![[University of Waterloo]](/goldbar.gif)
| Friday |
Monday, December 22, 2003
|
Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
![[Arm around shoulder]](/images/2003/1222fraser.gif)
Don Fraser with one of his first-year students |
What made you decide to get so involved with helping others in less privileged countries? "I was always quite religious and one day I decided that I wanted to meet a religious person who really followed what they preached. A few weeks later, I was on a flight to India and ended up in Calcutta working in a "home of the dying" soon after. People often go on a pilgrimage in their life to seek meaning and answers to their questions. I guess going to Calcutta for the first time was mine.
"I love India, but I was shocked by what I was seeing for the first time. As a Westerner who has all my needs satisfied I had never really seen anything but wealthy European cities.
"I ended up staying for about four weeks, and I spent every morning at the "home of the dying" that Mother Teresa ran for very ill people who had nowhere else to turn to. I would do tasks such as shave the men, feed patients, give them medicine and whatever else the Sisters asked me to do. At noon every day the Sisters would give food to the poor people who would be waiting outside, but since they wouldn't have any dishes they used large palm leaves to collect the food. It was a humbling sight.
"I was working alongside an Indian man who was a civil engineer, and an East German man who was actually an atheist. The great thing about Mother Teresa and the Sisters was that anyone of any background or faith could volunteer.
"In the afternoons I worked at the orphanage run by Mother Teresa and her Sisters. The majority of orphans there were girls, because the nuns were always taking in babies that were intended to be aborted or had been abandoned by a culture that values boys over girls. The nuns were fulfilling their role in looking after the orphans, but they didn't have time to actually play with the children. So volunteers like me would spend hours just playing games and talking with the orphans who so badly needed the attention. In fact many of them would cling to me and screech when I had to leave at the end of the day. One time I brought in eight of these large coloured balls for the kids to play with and it was complete bedlam in the orphanage! Balls were flying everywhere and the nuns and the children were equally getting a kick out of playing with them. That's one of my fondest memories of my time in Calcutta.
"Mother Teresa and her Sisters take in the poorest, sickest people who are put on the street and nobody else takes in. The Sisters don't easily accept money, but they gladly welcome anyone who wishes to volunteer with them. I met Mother Teresa herself for five minutes during my first visit to Calcutta. When I was talking to her I could feel the presence of God with her. You couldn't prove it, but you just knew that she was somehow connected with God in the way she spoke and in what she said. I met her again in Toronto when she was preaching at a church shortly after the Air India disaster. This was six months from my first meeting with her, but she surprisingly remembered me from that brief initial meeting. I was thrilled but it was almost frightening that someone so wonderful, who meets so many people, had remembered me."
Could you describe your involvement with World Vision? "I started getting involved with sponsoring children through World Vision in the early to mid-eighties, around the time I went on my first mission to Calcutta. I always have seven children I sponsor at a time and never stop sponsoring one until my money is no longer needed by them. They focus on an entire village at a time and use the sponsorship money to feed, teach and clothe the child until the point when they can support themselves or be supported by the community. This organization also helps get the rest of the village get on its feet by helping build homes, planting seeds and providing sources of clean water. I'd love to visit the children I sponsor if I could."
![[Dixon in Maple Leafs sweater]](/images/2003/1211dixon.gif)
It was one of the series of Keystone Campaign free advertisements, profiling staff and faculty members who support the Keystone drive to raise $4.5 million for UW as part of Campaign Waterloo.
Says the profile: "Heather values the holistic approach to health care that is provided on campus and the fantastic people she works with. In addition to the doctors, there are nurses, psychologists, and soon a health educator, dietician, and psychiatrist, on the team. The Safety office is also a great resource in Health Services."
What do you like best about your job? "Treating students -- they are motivated, bright, and receptive to preventative medicine. If I can catch them early enough, there is hope they will make positive lifestyle changes."
What has motivated you personally to give to Waterloo? "It's so expensive to go to school and since I had the opportunity to study here, I want to give back so that other students can benefit too."
What project have you designated your gift to? "I give to the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences and I've let the Faculty decide how to use my gift -- they know their highest priorities best."
What do you like to do in your spare time? "My husband and I are very 'Canadian' when it comes to what we do in our free time. We enjoy Canadian authors -- Margaret Atwood, Alistair MacLeod -- and Canadian musicians -- Rush, 54-40, Sarah McLaughlin, Alanis Morissette. We belong to a wine club that tastes the likes of Cave Springs and Inniskillin. We're Toronto Maple Leaf fans during the cooler months. And our summer holidays are spent in Canadian provinces -- last year it was Alberta and this year we took our two children to Nova Scotia and PEI."
The libraries, both Dana Porter and the Davis Centre, will be open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. today (and tomorrow).
The IST department and Bell Canada are moving the UW voicemail system from Meridian Mail to the newer CallPilot software tonight, and it's a big job, says Bruce Uttley of IST. The "mailbox directory", such as passwords and greetings, was being moved starting on Thursday, and he warns that changes made to passwords and greetings on Friday or over the weekend will be lost. "The mailbox messages on Meridian Mail will be captured during the day on Monday and be restored after 4:30 p.m. on Monday. Any new messages created very late in the day on Monday may not be migrated, and messages deleted late on Monday may be migrated." Tomorrow morning, "the biggest change you will notice," users are promised, "is the initial greeting when you call ext. 4966: it'll say "CallPilot" instead of "Meridian Mail". Says Uttley: "CallPilot has features to unify voicemail, e-mail and faxes with a web interface that will be implemented in the new year. . . . Any questions can be directed to Telephone Services at ext. 2745."
![[Mittens]](/images/2003/1222mittens.gif)
The "mitten tree" in the UW research office, pictured in the last
Gazette and a few days ago in this Daily Bulletin, was a big
success. "We collected 71 pairs of gloves and mittens, 13
mitten-headband or
hat combinations, 1 scarf, 1 pair of toe socks and 1 vest," writes Christine
Kuehl from the ground floor of Needles Hall. "Some of the items were
hand-knitted. All donations were gratefully accepted by Grahame Farquhar, who
delivered the gifts to
Anselma House. We would
like to repeat this project next year."
Faculty members are busy marking the fall term exams now that students have finished writing them, and filing grades day by day. Unofficial marks start to appear on Quest today, and marks will be official as of January 21. . . . Skier Beckie Scott, who's a UW distance education student and originally won a bronze medal in her event at the winter Olympics last year, moved up to gold on Wednesday when another Russian competitor was disqualified for drug use. . . . The UW bookstore will be open on Sunday, January 4, to give winter term students a chance to buy texts (and supplies, in the nearby TechWorx outlet) before classes begin on the Monday. . . .
Here's a reminder that tomorrow's Daily Bulletin will consist mostly of information about services available over the holidays and the beginning of the winter term. Departments that have announcements I should include are asked to send them over immediately. The start of the winter term is more of a landmark than usual, incidentally, because there will be a sizeable number of new first-year students, mostly in math, beginning their UW studies. An orientation program for them is planned over the first couple of days, with support from the Math Society, the dean of mathematics office and the student services office.
The information systems and technology department (IST) is offering computing courses in January to UW faculty, staff and students. The following courses are being offered for students: Introduction to Excel, Creating Pages Using Unix and HTML. The following courses are part of the Skills for the Academic e-Workplace program, and are offered to faculty, grad students, and staff with instructional responsibilities: Scientific Computing Using Matlab, Scientific Computing Using Mathcad, Photoshop Elements, Statistical Analysis Using SAS, Parallel Programming, Keeping Current Digitally -- Multidisciplinary. Information about the courses, along with a registration form, can be found on the web.
CAR