February 21, 2002

Thursday, February 21, 2002

Tours dispel image of 'boring' UW
Parents' concern about space for 2003
Staff can help choose two deans
Notes for a very quiet day

Editor:
Chris Redmond
credmond@uwaterloo.ca

The Paradise Pisces in the Cosmic Baseball Association

[Through door, behind counter]
Behind the doors in South Campus Hall, student "ambassador" Barry Harrison and assistant coordinator Heather Vitkuske wait for campus visitors. Photo by Barbara Elve.

Tours dispel image of 'boring' UW

Most of the potential students who take official UW tours organized by the Visitors Centre are "extremely satisfied" with their experience, a survey has found, although they wish they didn't have to walk so far.

The 285 visitors who were surveyed during the fall term left enthusiastic comments about their tour leaders -- students trained as "ambassadors" to welcome potential students and act as guides -- and also about the university itself. "Now my only aim of life is to graduate from Waterloo!" one young person wrote. "Waterloo seems comfortable and somewhat homey," another visitor concluded.

"Almost all of the visitors to the campus for a campus tour left with an enhanced perception of the University of Waterloo," writes Heather MacKenzie, who manages the visitors centre in South Campus Hall for the undergraduate student recruitment office. "The small handful of people, less than 4%, who indicated that their perception of the University of Waterloo was not enhanced by their visit may already have a good perception of the University."

She notes that more than 75 per cent of those surveyed said they were "extremely satisfied" with their experience, but the goal should be to get that satisfaction level above 80 per cent.

"As other provincial recruitment surveys indicate," MacKenzie writes, "prospective students want to experience a taste of student life when they visit a university campus. . . . Their primary reason for visiting campus is not related to academics."

Specifically, she says, the visitors' number one interest in seeing residence rooms, and that's hard to do within the limits of a two-hour tour because the residences are so far-flung. "A showcase of model residence rooms set up at the Visitors Centre would be the ideal solution," she writes.

It's essential, says MacKenzie, to "make certain that UW is not portrayed as a 'boring school', but as a University with energetic students, friendly people, a connection to the world, future oriented, innovative, and high quality." Among the comments appended to her report, one student wrote, "At first I thought that this school would be very boring, but now that I have visited Waterloo I have a much more comfortable feeling than before."

She also notes that a number of students said they would have liked to "have a real classroom experience with a UW professor", and suggests a program of opening some first-year classes to drop-in visitors.

MacKenzie's report also touches on ways to "enhance the perception of a prospective student who never comes to the campus . . . we'll bring the campus to them through phone calls, web cams, our Virtual Campus Tour, and interactive websites."

Parents' concern about space for 2003

A parents' lobby group is charging that even if there's enough space in higher education for the students who show up in the "double cohort" year, 2003, those spaces may not be where they're wanted.

"Limited Enrolment, Limited Choice" is the title of a section in a recent report by the People for Education lobby. Here's some of what they have to say:

"The government, in supporting its claim that there will be enough places for the double cohort, says that 73,000 new post-secondary spaces are being created. However, provision of building space does not mean that the students in this graduating year will have the same opportunities and access as they would have had in an earlier year. A space does not mean a fair opportunity for admission to the program a student wants at the institution he or she prefers to attend. It could mean that a space is vacant at a distant institution in a program in which they have little interest.

"According to the survey responses, universities and colleges vary widely in their projections as to how many new students they are able or ready to take in 2003-04. Expressed as a percentage of current first-year enrolment, increases range from a low of 0% to a high of 92%.

"In 2001-02 more than 40% of first-year university students were registered at campuses in southwestern Ontario, nearly a third were in the Greater Toronto Area, just over a fifth were in the eastern region and less than five percent were found at the northern universities.

"Increases to accommodate the double cohort do not reflect the traditional geographical breakdown. South-western universities are taking less than one third of the additional first-year students and GTA institutions less than a fifth., while eastern universities are absorbing over 40% of the increase and northern universities are projecting a 10% share of the new students. . . .

"Many double cohort students who would have gained entrance to local institutions in previous years may not. They will be forced to consider distant colleges and universities. Whether double cohort students can accept the additional financial. burden of accommodation, and living expenses -- on top of high tuition costs -- will become a larger factor in post-secondary education. Students from affluent backgrounds who can afford the option of out-of-province or out-of-country institutions will be significantly advantaged over students with the same grades but without the financial means.

"Out-of-province institutions, aware of the crisis caused by the double cohort are, in fact, targeting Ontario students. Describing the double cohort, an American academic recruitment journal says: 'as many as 53,000 additional students seeking university placements represent an opportunity for postsecondary campuses in the United States, unlike any the industry has ever witnessed. Not surprisingly, colleges and universities in the nearby states of Michigan and New York are already launching campaigns to promote their campuses as viable alternatives in the crisis."

Staff can help choose two deans -- a notice from the university secretariat

Mike Sharratt's term as Dean of Applied Health Sciences expires December 31, 2002, and Sujeet Chaudhuri's term as Dean of Engineering expires June 30, 2003. Accordingly, a Dean of AHS Nominating Committee and a Dean of Engineering Nominating Committee, as required by Policy 45,)are being constituted.

Nominations are requested for the following seats on the Nominating Committee (at least three nominators are required in each case):

one staff member elected by and from the regular staff of the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences.
one staff member elected by and from the regular staff of the Faculty of Engineering.

Nominations should be sent to the Chief Returning Officer, University Secretariat, Needles Hall, Room 3060, no later than 3:00 p.m., Wednesday March 6. An election will follow if necessary. Nomination forms are available from the Secretariat at ext. 3183 or online.

Notes for a very quiet day

Herb Lefcourt, retired from UW's department of psychology, gives his noon-hour talk today on "Humour Not Just for Laughs". It's sponsored by the Employee Assistance Program, and starts at 12 noon in Davis Centre room 1302. As announced earlier in the week, preregistrations have filled the room just about to capacity, but there ought to be some standing room.

The joint health and safety committee will meet at 1:30 in Needles Hall room 3001. Agenda items include bicycles (as usual), no-smoking building entrances (as usual), and the monthly reports of injury and fire incidents (as usual).

A piece of software called Femlab is being demonstrated on campus today, and I should immediately make clear that the name has nothing to do with feminism, but stands for Finite Element Methods. Femlab is, the seminar announcement says, "a powerful environment for modeling physical phenomena. It is used for research, design, and teaching within all scientific areas. Femlab numerically solves coupled systems of nonlinear partial differential equations." Still with me? People from the firm that distributes Femlab will give their demonstration today from 3 to 5 p.m. in Math and Computer room 2009, showing what the software can do by way of -- for example -- earthquake modeling and simulating "two-phase bubbly flow".

Tomorrow brings a special event, says the UW news bureau:

Kuntz Electroplating Inc., of Kitchener, and UW jointly launch a new research initiative to investigate and develop state-of-the-art robotic polishing technologies, led by Prof. Jan Paul Huissoon, of mechanical engineering. Attending are David Johnston, UW president; Paul Kuntz, president, Kuntz Electroplating; and Geoff Clarke, president and CEO, Materials and Manufacturing Ontario.

The event starts at 10:00 tomorrow morning in Davis Centre room 1709.

And on Saturday, the computer science department will hold a day-long (9 to 5) "open house on graduate studies". Says a memo: "We will feature research presentations by faculty members, opportunities to talk to staff, faculty and graduate students about graduate studies in CS at UW, and guided tours of some of our labs." Advance registration is requested.

CAR

TODAY IN UW HISTORY
February 21, 1994: The university closes on Monday of reading week, giving faculty and staff an unpaid day off as part of the Social Contract.