November 5, 2002

Tuesday, November 5, 2002

Striking WLU staff reach agreement
The long history of St. Jerome's
What's happening on the campus

Editor:
Chris Redmond
credmond@uwaterloo.ca

Remember, remember, the fifth of November

News from other universities
Campuses link to create virtual computer
Students from St. Pierre and Miquelon head for Dalhousie
Twelve students face charges in Concordia disruption
Brock launches an MBA program
Guelph plans agricultural communication program

Striking WLU staff reach agreement

An end to the seven-week strike by staff at Wilfrid Laurier University was announced yesterday. First came word of a "tentative" settlement, and then last night WLU announced that the agreement had been ratified by university management and by the unionized staff association.

Staff will get a 3 per cent pay increase in each of the next three years.

The settlement comes after weeks of picketing -- pickets were still out on University Avenue on Saturday morning -- as well as acrimony and charges of bad faith. On Thursday, the university and WLUSA met in Toronto to attend a preliminary review of complaints to the Ontario Labour Relations Board over bad-faith bargaining. "In the opinion of the Ontario Labour Relations Officer of the OLRB," an announcement said, "the best way to resolve these complaints, and in fact the whole labour dispute, is to get back to the table to negotiate a settlement."

All-night bargaining on Sunday night apparently did the job. The tentative agreement came about 9 a.m. Monday, and ratification was finished last night.

A key issue in the strike has been job security. Says WLU's announcement, posted overnight on its web site: "The agreement, which comes after a seven-week labour dispute and lengthy and often difficult negotiations dating back to early summer, contains compensation and benefit improvements for members; greater flexibility for the university in the area of contracting out coupled with an employment guarantee for any WLUSA member whose position may be affected; an altered process for grievances that will see any issues dealt with in a more timely manner; an adjustment to salary for members who have been at the maximum for a period of time; and letters of understanding on WLUSA staffing levels and on personal harassment."

Many students at Laurier had expressed support for the strike as it dragged on, although their primary concern was getting it to end. The faculty association at WLU gave strong support, including a large cheque to help cover strike pay.

At UW -- which saw side effects of the strike, including an influx of Laurier students using the Waterloo libraries -- the strike was on people's minds as well. The UW faculty association told its members late in October that it had sent "a letter of support" to the striking union at Laurier, and was encouraging individual faculty members "to send expressions of support, in the form of letters and/or donations".

Faculty association president Catherine Schryer told her members that the strike "is eroding the academic community that we share in the Kitchener-Waterloo region".

[Book cover]

The long history of St. Jerome's

It took three authors and 300 pages to tell the history of St. Jerome's University, a "federated" institution that's three times as old as UW itself.

Enthusiasm for the Truth was written by SJU history professors Kenneth McLaughlin, Gerald Stortz, and Rev. Jim Wahl, and officially launched at the annual St. Jerome's Feast for Catholic University Education in September.

Says an article by Pat Bow in the latest issue of the college's newsletter, Update: "The idea of the book germinated from plans for the college's 125th anniversary celebration in 1990. Wahl had been researching and writing

[Three in the garden]
The story of St. Jerome's has been part of the story of UW since Rev. Cornelius Siegfried (right) brought the college into federation with UW in 1959. In 1982 he reminisced with UW founding president Gerry Hagey, left, and Ira Needles, first chairman of the board.
about aspects of the history of members of the Congregation of the Resurrection, while Stortz was planning a study of Bishop Joseph Ryan, a force behind the founding of St. Jerome's College. McLaughlin's interests ranged broadly, but he was also working on a book about the founding of the University of Waterloo.

"Together their research interests led to a comprehensive history of St. Jerome's College, the community out of which it has developed, and the students who have been part of its history for nearly one hundred and fifty years."

The result is "an illustrated history" -- the volume has more than 230 photographs, including two "albums" of colour photos. Pictures, some covering a page and a half, are accompanied by detailed interpretive captions, "so that you could, if you wanted to, read the book by reading the photos," McLaughlin says.

Bow's article explains: "The authors scoured the archives of St. Jerome's, the University of Waterloo, the Diocese of Hamilton, and the Congregation of the Resurrection (including the Resurrectionist archives in Rome) for letters and diaries, official reports, calendars, bulletins, newsletters, and newspaper articles. They also recorded interviews with St. Jerome's presidents, gathered student memoirs and recollections, and reviewed hundreds of photographs."

[Priest and boy]
Statue of Rev. Louis Funcken and a student, now at St. Mary's Church in downtown Kitchener
She goes on: "The St. Jerome's story actually begins in the late eighteenth century. The authors explain the social and cultural forces that brought the first German-speaking Roman Catholics to British Upper Canada, and later brought Eugene and Louis Funcken to serve their spiritual and educational needs."

The last chapters were the most difficult to write, McLaughlin says, perhaps because the period covers the same time the authors have been associated with St. Jerome's as students or faculty, or (in McLaughlin's case) both. Bow writes: "It was also one of the most fascinating periods, marked by dramatic changes -- a revived nationalism, Vatican II, and the student ferment of the '60s -- that coincided with the establishment of St. Jerome's on the Waterloo campus. The 1970s brought full funding from the province, opening the way for academic growth and changing the college's relationship to UW. That decade also saw the beginning of a decline in priestly vocations that led to the first lay president, dean, and board chair, with huge impact on curriculum, administrative style, and public accountability.

"The first students of the College of St. Jerome at St. Agatha began classes in 1865 in a log cabin without running water, let alone the amenities that today's frosh expect. The book brings the story full circle to the installation of Richard Gwyn as St. Jerome's fifth chancellor in March, 2002, in the historic church at St. Agatha."

Copies of the book will be on sale when McLaughlin gives an illustrated talk in Siegfried Hall at St. Jerome's on December 6 at 7:30 p.m. It's also available through the UW bookstore or the St. Jerome's office of development.

Library surveys faculty on reserves
UW's library is doing a survey of faculty members to assess its reserves service. Says Alex McCulloch of the library's user services department: "The library is interested in knowing how well the service is meeting the needs of faculty, and is seeking to understand the future of paper and electronic reserves.
"An e-mail notification was sent out to faculty on October 31. If you did not receive this notification, please contact Wish Leonard at ext. 5430 or at aleonard@library to receive the web address for the survey, or to receive a paper version. This brief survey will take 5-10 minutes to complete. The survey is anonymous, and has been reviewed and received ethics clearance through the Office of Research Ethics at the University of Waterloo.
"The survey may be completed anytime from now to November 22."

What's happening on the campus

Today brings a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the $2.5 million renovated central complex at Ron Eydt Village residence. The new installation, including REVelation cafeteria, has been in business since Labour Day, but today's the day for VIPs to visit; the event is hosted by UW president David Johnston and director of business operations Bud Walker, the administrator responsible for housing and food. Refreshments are promised; the ceremony starts at 12:30.

In Needles Hall, co-op students who were matched with winter term jobs yesterday should be attending "acceptance of employment" meetings with their coordinators today. Others should be scouring the bulletin boards for more jobs, as the first posting in the "continuous phase" is up now.

Two career development workshops are scheduled today. At 10:30, it's "Business Etiquette and Professionalism". At 4:30, it's a special workshop for international students: "Learn best approaches to search for work in Canada after graduation from UW (including visa requirements)." Information about both events is available from the career information centre in Needles Hall.

Some flyers are saying that today is "business day" in the East Asian Festival at Renison College -- there was supposed to be a day-long seminar on sales and marketing in the Chinese, Japanese and Korean markets. That event has disappeared from Festival listings, and I understand it's been cancelled for lack of enough preregistrations.

[Around a pub table]
Muskoka Club pub crawl in late October
Tonight, like every Tuesday night, brings "Fed Flicks" at Federation Hall. Showing are a couple of one-word movies: "Enough" at 7:00 and "Unfaithful" at 9:00. (Tomorrow night at Fed Hall: "Tony Lee, the XXX rated hypnotist", who may or may not be sold out by now.)

Got a date, for Fed Flicks or whatever? If not, you might plan to spend the evening at the Graduate House, where the Muskoka Club, an unabashedly social organization, has announced "speed dating" for tonight. There's room for twenty people of each sex; the price is $5, and a reception at 7:30 precedes the "dating line" from 8:00 to 10:00.

James Diamond, holder of UW's chair in Jewish studies, will speak tonight as part of local Holocaust Education Week activities. His talk -- "The Book of Job and the Suffering of the Innocent" -- is to start at 7:30 at the Seventh-Day Adventist Church on Williamsburg Road in Kitchener.

CAR

TODAY IN UW HISTORY
November 5, 1992: James Downey is introduced as UW's next president.