"A new lab for the distributed systems course in E&CE will be created. Students enrolled in the course will work on a major student assignment and put into practice theories learned via .NET-connected web services. 100 E&CE students per year, beginning in Summer 2003, will take this course."

A summer day at Waterloo

Judi Carter of applied health sciences: "You should have come up to Burt Matthews Hall! Carpeting phase 2 is going on -- grad student offices, computing labs, research labs and hallways -- those parts of the building that didn't get carpeted in phase 1 in April. Our computing office staff are going full out moving computers, storing them and putting them back and reconnecting computers, the folks from central stores are moving furniture in and out, and we are all sniffing carpet glue. One of those days when the outdoor air quality might be only slightly worse than the indoor! Our carpet queen, Aileen Leadbetter, is leaving us to pursue graduate studies in the UK at the end of August. I think she was afraid we would find something else to carpet!"

Avril McVicar of distance and continuing education: "Yesterday and today, my staff is ploughing through processing most of the 4,000 exams written this past weekend by UW students who do things the 'distance way'. Stacks of courier envelopes, Canada Post buckets, and Rubbermaid buckets (that we use to ship exam to Exam Centres) are everywhere. Every millisecond (it seems) there is a 'beep, beep, beep" as the electronic scanners we use to record the receipt of the exams log in yet another envelope of blood-sweat-and-tears. The phones ring off the hook with post-exam questions. Staff quip back and forth, relieving the pressure with laughter. In our shipping area, more staff are busy shipping out some of the thousands of packages to the fall term class. Today, we're up to over 5,772 class registrations, and the number is growing! We're predicting 7,000 and some of us are 'predicting' even higher. The "Kitchener Campus" is humming."

Lew Brubacher of chemistry: "If you had wandered through Graphic Services printing area at about 9:45 you would have found me in Willy Bechtel's office, approving the Dylex proof of the September issue of CHEM 13 NEWS."

Joe Clark was Canada's youngest-ever prime minister (1979-80). He's been in the headlines this month with the announcement that he will leave the PC party leadership. The MP for Calgary Centre -- who visited Waterloo over the weekend to attend a Tory picnic -- is publicly known as a practising Catholic, although he didn't answer one organization's questionnaire about his beliefs and how they are reflected in his politics.

Clark highlights St. Jerome's series

Clark, one of the most prominent Roman Catholic laymen in the country, will be speaking September 20 on "Public Life and Faith in Canada".

His talk -- the Wintermeyer Lecture in Christianity and Public Policy -- leads off a season that will include lectures on fathering, church scandals, health care reform, business ethics, public education, Irish violence, and other topics.

In November, Terry Downey, formerly of the UW political science department and now president of St. Mary's College in Calgary, will give this year's Graduates' Association Lecture, under the title "In Defence of Nonconformity: Liberal Arts in the 21st Century".

In December, Ken McLaughlin of the history departments at UW and St. Jerome's, who is the author of Waterloo: The Unconventional Founding of an Unconventional University as well as books about Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge, will turn his attention to St. Jerome's itself as he launches a new book about the college's history, Enthusiasm for the Truth.

"While our guests have been diverse in their talents," says Doug Letson, former president of St. Jerome's and director of the lecture series for this year, "they have been united by one spirit and goal: the promotion of a spirituality rooted in an abiding concern for all things human and for the whole of humanity."

The 11 lectures in the series will all be given on Friday evenings at the college. Admission is free.

Computing courses are scheduled The Information Systems and Technology department (IST) has issued a list of the computing courses it will offer in September to UW faculty, staff and students. The following courses are planned for students: IST Services for UW Students; Laptop Support; Using PowerPoint for a Class Presentation; Using Word to Prepare Assignments; Creating a Web Page Using HTML and Unix. A "Safe Computing" course is available for students, staff and faculty. The following courses are part of the Skills for the Academic e-Workplace program, and are offered to faculty, grad students, and staff with instructional responsibilities: Academic Computing; Using the Campus e-Classrooms; Statistical Analysis Using SPSS; Scoring Multiple Choice Exams; Marks Processing Using Excel; Scientific Computing Using Matlab; Engineers Keeping Current Digitally. Information about the courses, along with a registration form, can be found on the IST web site.

The talk of the campus

A couple of days ago I noted that a group of Clarica Scholars, teachers and students from high schools across Canada, are here this week working on developing technology for teaching and learning. And I mentioned that the program is in the second year of the two-year funding originally promised by the insurance firm Clarica. "Clarica provided an additional year of funding after last year's pilot," says a note from Tom Carey, UW associate vice-president (learning resources and innovation), "so we will definitely be running again in 2003."

Here's a note from Patti Cook, UW's waste management coordinator: "If you collect pop can tabs, it would be a great time to forward your collection to me. In the next couple of weeks the Elora Legion will be picking up the pop can tabs we have collected. The Legion uses the revenues from the tabs, from Wabash Metals in Guelph (who smelt only the tabs, not the cans), to purchase wheelchairs for those who cannot afford them. The Elora Legion has purchased 442 wheelchairs so far, all from the sale of pop can tabs!"

Word has arrived of the death of George Barnard, who was a pioneer in UW's statistics program. David Matthews, chair of the stats and actuarial science department, notes that Barnard was a visiting professor from 1973 to 1976 and then a tenured professor from 1977 to his retirement in 1981. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Mathematics degree in the spring of 1983. A message from his son reports that Barnard "died suddenly at home in his favourite armchair" on July 30. "He would have been 87 in September."

I didn't receive a positions available list this week, which is why there was no reference to it in yesterday's Daily Bulletin, but it turns out there is in fact one position on offer this week:

Shipper/receiver, school of optometry Centre for Sight Enhancement, grade USG 3. Part-time, 10 hours per week.

The Graduate House has a "reggae patio party grad mixer" on tap for tonight. The music starts at 9:00, and two bands are promised: Mango Tango and the Jolly Llamas (and I can hardly imagine two better names for bands). There's no cover charge. It's a last gasp for summer entertainment at the Grad House, which will be closed August 17 through September 3.

The registrar's office (including the student awards office) will be closed all day tomorrow, Friday, for a professional development day.

And the library sends word that the Trellis catalogue system will be out of operation from 6 p.m. Friday to some time on Sunday, as the servers are being replaced. "Users should be automatically redirected to a backup catalogue. . . . Other services and resources accessed from the Library's web site will remain available."

CAR

TODAY IN UW HISTORY August 15, 1995: Ring road crosswalks are being removed, and the walkway between the Earth Sciences and chemistry building and Biology I is being ripped up and replaced.