Daily Bulletin

Iland elected to head Federation

Just 1,267 votes were cast in the race for the Fed presidency. That's 8 per cent of the 16,562 undergraduates who were eligible to vote -- down from a 10 per cent turnout last year and 17 per cent the year before.

Iland drew 601 votes, or 47 per cent of the total. Science student Albert Nazareth came second with 404 votes, while environmental studies student Chris DiLullo had 230. And 32 students declined their electronic ballot.

David Drewe, Federation staff member and chief returning officer, noted that in the course of the week-long voting period, Nazareth was "disqualified" from the campaign by the elections committee, "for overspending". He added that the ruling "may be subject to appeal until end of business Tuesday".

Iland said during the campaign that the main points of his platform were "ensuring better access to housing for students, directing more money into scholarships and bursaries, preparing for the double cohort, increasing awareness of Students' Council, letting students know where their money is going". He told an Imprint questioner that he wasn't sure students would be in favour of a major program to expand athletic space and the Student Life Centre, although "we definitely need more student lounge, social and study space. . . . I want to check into what students want before we tell the administration, yes, go for it."

He has served as speaker of Students' Council, senior don at Renison College, and a member of UW's Student Services Advisory Committee, and in Ron Eydt Village Council and the Math Society.

Commentator Jesse Helmer in UWstudent.org said Iland "seems to be the calmest of the three candidates and has plans, rather than ideas".

Taking office for 2001-02 along with Iland:

• Arts student Dawn Phillips, as vice-president (administration and finance), winner in a two-person race for that position.
• Arts student Brenda Beatty, as vice-president (student issues), elected over two other candidates.
• Engineering student Ryan Stammers, acclaimed to be vice-president (education).

Referendum: yes, unofficially, but no

Students voted Yes on the creation of the proposed society and No on paying a $2.50-a-term fee for it -- but on both questions, they didn't vote in large enough numbers for the results to be binding on the Federation. By Fed rules, a 10 per cent turnout is required; the turnout was about 7 per cent.

All students were asked: "Do you support the creation of a co-op society that will represent co-op students to the CECS department and provide services to co-op students, which would result in the transfer of representation of co-op students, on solely co-op issues, from the Federation of Students as called for in the Co-op Society Proposal?" The result: 514 Yes, 452 No, 139 declined ballots, for a total of 1,105.

Co-op students were also asked: "In the event the above referendum passes, do you support the introduction on the fee statement of a refundable fee for all undergraduate co-op students of $2.50?" The result: 287 Yes, 413 No, 26 declined ballots, for a total of 726, out of 10,037 eligible voters.

The voting procedure itself, as well as the issue of a Co-op Society, has been controversial. It's the first time a campus-wide student vote has been conducted electronically, relying on userids and passwords for authentication, and some would-be voters have reported running into difficulty with the system. One person, writing this morning on UWstudent.org, goes so far as to call the whole event "a sham . . . a flawed election system resulted in low turnout and a slanting of votes towards the tech-savvy student population, limiting access to most others".

National prize for a Waterloo PhD

Waterloo's Vien Van is among four medalists this year, selected by a national jury from the best PhD graduates nominated by universities across Canada. Other winners came from Toronto, Simon Fraser, and Alberta. Each winner receives a $5,000 cash prize and a silver medal from NSERC.

Van completed his undergraduate work at Simon Fraser University before coming to UW to earn his PhD in the department of electrical and computer engineering.

Since May, 2000, he has been working at the University of Maryland as a post-doctoral fellow on contract for the US department of defense in the Laboratory for Physical Science -- work funded in part by NSERC and in part by the University of Maryland.

According to a description of his work provided by NSERC, "Van is turning theory into practice when it comes to non-linear materials. The unique optical effects of non-linear materials were first noted in the early 20th century but, until recently, have remained in the domain of theoretical physics. Van's 2001 NSERC doctoral prize-winning PhD research, set the mathematical groundwork for applying these theoretical concepts to increasing the speed of telecommunications and logic devices. 'The next step is to actually build so-called all-optical systems,' says Van. Van was born in Vietnam and moved to Vancouver while still young."

His work at Maryland "is a natural extension of my thesis," said Van in a recent phone interview from his office there. "It's the experimental stage of my work." He will remain at Maryland "at least until the end of 2001," he added. When his post-doc is completed, he will be coming back to UW as an assistant professor in the electrical and computer engineering department.

Professors critical of online report

The report, The E-Learning E-Volution in Colleges and Universities, urges governments, universities and colleges to pursue online postsecondary education aggressively, and calls for government support for "the learnware industry". But CAUT says the Committee "ignored a growing body of research that casts doubts on the so-called benefits of virtual education".

"The committee bases a lot of its recommendations on the belief that online education will improve accessibility," said CAUT president Tom Booth. "In truth, we know that a lot of web-based courses cost more and that a substantial number of students fail to complete their online courses."

Booth said recent research also shows that low income people, minorities, and people with less education to begin with are less likely to have access to computers or services needed to study online. "Students traditionally excluded from post-secondary education are the most dependent on face-to-face interaction and the least able to deal with the frustration and isolation of web-based distance education. If education to date has been the great equalizer, technology-based education could be an engine of inequality."

He said the recommendations "ignore the real problems facing colleges and universities after years of governments cutbacks", and would see "badly-needed funding diverted from the core operations of institutions".

Booth complained that while the committee included senior executives from from AT&T Canada, IBM, the Bank of Montreal, Lucent Technologies, and Bell Canada Enterprises, it had no representatives of students or teachers. "The members of the committee clearly have a vested interest in promoting online learning," said the CAUT president. "It's a cheerleading squad."

Johnston is also chairing a federal task force on broadband access to the Internet which is expected to report by the end of March.

While much of the campus is quiet

The UW Shop will not be closed today and tomorrow, as previously announced -- the closing has been moved to this Thursday, February 22.

Brubakers cafeteria in the Student Life Centre will be undergoing minor renovations this week, and the food services department sends apologies for the inconvenience. "Pitas will not be available during the week -- however, our fantastic made-to-order deli sandwiches, pasta, and pub grub feature will still be available."

Water will be shut off in Carl Pollock Hall tomorrow (Tuesday) from 8 a.m. to noon. "Use washroom facilities in Engineering 2," the plant operations department suggests.

A seminar on "Startup Companies: Factors for Success" will be offered tomorrow at 2:30 p.m., sponsored by UW's InfraNet Project. Panelists will include Thomas Åstebro of UW's management sciences department, Andrew Abouchar of Waterloo Ventures, patent agent Mark Schisler, and Shirley Speakman of Royal Bank Ventures Inc. The event will take place in Davis Centre room 1304.

Later this week -- on Thursday -- this year's Regional German High School Contest will be taking place, hosted by the Germanic and Slavic department in the Modern Languages building. About 90 students and their teachers are expected.

Imprint will host a National Student Journalism Conference Thursday through Saturday -- I'll say more about that event later in the week.

Thursday also brings the 12th annual Clair Bobier Lecture in Vision, in UW's school of optometry (7:30 p.m.). The speaker this year will be UW faculty member John Flanagan, on "Neuroprotection in Glaucoma". Meanwhile, a continuing education program on "Advanced Ocular Disease and Therapeutics" got under way yesterday, bringing a group of practising optometrists back to Waterloo for an intensive week's work. Several instructors from beyond UW's faculty are involved in presenting the program. This week's "didactic module" is followed by a five-day "practical module" in mid-April. Participants are paying $3,700 apiece for the course and a "transcript-quality certificate examination" at the end.

Among things not happening: a meeting of the senate finance committee, which had been scheduled for next Monday, February 26. "No new information has been received from Queen's Park," says a memo from the university secretariat, meaning that not much progress can be made on planning UW's 2001-02 budget. "The next meeting has been tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, March 28."

There are expected to be two people from UW and Wilfrid Laurier University on a task force on affordable housing being set up by the city of Waterloo. City council will be asked to give final approval to the membership tonight. The task force will also include developers, social services experts, and people from the community at large. Its role: developing a plan to increase the amount of housing available in Waterloo, which has one of the lowest vacancy rates in Canada.

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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