![[University of Waterloo]](/goldbar.gif)
| Yesterday |
Tuesday, February 4, 2003
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Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
The new housing, to be ready in 2004, would be intended for "upper-year students and students with families", and would replace the family housing that's now in part of the UW Place complex on University Avenue. The UW Place "courts" would be turned into single-student residences, the same change that's already happened at the UW Place "towers".
| Salary increase costs for the coming year will be about 4.9 per cent, provost Amit Chakma says in his report to the board about preparations for the 2003-04 budget. That figure can be known fairly accurately since both staff and faculty are in the middle of two-year salary agreements. Staff and faculty pay rates are both scheduled to go up May 1 by a cost-of-living increase plus an "excellence award" of approximately 0.4 per cent. In addition UW has to find the money for merit and progress-through-the-ranks increases. |
Among other items on the agenda for today's board meeting:
Systems Design Engineering student Jay Detsky won first place in Explanatory Communications with an exposition of the engineering of real-time magnetic-resonance imaging.
The team of Laura Naismith, Amy LaFrance and Heidi Collins, also of systems design, placed second in Entrepreneurial Design with their "Stimulation and Data Acquisition Interface for Neuromuscular Research". (This was Laura Naismith's third consecutive successful OEC: she placed second in Editorial Communications in 2001, and finished first in that category in 2002, going on to a second-place result at the Canadian Engineering Competition.)
Second-year computer engineering student Sonya Konzak, a published author on another subject, took third place in Editorial Communications for her views on oil extraction in northern Alberta.
The Parliamentary Debates concerned, among others, resolutions that "science has done more good than bad" and that "engineers should be held responsible for the weapons that they build." Two teams of Waterloo debaters made the semi-finals: Lawrence Lam and Bobby Naini, of second-year computer engineering, tied for third place with James Gannon and Geoff Rawle of systems design.
Again this year, the first- and second-place finishers in each OEC category earned the right to enter the Canada-wide competition, to take place from February 27 to March 2 at Memorial University in St. John's.
Also, a "Brown Bag Lunch from Around the World" gives an opportunity to talk with students who have studied and worked outside Canada. Career services is sponsoring the event, at 12 noon in the multipurpose room of the SLC. Then at 1 p.m., in the same room, career services will show the video "Skills for Succeeding Overseas".
And this evening, Kieran Bonner, dean of St. Jerome's University, will give a talk in his authentic Irish accent. He'll speak on "Some Reflections on the Culture of Cities" -- with differences from one land to another, presumably -- at 7:30 in the St. Jerome's common room. (Incidentally, the St. Jerome's cafeteria is featuring "a different feature international entree" at lunchtime each day this week.)
Back on the main campus and back in daylight hours: the Federation of Students election campaign continues. The all-candidates' forum for today will be held in Math and Computer room 3001, the "comfy lounge", from 1:30 to 3:30.
A presentation to introduce SEDS Waterloo will be held today as scheduled, but the tone has changed somewhat in view of Saturday's loss of the space shuttle Columbia. SEDS is the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, with projects that range from telescope work to a possible involvement in future experiments on the International Space Station. "We will have a condolence card available at the presentation for people to sign," writes SEDS president Andrew Milne. "We'll leave it at the turnkey desk after the presentation, and it'll be in our office for the rest of the week (Engineering II room 1306D). It will be sent to the families of the astronauts over the weekend." Today's presentation about what SEDS is and does starts at 1:30 in the great hall of the Student Life Centre. (I don't know whether it was anyone connected with SEDS -- but it might have been -- who helped create the snow sculpture of the Columbia that appeared on the lawn of Carl Pollock Hall over the weekend.)
A career services workshop on "Job Search Strategies" will be held at 2:30; details and registration are online. . . . The Women's Health Series for Newcomers to Canada continues with a session on childbirth, today at 1 p.m. in the community centre at UW Place. . . . The Pure Math, Applied Math, Combinatorics and Optimization Club will meet at 4:30 (Math and Computer room 2038) to hear a talk by pure math professor Laurent Marcoux. . . .
Rustem Nureev, professor at Russia's Plekhanov Academy of Economics, will speak at 7:00 tonight in Rod Coutts Engineering Lecture Hall room 302. Topic: "The Post-Soviet Economy in Russia". The event is sponsored by the economics department, the Germanic and Slavic department, and the international programs office.
Organizers originally thought 100 employers would attend the job fair for students and alumni of Conestoga College and the universities of Guelph, Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier. The estimate reflected a decline in recruiting experienced by all institutions in 2002. Early numbers this year were higher than expected and organizers raised the estimate to 120. So far, 118 employers have registered for the February 5 event at RIM Park.
"This is good news for students and alumni who are currently seeking work -- and for job seekers in general," says Jan Basso, director of co-operative education and career services at Laurier. "Since the organizations that attend must be planning to hire within the next six months, we are very hopeful that the increase is reflective of an improving job market for 2003."
Sponsored by Partnerships for Employment (representing the area's four post-secondary institutions), the fair features organizations from virtually every sector -- from agribusiness to financial services, manufacturing to police services, government to information technology. Jobs available include full-time, part-time, co-op, summer and contract positions.
Some of the organizations participating: ACNielsen Company of Canada, Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, DALSA, Deloitte and Touche, Family and Children's Services of Waterloo Region, Goodlife Fitness, ING Canada, Ontario Provincial Police, RBC Financial Group and Sun Life.
Shuttle buses will run from all four post-secondary institutions during the fair's hours of operation -- from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Approximately 4,000 students and alumni are expected.
When it was first held in 1994, the University/College Job Fair featured 50 employer organizations. The number of employers participating reached a high of 209 in 2001 and the number of students and alumni attending has doubled.
Conestoga, Guelph, Laurier and Waterloo were the first four post-secondary institutions in Canada to jointly offer an annual job fair. While a few combined job fairs are now held in other parts of the country, this one remains the largest.
Also tomorrow
"Hearing and Being Heard", first in a new series of "civic dialogues" at UW's downtown outpost, 70 King Street East; it's sponsored by the Civics Research Group. |
"This Is A Play" is -- surprise! -- about a play about a play. Says the drama department in a publicity release:
Liam Lacey, in the Globe and Mail, referred to it as "Ingenious, whimsical -- a comedy you might associate with Tom Stoppard." When the play premiered at the 1992 Toronto Fringe Festival, audiences were knocked out by MacIvor's manic humour and the simplicity with which he skewered social conventions."This Is A Play" features Matt Borch, Rachel Molnar and Erika Sedge and is directed by Jeremy Taylor. "House" features John Robertson and is directed by Erika Sedge."House", a one-man tour de force, originally featured MacIvor himself. Since its premiere, almost eight years ago, the play has been performed by many actors in many languages -- if anyone wondered about the playwright and actor being inextricably defined by this work, the production history succeeds at eradicating such thoughts. House is, by turns, savagely comic and heartfelt.
The double bill, under the title "MacIvor2", runs February 5-8 and 12-15, at 8 p.m. in Studio 180 in the Humanities building. Tickets are $12 (students $10) from the Humanities box office.
CAR