Maclean's summarizes the top "reputational" rankings for this year. The photo was taken in UW's computer graphics lab.

Campus-wide celebration starts at 11

UW also continues to be "most innovative" of the universities -- but has lost its "leaders of tomorrow" crown to Toronto, according to the rankings published in this week's special "universities issue" of the magazine. Waterloo is second this year in the "leaders of tomorrow" column.

UW had held all three titles every year since the magazine's ranking system was set up in 1992. There's one other category, "highest quality", where UW has never ranked first, though it did edge up to #3 in 1998 and 1999. Queen's is first this year in "quality", and UW is fourth.

The national rankings are always the last results of the complicated Maclean's survey to be made public, when the magazine hits the streets on a Monday morning. Yesterday was even more frustrating than usual, as the UW bookstore didn't get its usual shipment of the magazine on schedule. "We are expecting 270 copies," said bookstore buyer Susan Parsons.

Earlier yesterday, the campus learned that UW had moved up to first in the numerical ranking of "comprehensive" universities, zipping past Guelph and Simon Fraser to take top spot.

On the strength of that achievement, president David Johnston declared Tuesday -- that's today -- to be "UW Day" and offered cake and coffee to all comers. The refreshments will be served at 11:00 in the Student Life Centre.

Said a memo from the president: "We'll also take a few moments to celebrate other recent good news such as the announcement of government funding for UW's Research and Technology Park. All students, faculty and staff are invited -- and department heads are encouraged to let staff take a break in their day and come on out to the celebration. Come join our board chair Bob Harding, MPP Elizabeth Witmer and me.

"Everything gets going at 11 a.m. This is a celebration for all the great work of UW's community of students, faculty, staff and alumni. It is also an opportunity for me to thank you -- the faculty, staff, students of the University -- for the remarkable dedication that makes this recognition possible. Hope to see you there!"

Everybody is invited to wear UW apparel or the university's colours. The UW Shop is joining in the spirit of things by discounting UW crested clothing 15 per cent today.

Midnight Sun, UW's solar car, is in Darwin, on the north coast of Australia, almost ready for the World Solar Challenge race, which starts on Sunday. Greg Thompson, project manager for Midnight Sun, is seen working on one of the Dzus fasteners that hold the upper and lower parts of the aerobody together.

3,531 have jobs this term

That means a 99.77 per cent employment rate.

The percentage is down by a hair from last fall's 99.86 per cent, when there were 3,528 students with jobs and 5 without.

This term, employment is 100 per cent in arts, architecture, environmental studies, science and the teaching option. There are 4 jobless students in mathematics, 2 in engineering and 2 in applied health sciences. The count was done as of October 17.

For the coming winter term, the first students were matched with jobs yesterday, and preliminary figures should be available soon.

Some news that didn't get covered

A student team from the health studies and gerontology department won the annual "student evaluation case competition" held by the Canadian Evaluation Society last spring -- for the second year in a row. Fifteen teams from universities across Canada took part, and UW was one of three to go to Banff for the finals on May 21. Team members get five hours to read and analyze a case, then present it orally before a live panel of judges. Trisha Gavin, Liz Cyarto, Candace Nykiforuk, Nancy Pearce and Nicki Mitek brought home the crystal trophy to UW again this year, and coach Anita Myers of the HSG department says they're aiming for three in a row now.

Two people from UW are among 25 across Canada who were presented with $10,000 fellowships by Celanese Canada earlier this year. "The program," a news release explains, "is open to candidates from the liberal arts to the sciences, provided they already hold one university degree and convince the independent jury of their capacity and commitment to use their newfound knowledge and cultural sensitivity to make a contribution to Canada and society in general." The UW-based winners are Heather Congdon, who earned an MA from UW in economics and will now do a PhD at Sweden's University of Gothenburg, and Andrew Millward, who is working on a PhD from UW in remote sensing and landscape ecology (geography), and will work as a visiting scholar at Cornell University.

The Canadian International Development Agency awarded funding to 63 graduate students this year to do projects in various developing countries. Among the winners were four from Waterloo: Christine Causing (geography), studying ecotourism in Samoa; Eric Chaurette (geography), studying sustainable development in Ecuador; Daniel Crouse (planning), studying the use of a geographic information system for evaluating health risks in Peru; and Michael Stone (planning), studying ecotourism at a national park in China.

A team of researchers based at Wilfrid Laurier University has scored UW well down in the bottom half of Canadian universities for "accountability" based on the information they make public. McMaster University scored at the top in this year's survey, which has been conducted each year since 1988 by researchers in Laurier's school of business and economics. McMaster scored 64.5 out of a possible 100 points using an index that considers such public documents as mission statements, performance targets, detailed financial statements and research summaries. Queen's University was second at 64.2. Waterloo was well down the list with a score of 24.9. "Though there has been improvement in the last two years," a WLU news release says, "the researchers found that Canadian universities still fall short when it comes to external reporting and accountability. Compared to institutions in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, Canadian universities are not making enough information available to the public on key objectives, performance indicators and facts and figures."

Students studying Japanese at Renison College garnered the largest number of awards given to a single institution at the 19th annual Ontario Japanese Speech Contest held last spring at the University of Toronto. A total of 52 students participated, with six out of the 10 students who represented Renison winning awards. Among beginners, Elaine Ko took second place with her speech "Japan, This Unique Country." Intermediate: Yi Zeng placed first with her topic "Japanese and Chindogu." Advanced: Mustafa Al-mosawi spoke on "Japan's Youth -- Nagashi and Freeter" and placed second. Special prizes were also awarded to Yuh-Pei Patty Yeh (Beginners), Ryan Telfer (Intermediate) and Liz Tai (Intermediate). The students were coached by Akiko Maruoka, Renison's coordinator of Japanese language courses, and assistants Keiko Belair and Fumie Shimoda. Exchange students from Tottori University and Kyoto University also helped the UW contestants prepare.

Happening today on campus

Sven Sinclair of UW's department of statistics and actuarial science speaks today on "Lemons, Screening and signalling: The 2001 Nobel Prize for Economics" (3:30, Math and Computer room 6007).

The arts faculty council will meet at 3:30 in Humanities room 373. Among the agenda items: a report from the dean on enrolment plans.

The Pure Math, Applied Math and C&O Club presents "Limits of Block-Diagonal Nilpotents" at 4:00 in Math and Computer room 2017. The talk is given by L. W. Marcoux of the pure math department. Organizers are promising "refreshments and snacks".

And for anybody who's still hungry afterwards, it will be Chinese dinner night at Mudie's cafeteria in Village I, 4:30 to 7 p.m. -- price $7 cash or $3.50 on the residence meal plan.

Tonight, Students for Life present a talk by Adrian Dieleman, starting at 5:00 in the great hall of the Student Life Centre. Says a news release:

Mr. Dieleman will inspire his audience as he shares his tragic past and his tremendous love of life. At the age of 22 Adrian was at fault in an impaired driving collision, which rendered him a C6 Quadriplegic. For some time, Adrian -- who was up until this point a promising athlete -- considered suicide as a way out of his predicament.

However, Adrian has since realized that the value of human life extends far beyond one's physical abilities or past mistakes. Today Adrian is a chaplain with Hamilton Health Sciences, working in the rehabilitation unit specializing in spinal cord injuries; holds Canadian records in his wheelchair class of racing, competing around the world; has a bachelor's degree in arts with a major in economics from York University and a master's degree in Religious Education from McMaster Divinity College; has been invited to speak to various audiences around the world. Adrian will remind his audience that all human life is precious and deserves protection regardless of how vulnerable or seemingly disadvantaged a person may be.

The Waterloo Public Interest Research Group will show a video, "Words Are a Window, or They're a Wall", at 6:30 tonight in Davis Centre room 1304. The subject: non-violent communication.

CAR