September 5, 2002

Thursday, September 5, 2002

Interim dean of graduate studies
The feeding of the five thousand
Centre will study middle-sized cities
Give us this day our daily notes

Editor:
Chris Redmond
credmond@uwaterloo.ca

[Waller]

Interim dean of graduate studies

Gary Waller (right), the utility man of UW's senior administration, has been named interim dean of graduate studies while the search for a new dean goes on.

Jake Sivak, grad dean since 1999, is back in the school of optometry as a faculty member and researcher. It was announced in June that he would be leaving the dean's office before the end of his scheduled five-year term, to take a sponsored "industrial chair" in in-vitro ophthalmic toxicology. Time came for that move on August 31.

Says a memo from UW provost Amit Chakma, issued at the beginning of this week: "All of us extend thanks to Dr. Sivak for his leadership over the last three years and wish him well as he takes up his NSERC Industrial Research Chair."

Invitations went out last week for the formal launch of the chair, which is sponsored by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the global eye care company Bausch & Lomb. The event is scheduled for September 20 at 10:30 a.m. in the Davis Centre.

Said the provost's memo this week:

Effective September 1, Dr. Gary Waller will begin an appointment as Dean of Graduate Studies on an Interim basis and will hold the position until a new Dean is appointed as provided in Policy 44 (The Dean of Graduate Studies).
In addition to performing the normal duties of Dean, Dr. Waller will oversee the consideration of and initial responses to the external review of the Office of Graduate Studies, which was carried out at the end of April. I'm sure that Dr. Waller will have the support and cooperation of the University community as he takes on these new duties.

Waller, a faculty member in psychology since 1968 and for a time chair of that department, is associate provost (academic and student affairs), traditionally considered the number three job in UW's administration, after the president and provost. He's held that position since 1996 and early this year was appointed to an additional two-year term, taking him through the spring of 2004.

In 1994-95 he did a stint as acting dean of research. As associate provost, he's been responsible for such varied files as tuition fee negotiations, program reviews and double cohort planning. The library, the registrar's office and the co-op and career services department report to him.

He said yesterday that he'll have two offices on the third floor of Needles Hall -- one next door to the provost, where he's been since 1996, and one in the graduate studies office -- and that he's looking forward to working with the people in that office and elsewhere on campus who make grad studies work. "Graduate studies are an increasingly important part of what we do at UW," he said, "and the work of grad studies is supported by an excellent group of people. My first priority is to be as helpful to them as I can.

"The arrangement of responsibilities among myself and others is yet to be decided." Key people in the grad studies office, besides the dean, are associate dean Jim Frank and director of graduate studies Lynn Judge. Waller said he'll also be meeting with the president of the GSA, Shannon Puddister, as soon as possible.

As for the endless in-box of the associate provost, he said, "I'll undoubtedly be downloading some items, as well as postponing some."

[I like so can not wait!]
The year's beginning at Nipissing University in North Bay has been figuring in the comic strip "For Better or for Worse" this week. Elizabeth Patterson, who has grown up in the strip over the years, entered Nipissing in 1999, and can now feel superior to the exuberance of what she calls "froshies".

The feeding of the five thousand

Breakfast . . . lunch . . . dinner. It's an item in column after column of this week's orientation schedule, as new first-year students have to be fuelled several times a day to keep them strong for Junkyard Wars, scavenger hunts, and this afternoon's applied health sciences trip to the Sportsworld amusement park.

But only the students of Conrad Grebel College, by the looks of things, get "faculty desserts" tonight. Others are on their own -- that means REVelation or Mudie's, mostly -- to renew their energies at dinner time.

Those hard hats contained water, all right, but they weren't going onto the heads of engineering frosh, as I said in yesterday's Daily Bulletin. Graeme Baer, of second-year software engineering, is an orientation leader, and writes, "I feel compelled to point out that those were Huges (the senior leaders of each colour group) and not the frosh getting wet. PACO wouldn't let us do something like that to the frosh -- not that I'm complaining, as I'm glad I didn't have to do that sort of thing last year."
And an important event this morning will be the "Meet the Tool" experience for first-year engineers. Catching up on summer reading yesterday, I was looking at the last issue of the Iron Warrior engineering newspaper, in which one or two voices ventured to question the value of having the fearsome EdCom enforcers as a part of engineering orientation; but nobody questioned, or would question, the presence of the Tool. (Advice from EdCom: "Appreciate the Tool and remember that it is YOUR mascot.")

Also today, there are three more performances of "Single and Sexy" in the Humanities Theatre -- the last for this season -- at 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. Admission is free.

Tonight, for first-year students across campus, brings Monte Carlo Night in the Student Life Centre. This semi-formal event runs from 8 p.m. to midnight, and is designed to offer so much glitz, fun, harmony and variety that nobody cares that no liquor is served. Activities at the event include playing at casino tables (no real money) and dancing, as well as a cartoonist, psychics, a magician, swing dance lessons, live music and more. Students can make a $2 donation to the Kitchener Lung Association at the door.

I've been saying things like "about five thousand" to refer to the horde of new full-time first-year students -- but just how many are there? The number has gone up steadily since the September 2002 admission process was begun many months ago, and "almost 5,000" is history now. As of yesterday, "There are 5,152 newly admitted and confirmed full-time year one students," says UW's director of admissions, Peter Burroughs.

Centre will study middle-sized cities -- by Barbara Elve, from this week's Gazette

While researchers in universities across Canada and the United States are exploring issues related to large cities, small towns or other distinct communities, little work is being done in the area of mid-size cities. Nearly a quarter of Canadians live in those cities, defined as having populations between 50,000 and 500,000.

[With surrounding counties]
The three cities in Waterloo Region -- map adapted from www.ontarioguide.com
With three municipalities -- Waterloo, Kitchener and Cambridge -- in Waterloo region falling into that category, the UW school of planning is ideally positioned to carve out a research niche centred on mid-sized communities.

UW research has focused on issues of mid-size cities in the past, says planning professor Mark Seasons, pointing to the school's role in assisting the city of Waterloo and the region in the development of management strategies for the Laurel Creek watershed. Other research over several decades with the three cities in the region has "led to a well-grounded understanding of local urban areas," says Seasons. "It has also led to an expanded research inquiry about shared characteristics of mid-size places across North America."

That focus will be sharpened with the establishment this fall of the Mid-size City Research Centre, a multidisciplinary organization with members doing research related to urban growth and change, planning, governance, design and policy.

"There is an assumption that places in this size range are less important and less interesting than those of large metropolitan areas," Seasons explained in a presentation to UW's senate. "Often, mid-size cities are perceived as scaled-down versions of larger places. Recent work indicates that this is not the case. Neither structural dynamics nor policy issues of mid-size cities are the same as those of larger places. Mid-size communities need both pure and applied research into their structural composition and practical concerns."

Already, MCRC members have signed on from the UW departments of geography, economics, sociology, history, sociology, political science, management sciences, and environment and resource studies, and the schools of planning and architecture, as well as from the planning department of Waterloo Region, and from five other universities.

Waterloo Region planning administrator Kevin Curtis expects his membership in the MCRC will allow the region to share information with other jurisdictions and gain access to cutting-edge research in such areas as light rapid transit development and long-range planning for growth management.

Seasons, who spearheaded the MCRC initiative with geography/planning professor Trudi Bunting, sees that kind of interdisciplinary exchange as one of its greatest assets of the centre, leading to creative perspectives on issues such as transportation, environmental preservation in suburban developments, core area revitalization and the impacts of technology on local economic development.

MCRC offices will open this fall in the former Toronto Dominion Bank building at 70 King Street East in Kitchener, where the Centre for Core Area Research and Development is already based.

Of interest on the web

The Cost of College, and the case for RESPs
Now, web-enabled washing machines on campus
Teaching 9-11, as the anniversary approaches
'The politicized academic bureaucracy'
Proposed national association of retired faculty and staff
Appointment appeal dismissed at Simon Fraser University
US relents on rule about student commuters

Give us this day our daily notes

Ah, the season when Porcellino wears a jaunty red garland . . . the season of early morning swirls of mist . . . the season of the endless beep-beep-beep from the CECS building construction site. . . .

And speaking of the co-op education and career services building, its completion (round about December) is going to bring the jockeying for space on this crowded campus to a climax of sorts. Gary Waller, the new interim dean of graduate studies, said as much yesterday, observing that "major moves" will follow when the CECS department moves out of Needles Hall into its new home, leaving most of the first floor available. "How that will impact on grad studies is still not settled," the dean said, "except that they certainly need more space and can count on getting it. Other than that, details are still under consideration."

UW's Carousel Dance Centre, based in East Campus Hall, will hold an open house tonight (6:30 to 8:30) as dance class season is about to begin. "Our unique program," a purple flyer says, "offers children a well-rounded dance experience. Its careful design ensure that students are appropriately challenged for their age and can enjoy the art of dance and experience success." Carousel offers ballet, modern and jazz dance -- and adult classes too.

Students keen to know how they did in the spring term don't have much longer to wait. Marks will be available through Quest starting September 15, in two different ways. One is the "unofficial transcript", a facility that's been offered on Quest for a while. The other, coming for the first time this fall, is a one-term marks report. Either way, just 11 days to wait until the good news.

Finally, here's a note from Sherry Dupuis in the recreation and leisure studies department, who sends word about "a course I offer on leisure in later life. As part of the course, the students meet regularly with seniors (those 60 years of age or older) to talk about issues related to aging and issues related to leisure in later life. I am looking for seniors in the community who might be interested in volunteering their time for one hour a week, for 8 weeks in the fall starting on Sept. 20." For more information, she can be reached at ext. 6188.

CAR

TODAY IN UW HISTORY
September 5, 1984: Kitchener Transit introduces its route 12 bus to connect the campus to the south end of Kitchener. September 5, 1997: An opening celebration is held for the Modern Languages building, 35 years late.