January 7, 2003

Tuesday, January 7, 2003

Feds create $500,000 fund
The rules about winter storms
Library gets Schneider family archives
And on the seventh day

Editor:
Chris Redmond
credmond@uwaterloo.ca

Feds create $500,000 fund -- a memo from Mike Kerrigan, vice-president (internal) of the Federation of Students

Other Federation notes

Representatives of clubs are called to a meeting today at 4:30 in Student Life Centre room 2134, in preparation for Clubs Days tomorrow and Thursday in the great hall of the SLC.

Nominations for the 2003-04 executive of the Federation opened Monday. Voting is set for February 10-12. Details are available on the Federation web site.

Fed president Brenda Koprowski asks me to note that the "incident" in the early hours of New Year's Day -- a beating that left a man hospitalized -- did not exactly happen "outside Federation Hall", as I wrote on Thursday. "It occurred in Parking Lot R," she points out.

A new endowment fund has recently been created by the Federation of Students. On December 12, the Federation of Students board of directors made the final decision on the terms of reference for the endowment fund, and they were approved by the university's finance department shortly before the holidays.

[Kerrigan mug shot]
Feds vice-president Mike Kerrigan
The capital for the endowment fund came from the sale of shares in the company with which the student supplementary health plan was originally held, the Mutual Group. When the Mutual Group demutualized into Clarica in 1999, the university obtained a number of shares in Clarica, which were held for the Federation of Students because of an earlier agreement between the university and the Feds that stated that any excess funds in the health plan would be returned to students. These shares were sold for $500,000.

The Feds executive consulted with Students' Council members, the presidents of the student societies and students at large to gather input into the terms of reference of the fund. Most suggestions were able to be integrated cohesively. To eliminate the need for additional bureaucracy, the money obtained through the endowment fund will be managed through the currently existing Students' Council Special Project Fund, the administration of which will be modified to better process the new funds. The approved description is as follows:

Enterprise, Opportunity and Innovation Fund
The fund will provide funding to student projects and initiatives that will:

further the personal development of UW students;
improve campus culture; or
improve student life at UW.

The fund will be divided into three components and a percentage of the fund will be dedicated to each area:

Enterprise 25%: This component of the fund will be used to remove the financial barrier of start up costs that may prevent the development of new initiatives. Preference will be given to submitted proposals that are designed to become self-funded projects once the period they have been funded for ends. The money granted would be used on a short-term basis and would not be used to fund the project/initiative for a period of time longer than 3 months.
Opportunity 25%: This component of the fund will be dedicated to supporting students who wish to engage in conferences or development projects abroad.
Innovation 50%: This component of the fund will be granted to initiatives that are not designed to continue, but that will provide a continuing benefit to campus, e.g. a leadership conference. All proposals must offer a continuing benefit to UW students to be considered.

The application will be tailored to each component to reflect the distinctions between them. After reading week each year, the funds may be openly distributed to any application, regardless of the amount remaining in each specific component.

Once the body that decides the allocation of the funds has decided to support a project, the necessary documentation will be provided to the University of Waterloo's finance department, which will then provide the funds to the beneficiaries.

The rules about winter storms

Here's a reminder that if the snow falls heavily and the winds blow fiercely, there's a fixed procedure for determining whether UW will be closed and how people should find out.

Under the storm closing procedure, established in 1994, UW will be "closed" for the day if the Waterloo Region District School Board cancels classes at all its schools. If only rural schools are closed, or if buses are cancelled but schools stay open, the university will remain open.

UW follows the school board's lead since it has an effective system for evaluating weather conditions across Waterloo Region, and informing the public through the news media.

Says the procedure: "The university will 'close' because of severe winter weather when normal operation would pose a significant danger to students, staff and faculty while on campus or would prevent large numbers of them from coming to campus or returning safely to their homes in Kitchener-Waterloo and the immediate surrounding area."

It also says that for the university to be "closed" means that classes are not held, meetings and other scheduled events are cancelled, staff other than those employed in "essential services" are not expected to be at work, but are paid for a normal day, examinations are cancelled, deadlines for assignments and other submissions are postponed until the same hour on the next business day on which the university is not "closed". The "essential services" listed are food service in the residences, policing, the central plant (powerhouse), snow removal (grounds crew), emergency repair and maintenance, and animal care.

Says the policy: "Classes will not be held during 'closed' periods, and assignment deadlines must be extended. Faculty members and academic departments do not have the authority to make exceptions to this rule."

If there is a major winter storm on a day when the schools aren't open -- this week, for example -- the closing decision will be made in the early morning by the provost. When work has already begun for the day, UW will close "only in extreme circumstances", the procedure says.

A closing of the university will be announced on the UW home page. And the UW news bureau will report it to local radio stations, which have been asked to broadcast it quickly and often, "since the University of Waterloo attracts a large number of people from across the region and beyond".

Library gets Schneider family archives -- from UW's 2001-02 donor report

The Library's newest manuscript acquisition, the papers and records of the Schneider family, enriches the collections on a variety of fronts, namely the urban and local history of the Kitchener and Waterloo area; industrial and business history documenting the founding of the J. M. Schneider Inc. meat processing plant; documentary materials about a family's history which complements the Library's existing holdings of archives of several prominent local families; and, especially enhanced by this gift, the visual resources relating to the local area as represented by the photographs of, among others, Norman Schneider.

[Sausage Mnfr. and Packer]
This 1909 photo of the J.M. Schneider plant was taken by Norman Schneider.
The papers consist of correspondence, scrapbooks, more than 2,400 photographic images, ephemeral materials, and personal memoirs. Also found are photographs of local "flying machines" from the 1920s, company construction and plant photos as well as military training photos from World Wars I and II.

Chronicling the life of the Schneider family from the arrival in Canada of the parents of company founder John Metz Schneider in the 19th century, the papers include documentation on the life of John Metz Schneider and his wife Helena (nee Ahrens) Schneider as well as succeeding generations including their son Norman C. Schneider who along with Fred H. Schneider played a leadership role in company management and history.

The collection was donated by family members Herb and Betty Schneider along with Fred and Jane Schneider, Betty Schneider-French, and Jean Hawkings. Included with the gift of the papers was a most welcome donation of funds directed to the preservation and processing of the collection.

In making this gift, Herb Schneider commented on several factors which prompted the family to both save their archives and to choose UW as a suitable home. High among them was the "importance of saving the past." And at UW, the family found the happy coincidence of the Library's dedicated commitment and management of an archival program combined with the presence of "several noted historians" among the faculty who exemplified UW's reputation for high academic standards.

And on the seventh day

Return-to-campus interviews for co-op students start today. Students will meet with their coordinators and get their first look at the new CECS building, which opened just before Christmas. The scheduled interviews continue tomorrow and Thursday.

To help deal with the textbook rush, the UW bookstore will be open until 8 p.m. today, tomorrow and Thursday. The nearby UW Shop and Techworx outlet in South Campus Hall will also have those extended hours.

"Welcome Week" is under way for new graduate students, with special events and a chance to meet leaders of the Grad Student Association and the university. First up: "refreshments and prizes" today from 1 to 3 p.m. at the "fishbowl" lounge in the Davis Centre. Then from 5 to 7 p.m., a "wine club" will meet at the heart of it all, the Graduate Club -- that's the ancient white house beside South Campus Hall. Tomorrow it's "free burger day" there, noon to 2 p.m.

Students who will graduate this spring will want to make time for an information session about jobs this morning in the Humanities Theatre. The co-op and career services department will be briefing students about the graduating interview process, "developing a personal career goal", and the services the department can provide, for students in both co-op and regular programs. Today's session runs from 10 a.m. to noon; there will be a repeat session on Thursday at 1 p.m., same location.

Staff in the co-op education and career services department are taking time this morning for a staff development seminar in the big meeting room of their new building (which is called CEC until somebody thinks of a better name for it). Main topic of the morning is the sweeping change that's coming to the accountancy program, with the replacement of the BA in accounting with a new Bachelor of Accounting and Financial Management degree. Accounting professor Grant Russell will speak.

CAR