October 18, 2002

Friday, October 18, 2002

Guarantee funding for grads, UW advised
Hockey women take to the ice
Chinese environmental group arrives
Married priest speaks tonight

Editor:
Chris Redmond
credmond@uwaterloo.ca

Women's History Month and Persons Day

[Mannequin and woman]
Costumes designed by Jocelyne Sobeski and sets by Bill Chesney -- both of the UW drama department -- are on exhibit at the Modern Languages gallery through November 22. The exhibition includes drawings and scale models, as well as actual props and costumes. The gallery is open Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Guarantee funding for grads, UW advised

The provost "should declare graduate studies a university priority" as a step towards increasing the number of grad students, giving them better support and making graduate work a part of every academic unit, says a review that will be presented to the university senate on Monday.

The review was done by Adel Sedra, former provost of the University of Toronto, who was brought in last spring to review graduate studies at UW and "identify strategic opportunities". His 18-page report will now go to the senate graduate council and other bodies for discussion.

Says Sedra: "It appears . . . that UW's success in undergraduate education, with the world's largest co-op program, has eclipsed its graduate program, rendering it less prominent, at least in size, than befits its stature as a leading research university. . . . The University should develop a plan for expanding graduate enrolment. . . . It should aim for an increase, over an appropriate number of years, say, eight, of 80 to 100%."

He says that in meeting with people at UW, he "detected a widely held perception that graduate studies is not a priority. . . . While the Graduate Studies Office appeared to be lean and well managed, the leadership were frustrated by what they perceived to be lack of clout, insufficient budget, and low profile."

Sedra says it wouldn't help to create a "school of graduate studies", with more decision-making and funding concentrated in a central location. But he suggests that the dean of graduate studies "be regarded as a member of of the senior administration and as a partner to the Provost in planning for graduate studies", and get a new title, such as vice-provost, to emphasize that status.

Other points from Sedra's report:

"The current structure of having an Associate Dean, Graduate Studies and Research in each Faculty is excellent and should be retained and put to work more intensively."
"The Graduate Studies Office should interpret its mandate as providing services to all of those involved in graduate studies. If a particular service is not required or sufficiently valued by its recipient constituency it should not be provided."
"The proportion of graduate students who are international at UW is rather low. . . . Waterloo is missing out on an important source of talent. . . . The University should develop a plan to facilitate the recruitment, enrolment and support of international graduate students."
"As a goal to be reached over time, every academic unit should participate in graduate studies in some way. In areas lacking critical mass, collaboration with other units within the University or at neighbouring universities should be pursued. Every newly hired faculty member should be expected, and should expect as a matter of right, to participate in graduate studies."
"Waterloo is uniquely positioned to mount graduate co-op programs."

Sedra also discusses the financial support of grad students, and recommends that UW "should adopt a policy of funding every doctoral-stream graduate student for five years at a minimum specified level. This minimum level of funding should be expressed as tuition fees plus a sum for living expenses, and would be assembled from multiple sources, both external and internal, and include teaching and research assistantships."

He adds that "to accommodate historical differences in funding and to respond to severe competitive pressures", there could be two stated minimum levels -- "one for Arts, Applied Health Sciences and (maybe?) Environmental Studies", and another, "say $2,000 to $3,000 higher", in engineering, math and science.

Hockey women take to the ice

A group of UW athletes will make history tonight at Queen's University's Jock Harty Arena, as they play the first-ever league game for a Warrior women's hockey team.

Other sports this weekend
Men's hockey vs. Windsor, Saturday 2 p.m. at the Icefield; soccer vs. Western tomorrow at Columbia Field (men at 1 p.m., women at 3 p.m.).
Men's basketball at a tournament at Laurier, today and tomorrow; women's basketball vs. Concordia at Laurier tomorrow; field hockey tournament at Western; football at Toronto, 2 p.m. Saturday; men's hockey and soccer (both men's and women's) at Windsor on Sunday afternoon; squash tournament at Western; men's tennis at Brock; women's tennis at McGill; women's rugby at Guelph on Sunday afternoon.
Then tomorrow night the team will play its first home game, taking on the York Yeowomen at the Columbia Icefield (7:30 p.m.).

"After all of the recruiting and practice," says Chris Gilbert in the athletics department, "the first team ever is ready to hit the ice in what is going to be a very entertaining year with great hockey action. The team is made up of 80 per cent first-year students, which should create a very strong foundation for the upcoming years ahead.

"The team is made up of some excellent skilled players who have shown that they are committed by coming to Waterloo with the trust that it will be a very competitive and well-run program."

"The coaching staff has been working very hard to make sure that we have a very well-rounded team," said Roger McKenzie, an assistant coach with the team. Some of the exciting women to watch this year will be team captain Lindsay Wood from Owen Sound, Nicole Jones from Scarborough, Christy McInally from Simcoe, and Elaine Bell from London. Says Gilbert: "The women are all ready to see that the fastest growing sport in the country gets off to a great start."

Chinese environmental group arrives

UW's environmental studies faculty will host a Chinese "environmental mission to Canada" today through October 31, as senior officials from the city of Dalian, Hainan province and the city of Nanjing visit several sites in Canada to gain first-hand exposure to Canadian approaches to environmental management issues.

The site visits will be supplemented by presentations by ES faculty members, graduate students, and representatives of the Region of Waterloo, City of Hamilton, Grand River Conservation Authority, Greater Vancouver Development Authority, Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and Five Winds International, a consulting firm.

The Chinese group will hear presentations on integrated water management, with a visit to the Grand River Conservation Authority, and on Environmental Management Systems, ISO certification and municipal and industrial training programs to enhance environmental management at the enterprise level.

They'll also travel to Niagara to view approaches to planning and development for mass tourism attractions, ecological restoration of abandoned industrial sites and the impact of urban and industrial development on agricultural lands, and to Hamilton, to see the results of the city's waterfront re-development program and to review its approach to developing environmental and quality of life indicators and monitoring environmental performance.

Within Waterloo Region, they'll find out about local initiatives in environmental planning, including visits to enterprises that are integrating environmental management systems in their operations, and there will be a visit to the Toronto waterfront to address coastal management issues in the urban context.

They'll also travel to Vancouver for presentations by the Greater Vancouver Development Authority and Federation of Canadian Municipalities related to environmental indicators and waterfront development.

The mission is the first major activity related to the ECOPLAN China project, which was announced in January on behalf of the federal minister for international cooperation. The $3.9 million project is designed to enhance the capacities of academic institutions, provincial and municipal administrations, and industrial and commercial enterprises to address issues of eco-planning, environmental management and monitoring of environmental quality in southern China.

The program is being directed by UW geography professor Geoffrey Wall, who has had extensive experience in China.

Other events on the calendar
Technical speaker competition for engineering students, this morning in Doug Wright Engineering room 2534. It starts at 10:00, not 10:30 as I wrote yesterday.
"Bodies in the Bath-house: University of Alberta Excavations at Carthage, Tunisia", a talk by Alberta classicist Jeremy Rossiter, 3 p.m. today, Modern Languages room 246.
Oktoberfest "keg tapping" at Federation Hall at 3:00. The weekend brings "Villagehausen" on Friday night and "Oktoberfed" on Saturday night, with tickets available in the Federation of Students office.
"Symposium on Systematic Racism" on Saturday, 9:30 to 4:00, co-sponsored by the Waterloo Public Interest Research Group. ("Systemic Racism is the unfair distribution of power and privilege. It is reflected in the public policies, practices and programs of our educational, financial, religious, business and governmental institutions.")
World Partnership Walk in Waterloo Park at 1:00 Saturday, sponsored by the local branch of the Aga Khan Foundation Canada, which holds such walks on a larger scale around the world. ("The goal of this walk is to raise awareness, not funds.") The event starts at the Westmount Road entrance to the park; there will be "food, a DJ and fun".
Tamil Cultural Night, sponsored of course by the Tamil Students Association and marking the Festival of Light, Saturday at 6 p.m., Humanities Theatre.
Electrical shutdown, Sunday 8 a.m. to noon in Engineering II and Engineering III.
And Monday begins this term's blood donor clinic in the Student Life Centre. Donors can make appointments now, at the SLC turnkey desk.

Married priest speaks tonight

One of Canada's few married Roman Catholic priests will speak tonight at St. Jerome's University about, logically, fatherhood.

"How do young men begin to understand themselves as fathers?" This is one question Rev. Ed Hampson, priest and father of three, will tackle in his lecture, "The Birth of Men as Fathers". It starts at 7:30 tonight in Siegfried Hall, free of charge.

A married man and father of three grown children, Hampson is a former United Church minister who was ordained a Roman Catholic priest by Bishop Anthony Tonnos of the Hamilton diocese in 1995. He holds a PhD from the Institute for Clinical Social Work, Chicago, and is a registered marriage and family therapist.

When men become fathers for the first time, he argues, they are embarking on a journey leading to an expanded sense of themselves as human beings. What support, he asks, can the Church offer them and their families at this time of transition?

Tonight's "Devlin lecture" is part of the 2002-2003 season of the St. Jerome's Centre for Catholic Experience. "In the past," says Doug Letson, SJCCE acting director, "priests have sometimes been criticized for offering advice on parenting from a cerebral level, with no practical experience. Ed Hampson is an interesting person to address the topic of fatherhood because he has personal experience to draw on as well as his priestly and professional training."

Other guests in this season's SJCCE lineup include Ron Rolheiser speaking on scandal in the Church, Nuala Kenny on health care reform, John Dalla Costa on theology for business leaders, and Miriam Martin on women and worship. Says Letson: "The diversity of speakers in the 2002-2003 Centre lectures is a celebration of the many gifts in our church and our community. For twenty years now the Centre has been an ecumenical project, open to people of all faiths who see the intimate connection between spirituality and justice.

"Over the last two decades, we have seen a remarkable variety of talented people . . . bishops and their critics, political leaders and activists, moral visionaries, spiritual directors, educators, feminists, environmentalists, conservatives, liberals, radicals.

"While our guests have been diverse in their talents, they have been united by one Spirit and one goal, the promotion of a 'this-worldly' spirituality rooted in an abiding concern for all things human and for the whole of humanity."

CAR

TODAY IN UW HISTORY
October 18, 1981: Jim McKegney of the Spanish department, who was the first professor in UW's faculty of arts, dies suddenly in Mexico, aged 60.