Daily Bulletin

Hockey Warriors triumph Wednesday: Warriors 3, Wilfrid Laurier University 2 Friday: WLU 4, Warriors 3 Sunday: Warriors 5, WLU 3 Waterloo wins Far West Division playoff. The team now faces Western in a best-of-three series beginning Wednesday night in London.

Guess when it'll be warm

"I like warm weather as much as the next guy," he says, "but I am hoping we don't have one warm day in March that ends the contest in the first week. It reached 20 on March 8 last year and didn't do it again until April 15. And it's a good thing we didn't make it a 30 degree contest, as that didn't happen last year until September 1."

So what's your guess for this year? Entries are due by 4:00 Thursday afternoon, through the weather station web site; the winners stand to collect a book and a thermometer, plus a moment of glory.

And no, it didn't get close to 20 yesterday, although it might have felt like it after the chill winds of Saturday night. The maximum temperature yesterday afternoon was 10.3 Celsius, the weather station reports.

Students plan conference on peace

Rae's talk -- on Wednesday night in the Humanities Theatre -- will be the final event of the conference, and is also sponsored by the "2020: Building the Future" lecture series.

It's the third annual student peace conference at Grebel, this year with the theme "Spheres of Action: Responding to Social Injustices in Canada." The goal of the conference, organizers say, "is to foster communication and action between the academic, government, religious and secular elements in the quest for peace".

Rae -- who served as mediator at Burnt Church, Nova Scotia, during last year's controversy over native fishing rights -- will be taking part in a panel discussion on citizenship, responsibility and social injustices. And Marilou McPhedran, member of the Order of Canada and currently working on the International Human Rights Project, will appear on the same panel. Alanis Obomsawin, major native film maker and the only media person allowed behind the lines at the 1990 Oka crisis after all others were forced out, will be presenting her film "Rocks at Whisky Trench". Hugh Russel, community justice consultant, will be doing an interactive workshop on circle conferencing, an alternative dispute resolution method.

Besides the workshop, panel discussion, presentations and informal discussion, there will also be a scheduled time for participants to present and discuss their areas of research, internships, volunteer assignments, and so forth. During breaks, there will be a presentation by the Wildfire Dance Troupe, as well as a native drumming circle.

The conference is free, "to make it available to as many community members as possible". The Waterloo Public Interest Research Group, the Federation of Students and the faculty of engineering are among the sponsors.

Tax receipts for students Income tax receipts for the year 2000 will be mailed out for all UW, St. Jerome's University and Renison College students by February 28 -- this Wednesday -- according to the finance office. Receipts will go to home addresses: "Students who have specific academic departments as their mailing addresses will have their receipts forwarded to the appropriate departments." A memo adds: "For University of Waterloo students, if you do not receive your receipt shortly, or if you require a replacement, you should contact the Cashier's Office, Finance, in Needles Hall. St. Jerome's and Renison students should contact their respective Business Office. There is a $5 charge for duplicate receipts."

Where UW ranks in graduate students

UW has 1,786 graduate students, says a table presented by the dean, Jake Sivak. That means grads make up 10 per cent of UW's total full-time enrolment. The figure is 24 per cent at Toronto, 25 per cent at British Columbia and McGill, 15 per cent at Western and McMaster, 13 per cent at Laurier. The highest figures in the country are at Montréal and Sherbrooke (29 per cent), followed by Laval (28). Only Brock and Windsor rank below Waterloo.

Sivak is keen to get the figure higher by increasing the number of grad students at UW, a change that would also affect the amount of research done here and the number of people available to be teaching assistants for undergraduate courses.

His report to senate tonight includes many pages of statistics about graduate enrolment. For example:

• Of 1,644 full-time grad students last fall, 1,031 were Canadian citizens, 325 were permanent residents and 288 were here on foreign student visas.
• UW ranks 24th in Canada in the number of master's level students, and 13th in the number of PhD students.
• Waterloo ranks 57th in Canada (out of 61 institutions listed) in the percentage of graduate students who are women -- 38 per cent. Toronto is at 55 per cent, McMaster 42 per cent.

Tonight's senate meeting starts at 4:30 in Needles Hall room 3001.

Noon discussions, spiritual seminars

One is a series of noon-hour discussions organized by the Waterloo Public Interest Research Group "to explore issues that are important and interesting to UW students". The intention, says graduate student Alastair Farrugia, "is to provide a forum for people to express their views and listen to others. Hopefully, the format will help us learn how to better both at expression and at listening."

He says there will be no panel of speakers. "Instead, anyone present can speak. However, specific people will be invited to represent different sides of an issue, or just for their expertise. Each person who talks will be asked to first reflect back briefly what the person before them said. The previous speaker can take this opportunity to correct any misunderstandings. Besides helping to clear up or prevent genuine confusion, this practice is also intended to encourage people to listen more to others."

People will also be able to give feedback by leaving a note in a box provided at the discussion, or on-line.

Today's topic is "The Brain Drain: Fact or Fiction?" The conversation will take place in Student Life Centre room 2134, and the key speaker will be Veronica Chau, former vice-president (education) of the Federation of Students.

Future topics include "Corporate Sponsorship on Campus", March 7, "Cuba" on March 16, and "Housing and the Double Cohort" on March 21.

Meanwhile, a talk on Indian spirituality, this Thursday evening, will launch a program that's badly needed, according to the newly-formed Spiritual Heritage Education Network. A news release explains the background:

A group of people in Kitchener-Waterloo area realized the need of spiritual education and practice as apart from religious education and practice. Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. is result of the recognition of this need.

People who have realized such a spirituality as envisioned by Spiritual Heritage Education Network agree about its fundamental nature. They declare that the immanent self is the same as, or at least akin to, the Universal Principle. They also say that the innermost desire of everyone is to personally discover this Truth. Once such a spirituality is experienced, one recognizes the Ultimate Truth in all things and feels a sense of self in everything. This recognition has the potential of helping human beings become better by, observing the following ethic -- good is what makes for unity. Such spiritual discoveries comprise a human heritage worth preserving and promoting. They are the source of all ethics and people's only hope towards realizing true understanding, peace, equanimity, justice, and harmony.

The second talk will be on "Spirituality and Yoga", by Raj Dubey, a mechanical engineering professor at UW and a local Hindu leader. He'll speak at the same time and place on March 29.

Also happening on campus

A council meeting of the student Math Society is scheduled for today, at 4:30 in Math and Computer room 4058, and I see that the agenda includes several motions about dealing with the perennial problem of people using the "comfy lounge" as a place to sleep. Among the proposals for enforcement: "Any student ignoring this policy shall be sprayed with water (not more than once a night) and compelled to leave."

Guelph-Waterloo Physics has a high-voltage visitor due tomorrow. Gerardus 't Hooft, 1999 Nobel prize winner in physics from the University of Utrecht, Netherlands, will be at the Guelph campus, and will speak at 4 p.m. in room 113 of the MacNaughton Building. Topic: "From Subatomic Particle Physics to the Gravitational Force -- A Path Through the Desert". On Thursday, GWP brings another prominent speaker, this time to UW: Robert Birgeneau, expert on superconductors and incidentally president of the University of Toronto, will speak at 3:30 Thursday afternoon, in Physics room 145.

Susanna Heller, a painter now living in New York, is paying a three-day visit to UW's fine arts department, and will give a public lecture about her work tomorrow at 1:30 in East Campus Hall room 1219.

An "overview" of graduate studies in engineering is scheduled for Friday, from 3 to 6 p.m. at the University Club. Each department in the engineering faculty will give a brief presentation, of interest to upper-year students in engineering, science and math who might choose to work toward a master's degree and PhD in engineering. There will be food.

And here's a reminder that the Bernoulli Trials math contest is scheduled for Saturday. I'll say more about that in a day or two.

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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