for use flexibility).

Structurally, the building is designed so a fourth floor can be added; glazing is limited on the west side (because of setting sun) but is abundant on the south side (making the building easy to see and identify when driving onto campus); a major staircase/set of stairs provides visual orientation within the building.

Search for provost will be confidential

"The Vice-President, Academic & Provost Nominating Committee has considered whether to treat the candidate list and/or short list and the final decision process in a confidential or public manner. Sensitive to the divergent views on the merits of each strategy, and after consideration, the Committee decided that the Vice-Presidential candidate search will be conducted in a confidential manner.

"It is the Committee's view that its goal is to ensure the development of the largest and strongest 'pool' of well qualified candidates from which to recommend an individual for the position of Vice-President, Academic & Provost. Many of the most highly qualified and potential candidates are likely to be holding positions where a publicly disclosed interest could have a negative effect on their position or career. Further, the Committee is committed to adopting a comprehensive search process that will enable all suitably qualified individuals to discuss, in confidence with the Committee, matters concerning the needs of UW and their own potential suitability for the position. This can best be done when the process protocol allows qualified individuals to have their names stand in confidence.

"The Nominating Committee, which is a representative body constituted from faculty, staff, students, the Colleges and the Board, remains committed, however, to maintaining the 'openness" of the search process itself by keeping the UW community fully informed at all times regarding the progress of the search. Reports will continue to be published in the Gazette and the Daily Bulletin."

A list of the committee's members can be found on the web.

Getting online help with computing problems -- by Carol Vogt, information systems and technology

Most major software manufacturers offer assistance via their web sites. You will usually find a menu item labelled "Support" on the home page of software developers. On their support pages, you will usually find a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions), and a Knowledge Base, where you can enter keywords that describe a problem you are having to see if the developer has an answer. The software developer may also provide you with the ability to send an e-mail question to their support people, and frequently they offer a peer to peer news group, where you can post your problem, and usually receive answers from some expert users.

Since Microsoft provides us with a big percentage of our software, let's take a look at their support services first. They have a "Support" button on their home page, where one of your choices is "Knowledge Base". On their Knowledge Base page, you select the product you are interested in, and then enter the keywords that describe your problem. This is not always easy to do, and you may need to try several sets of keywords before you hit on the right ones.

Here is an example of how I used the Microsoft Knowledge Base recently. A Word user described to me how they had a page in a document that was printed in landscape orientation, while the rest of the document was in portrait orientation. They wanted to place a portrait oriented footer on that landscape oriented page, and they asked me if I knew how to do this. I didn't, so I went to the Knowledge Base, selected Word as the product I was searching and entered "portrait footer landscape page " as my search keywords.

Half a dozen or so articles were returned, but the very first was entitled How to Add a Portrait Page Number to a Landscape Page. Bingo!

Unfortunately not all searches work out that easily. I find I may need to try two or three different sets of keywords before I find a matching article.

If you can't find anything on the Knowledge Base to help you, Microsoft offers a lengthy set of peer to peer newsgroups. Here you will find a set of newsgroups on specific products. In fact, there are a number of specific newsgroups for each product. For example, Word has 20 different newsgroups, each focussed on a specific topic such as Tables or Mail/Merge. I have posted questions to these newsgroups, and was delighted to have received very detailed assistance from other users.

As I mentioned above, most companies have a Knowledge Base, although generally they are not as extensive as Microsoft's. But many of these companies, such as Macromedia and Reference Manager, also let you ask your questions via e-mail (provided you have registered your program) and your questions are answered by the company's support staff.

Other notes for a winter day

The executive committee of UW's senate will meet at 3:30 today in Needles Hall room 3004, to set the agenda for the February 19 meeting of the full senate.

There's something new at the Graduate House, says manager Rose Vogt: "Freshly prepared sushi will be available every Monday, 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m." Hey, today's Monday.

Nearly every day there are recruitment sessions to introduce students to companies that might want to hire them. The Bulletin doesn't usually mention them, for lack of space -- the co-op and career services web site lists them all -- but I've been asked to say a word about a session today from 4 to 6 p.m. in Ground Zero restaurant in the Student Life Centre: Synopsys, a software firm with alumni links to Waterloo, is looking for graduating students from math and engineering.

Now let's look ahead a few days. Tomorrow brings a large-scale job fair at Bingemans Conference Centre in Kitchener, 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., co-sponsored by UW and several other post-secondary institutions. Organizers promise "over 185 recruiting employers in a single location", and there will be shuttle buses from the Student Life Centre every half hour from 9:30 to 2:30.

Wednesday through Saturday, the department of drama presents "totally durang-ed", a collection of five one-act plays by Christopher Durang, without a single capital letter. The show's being mounted in Studio 180 in the Humanities building, and last I heard, there were still some tickets available at $10 (students $8). More about the play on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the Centre for Applied Health Research will be hosting a one-day workshop about Bill 59, the current Ontario legislation governing motor vehicle accident insurance. Beverley Brookes in CAHR, phone ext. 6884, can provide more information.

Then Friday brings a Beach Party in the Student Life Centre -- an "all-ages" event, in both the Bombshelter pub and the great hall, including "live entertainment, prizes, games and fun" aimed at students who will soon be heading off for "reading week activities" (including ski and sun as well as hitting the books). "This is our third annual event," says Linda Brogden in health services, who's helping to organize it, "and it has been very well received in previous years."

I don't quite know what's the connection between love and crayons, but Brubakers cafeteria in the Student Life Centre is holding a Valentine's Day Colouring Contest today through Friday.

Finally, a few sports notes, starting with word that I was wrong to call the Lakehead University teams the Nor'Westers when I referred to them in Friday's Bulletin. The teams are now the Thunderwolves, I'm advised. And I can report that the men's basketball Warriors defeated the Thunderwolves 86-79 on Friday night but lost 79-73 on Saturday night. In the other half of those two doubleheaders, the women Warriors triumphed 83-46 on Friday night and 73-39 on Saturday.

Meanwhile, up at the Columbia Icefield, the hockey Warriors played two games on the weekend, and I apologize for having said on Friday that those were away dates. ("The team gets little enough support without giving out wrong information," one annoyed fan told me.) The Warriors won both games, defeating York 6-3 on Friday and Guelph 3-1 yesterday.

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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