Daily
Bulletin

Photo by Mike Christie, UW graphics

Get your tie, your hard hat

Meanwhile, students in applied health sciences will lunch with their dean today, science students will graze at a barbecue and begin WHMIS safety training, environmental studies students will meet their computer system, and arts students will benefit from the variety that arts offers: "Choose Your Own Adventure".

In short, the orientation program is under way. Daytime activities today are based in the faculties, and evening activities in the residences. The main event is a concert at the Waterloo Recreation Complex, starting at 9:00 tonight. The attraction is rock band Treble Charger with Static in Stereo. The concert is a "dry" event -- no alcohol -- and open only to UW first-year students and orientation leaders.

Orientation, which runs all week, is a product of hundreds of volunteers, knit together by a central UW and Federation of Students committee. The point people are Alison Woloshyn of the Fed staff and Heather FitzGerald, the university's first-year life coordinator. And it's all for the benefit of (approximately) 4,416 brand-new students, who will feel that they know UW intimately by the time classes start next Monday.

Orientation offers a chance for newcomers to experience "a balanced introduction to the social, academic and residential aspects of university life with the guidance and support of upper-year students," says Woloshyn.

A highlight of the week will be the annual Monte Carlo charity casino, to be held Thursday night in the Student Life Centre. As they enter the semi-formal event, students can make a $2 donation to the Kitchener Arthritis Society.

On Saturday, a new event called "Black and Gold Day" will be held -- with the partnership of Galaxy Cinemas and the help of Conestoga Mall -- in which UW will host the first digital cinema transmission of a football game, starting at 2 p.m. While 1,000 students will cheer on the UW Warriors against the McMaster University Marauders in Hamilton, another 500 students will be watching the game live on the screens at Galaxy.

During the week, first-year students will alternate between residence-based activities, most of them social, and activities organized by the separate faculties.

Residences bar sex cartoons

"I made the decision," said residence life director Leanne O'Donnell, adding that there was "consultation" with the dons and with senior UW officials. "Circulating controversial/offensive material throughout our students' home in residence is not an option I consider entertaining," she said.

"This is most definitely censorship," says Imprint editor-in-chief Ryan Merkley. "I find it frightening how casually a university official can prioritize public relations over education and free speech."

The centre-spread is titled "How to have sex", and presents half a dozen drawings (in "airline safety card style") of fully-clothed people imitating sexual positions. Each is accompanied by a paragraph or two of text, discussing such things as the merits of abstinence, the importance of communication in sex, the value of laughter, and the presence of homosexuality on campus.

Copies of Friday's paper are (presumably) still available elsewhere on campus, and the drawings are available on the paper's web site.

In lieu of Imprint, first-year students can get their sex ed from "Single and Sexy", a collective play about campus life with the emphasis on sex, alcohol and crisis. I had chance to see the show's preview on Friday afternoon, and let me tell you, everything they say about it is true. It runs all week in the Theatre of the Arts (admission is free). Today's performances are at 10 a.m. (mostly for arts students), 1 p.m. (AHS and ES), and 4 p.m. (engineering).

Platonov retires from UW

Said the two-paragraph statement from UW's office of information and public affairs: "The University of Waterloo had been conducting an internal inquiry in the wake of Prof. Platonov's conviction in January 2001 for an assault on his wife, which happened at his Waterloo home in late 1999."

The investigation, conducted by the dean of math according to the rules set out in the Memorandum of Agreement, is the first step in the formal process of discipline against a faculty member.

The investigation -- which comes to an end with Platonov's retirement -- was announced in February, shortly after Platonov pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and was given a two-year conditional sentence.

Notes as the new year begins

• First-year undergraduate students: the WatCard office in the Student Life Centre.
• Other undergraduates: the registrar's office in Needles Hall. (Students registered through Renison or St. Jerome's can also get their stickers at their college.)
• Graduate students: the graduate studies office in Needles Hall.

A 28-year-old man working on a paving job at Renison College was badly burned Friday afternoon when an asphalt truck dumped its hot load on him, burying him to the waist. He was taken to the burn unit of Children's Hospital of Western Ontario, in London, for treatment. The Ontario ministry of labour is investigating the accident.

Tours and information sessions in the libraries begin today, with sessions in both the Dana Porter Library and the Davis Centre Library, aimed specifically at international students, beginning at 11 a.m. There will be dozens of library tours and workshops in the course of September; I'll mention some of them in this Bulletin, and there's a full list on the library web site.

The executive committee of UW's senate will meet at 3:30 this afternoon in Needles Hall room 3004, mostly to set the agenda for the September 17 meeting of the full senate. Main items include this year's Awards for Excellence in Research, and a proposal for a new distribution of graduate student bursary and scholarship funding.

The future of UW's school of architecture, which is hoping to move to Cambridge, remains uncertain -- "in limbo", a headline in the Record newspaper last Wednesday said. Construction of the school's new building, on a site in downtown Galt, depends on funding of something like $15 million from the Ontario government's SuperBuild program. And the project is in competition with other proposals around Waterloo Region, including a new Kitchener market, for a limited pot of money. There's no sign of an imminent decision, and "as you can imagine, it is a little bit frustrating," architecture director Rick Haldenby told the Record.

Vandalism is back on campus. Friday morning saw the kiosk at parking lot D badly damaged, its plate-glass windows smashed overnight. And I have second-hand reports that police have charged a young man with some 60 incidents of breaking into vending machines on campus. Details later, maybe.

The key control office in plant operations will be open through the noon hours this week, and on weekdays through September 21. That means business hours during the beginning-of-term rush will be 8:30 to 4:30 without a lunch break.

Two oral defences of PhD theses are scheduled for today:

• Optometry and biology: Vivian Cheng-Pei Choh, "A Novel In Situ Physiological Model to Measure Optical and Biophysical Changes During Avian Accommodation." Supervisor, J. G. Sivak. Oral defence, 10 a.m., Optometry room 347.
• Statistics and actuarial science: R. Mark Reesor, "Relative Entropy, Distortion, the Bootstrap and Risk." Supervisors, D. L. McLeish and A. Kolkiewicz. Oral defence, 3:30 p.m., Math and Computer room 6007.

An information session about how graduate students can use the new Quest student information system will be held tomorrow from 9 to 10:30 a.m. in Davis Centre room 1350.

Central stores will hold a sale of surplus UW property tomorrow from 11:30 to 1:30 at East Campus Hall, off Phillip Street. These sales are generally held on the first and third Wednesday of each month.

And . . . free tickets are available, starting today, for the lecture by Jean Vanier that will be given December 3 under the auspices of the St. Jerome's Centre for Catholic Experience. The number to call for tickets is 884-8111 ext. 255.

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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