Infra dig: Yesterday morning it was a little square hole like this; by today the excavation on the south side of Needles Hall looks more like one of the entrances to Mengroth, and work on the pipes continues.

The rules about hiring foreigners

"It gives us the freedom to expand our search process quite a bit," Chakma said in an interview just before Christmas. "This university is one of the top universities in the country, and we want to make it even better . . . to be able to recruit the best candidate."

A late-fall memo from the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada explains that Ottawa "has suspended the two-tier policy that prevented universities from advertising or recruiting internationally until all avenues to recruit domestically had been exhausted. As you are aware, the two-tier policy placed severe limitations on universities' ability to recruit high quality faculty from abroad." Chakma agrees: "We shouldn't just be looking at the Canadian market, we should be looking at the world market."

Says the AUCC memo: "Human Resources Development Canada Minister Jane Stewart has announced a new policy with regard to universities' foreign recruitment efforts. . . . Universities will be allowed to advertise any faculty position simultaneously in Canada and abroad. They will not be permitted to advertise abroad without also advertising in Canada. All advertisements must include the statement: 'All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.'

"Universities will be able to do simultaneous assessments of written applications from Canadian and foreign applicants in order to devise a short list. Once the short list is developed, Canadians must receive preferential treatment insofar as those on the short list will have to be interviewed and if they meet the qualifications they should be offered the position before any foreign candidate. Given this requirement, it is critical that all future advertisements contain precise definitions of the requirements for the position, and that hiring committees are rigorous in their initial assessments of written applications.

"Vice-Presidents (Academic) or equivalent senior university officials will have to certify information to be provided to HRDC outlining the recruitment and selection process when requesting an employment validation for an academic position, including an explanation of the reason the position is being offered to a foreign candidate and a report on the top three Canadian candidates. The institution will report the reasons why a non-Canadian was chosen over the best three Canadian applicants. . . .

"This new policy supersedes the previous policy that exempted specific disciplines and sub-disciplines from two-tier advertising, in that all disciplines are now exempt."

Chakma said there's no danger that young Canadians will miss out on getting university jobs because of the new rules. They're in high demand, and there are nowhere near enough of them to fill the faculty positions that will be coming vacant over the next decade at universities all across the country. With competition for the limited number of new PhDs from Canada, "We'll end up with fewer Canadians no matter what we do," he said.

What the change means, Chakma went on, is that Canadian institutions can now compete for top faculty from outside the country -- people who until now have been going elsewhere while Canadian universities are tied up in paperwork.

Recruitment in the United States will still be difficult, he predicted, because American universities can pay so much more than Canadian ones can. But salaries in this country are competitive with those in Britain and Europe, and that's where he thinks UW should be looking.

For example, he said, a department like electrical and computer engineering could send a recruitment team to the United Kingdom for a week to see whether some first-rate people there might be interested in a move to Canada. "The change in HRDC rules now permits us to do this."

He noted that "if we are not proactive", the rule change won't do much for Waterloo -- but if departments put in some effort to look for top candidates, there are worldwide possibilities.

The rules about winter storms

Under the storm closing procedure, established in 1994, UW will be "closed" for the day if the Waterloo Region District School Board cancels classes at all its schools. If only rural schools are closed, or if buses are cancelled but schools stay open, the university will remain open.

UW follows the school board's lead since it has an effective system for evaluating weather conditions across Waterloo Region, and informing the public through the news media.

Says the procedure: "The university will 'close' because of severe winter weather when normal operation would pose a significant danger to students, staff and faculty while on campus or would prevent large numbers of them from coming to campus or returning safely to their homes in Kitchener-Waterloo and the immediate surrounding area."

It also says that for the university to be "closed" means that classes are not held, meetings and other scheduled events are cancelled, staff other than those employed in "essential services are not expected to be at work, but are paid for a normal day, examinations are cancelled, deadlines for assignments and other submissions are postponed until the same hour on the next business day on which the university is not "closed". The "essential services" listed are food service in the residences, policing, the central plant (powerhouse), snow removal (grounds crew), emergency repair and maintenance, and animal care.

Says the policy: "Classes will not be held during 'closed' periods, and assignment deadlines must be extended. Faculty members and academic departments do not have the authority to make exceptions to this rule."

If there is a major winter storm on a day when the schools aren't open -- this week, for example -- the closing decision will be made in the early morning by the provost. When work has already begun for the day, UW will close "only in extreme circumstances", the procedure says.

A closing of the university will be announced on the UW home page. And the UW news bureau will report it to local radio stations, which have been asked to broadcast it quickly and often, "since the University of Waterloo attracts a large number of people from across the region and beyond".

What happened in the fall term