Daily
Bulletin

Fears for quality by 2003

For the board's benefit, provost Alan George repeated the things he said last month when the treasurer of Ontario announced the level of grants that would be available for the next three years. Treasurer Jim Flaherty announced that the province will increase its grants by 1.6 per cent this year, 3.9 per cent next year, and then 13.2 per cent in 2003-04, the year the "double cohort" is expected to put sudden enrolment pressure on the campuses.

"The funding increases are based only on projected enrolment increases," George said. "There is no provision for inflation." The result is a real grant increase that's only about 4 per cent over three years. "Four per cent is better than nothing, but that's in the context of increasing enrolment by 20 per cent!"

A board member asked what things are going to be like when extra students hit the campuses. "It's not possible," said George, "to deal with that and maintain the quality. We give up on class sizes, we give up on the range of programs that we offer. . . . There's going to be a lot of soul-searching and planning to decide what's going to be the best strategy."

President David Johnston chimed in to note that some universities will expand their enrolment significantly to help deal with those extra high school graduates, while some won't. Overall, he said, "the quality in the system will go down." UW's announced plan is to accept some extra students in 2003 and some in 2004, and then fall back to a level of enrolment that amounts to a 15 per cent growth from 1998-99 levels.

Already, George told the board yesterday, about 10 per cent of UW's students aren't bringing in any grants, although there has been pressure on the government to change that system. If grants were given based on UW's total enrolment, the university's income would be something like $8 million a year higher than it is.

As things stand, the budget is being trimmed by $5.5 million this year -- 3.5 per cent off most departments' spending -- in order to bring income and spending into balance. The board approved George's proposed budget, with total operating expenditures of $219.7 million for the current year.

Team reports on Formula SAE race -- by Barbara Elve

In its 14th year of competition, the UW team received a first in engineering design, second in safety and crashworthiness, and eleventh in endurance.

Among the top Canadian entries, Ecole de Technologie Superieure placed sixth, McGill University was 19th, Queen's University ranked 26th, University of Western Ontario 37th, and University of Toronto, 40th.

Each team is required to innovate, design, fabricate and race their own formula-style race car, which must have the potential to be mass-produced and marketed to the non-professional, weekend Solo II autocross competitor. It must be completed -- start to finish -- in a single academic year and have a fully-assembled cost of no more than US $30,000.

Automotive and race engineers from host companies Daimler-Chrysler, General Motors and Ford judge each vehicle based on a series of static and dynamic evaluations. Static judging includes engineering design, manufacturing cost analysis, and marketing presentations. Dynamic judging features acceleration, skid pad tests, autocross challenges and an endurance/fuel economy event. There are also incentives for aesthetics, comfort, safety and use of off-the-shelf parts.

Poor weather at this year's Formula SAE Competition reduced the number of attempts teams had for skid pad, acceleration and autocross runs, but permitted the endurance/fuel economy event to be fully completed.

The UW team is looking for enthusiastic members from all years and disciplines to be part of the 2002 effort. Anyone interested can e-mail fsae@engmail or call ext. 5904. FSAE is located in Engineering III room 2107, and the team welcomes visitors.

This week's staff positions

"University Policy 18," says the human resources department, "provides maximum opportunity for promotion of regular, internal staff members. Those interested in applying for an available position are invited to call Human Resources at ext. 2524 for more information or are welcome to visit during regular working hours to view a detailed job description. Human Resources is located in the General Services Complex, Room 130. A current resume is required with your application.

"Due to the number of applications received, we regret that we can not respond to external applicants who apply to the vacancies listed below unless an interview is scheduled.

"If there are no qualified internal applications, a decision may be made, no earlier than seven working days from the job posting, to seek external candidates. All applications received after this decision will be treated on an equal basis, without consideration of the internal status of the candidate."

• Systems integration specialist, Information systems and technology, USG 9-13.
• Senior development officer, major individual gifts, Office of development and alumni affairs, USG 12.
• Senior development officer, corporations and foundations, Office of development and alumni affairs, USG 12.
• Temporary position, Programmer, Federation of Students (responsible for booking live entertainment; apply to Suzanne Futyer, general manager, Federation of Students).

And more from HR: "The university welcomes and encourages applications from the designated employment equity groups: visible minorities, women, persons with disabilities, and aboriginal people. For more information call ext. 2524."

TRACE seeks director A selection committee is looking for nominees for a key UW position with a long title: Director of the Teaching Resource Office and Advisor on Continuing Education. (That's TRACE for short.) "The Director will be a faculty member from the professorial ranks," a memo says. "The appointment is a secondment at a minimum of 50% for an initial term of five years and reports to the Associate Provost, Academic and Student Affairs." Gary Griffin, director of TRACE since 1992, ends his term August 31. Full information about the job responsibilities should be available today on the TRACE web site. Nominations and applications are due by June 22 to the office of the associate provost, Gary Waller, in Needles Hall. He chairs the selection committee, which also includes two students, a dean, a faculty member, and Donna Ellis, associate director of TRACE.

Trade shows on campus, and more

It's day two for the Green Commuter Challenge, a competition to see which community -- Kitchener-Waterloo or Hamilton -- can get more people to forsake their cars and walk, bike, bus or at least car-pool to work. Participants can still sign up for tomorrow, the final day of the event.

What's happening on campus today:

• A surplus sale at central stores: used UW property on sale at East Campus Hall, off Phillip Street, from 11:30 to 1:30.
• Lunch at the computer store: the Lunch and Learn series today features people from Hewlett-Packard, talking about "workgroup printing solutions". The event starts at 12:00 in Davis Centre room 1304.
• A workshop sponsored by teaching resources and continuing education: "Varying Your Teaching Activities", at 12:00 in Math and Computer room 5158.
• A cancer control seminar: Linda Jessup of UW's Health Behaviour Research Group speaks on "Research Partnerships with Community Agencies", at 12:30 in Matthews Hall room 3119.
• Dialogue in the LT3 learning centre: "The Role of a Virtual Community in Learnware Development", at 2:30 in Dana Porter Library room 329.

Training in WHMIS, the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System, is being planned again by UW's safety office. It's the usual one-hour session, including a video and a brief quiz. Says a memo: "All university employees, volunteers, part-time employees and graduate students who have not previously attended a University of Waterloo WHMIS session are required to attend." Sessions will be offered tomorrow at 10 a.m., June 14 at 2 p.m., and June 22 and 10 a.m., all in Davis Centre room 1304.

Away from campus: today sees the opening of an exhibition at the Museum of Textiles in Toronto, under the title "On Growth and Form: Textiles and the Engineering of Nature". One of the three curators for the show is Philip Beesley of UW's school of architecture.

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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