![[University of Waterloo]](/goldbar.gif)
| Yesterday |
Friday, July 4, 2003
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Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
![[Mains at poolside]](/images/2003/0704mains.gif)
Qualified:
Warrior swimmer Matt Mains has qualified
for the Pan American Games, at trials in Victoria over last weekend.
He finished 3rd in the 200m
breaststroke event in a time of 2:16.15. Mains, who previously qualified
for the World University Games this summer in Korea, will now shift his focus
to the PanAm Games, to take place in
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, August 1-17.
Says Mains, a fourth-year math student:
"I'm looking forward to meeting athletes from other countries, and just
experiencing international competition for the first time. I hope that this
experience will help me become a better leader, through observations of
some of the more experienced swimmers."
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Says Peter Burroughs, UW's director of admissions: "Although there is a great variation in the percentage of confirmations to targets by faculty and program, institutionally we are at 100% of our overall year one fall 2003 targets."
He now counts 5,140 students who have said they'll arrive in September, almost exactly equal to the target of 5,142. (The figures are down a bit from those issued in late June, partly because 117 students who will enter first-year math in January 2004 are no longer being counted.)
In this chaotic "double cohort" year, there are more Ontario high school students than UW was wanting, more international students, and fewer from the "non-OSS" category of out-of-province students and those coming from the work force. In addition, some faculties are way over target and some are still under their goals. The latest memo breaks down the over-and-under figures not just by faculty but by program.
It shows, for instance, that the crowd coming into applied health sciences (512 students confirmed, against a target of 432) are heading most of all for regular kinesiology (135 students, where the target was 91) and the new "respiratory therapy and kinesiology" program (41 students, against a target of 20). Health studies programs are just about on target, and while regular recreation has 54 students coming where the target was 46, there are actually a few spots left in co-op recreation before the target is reached there.
In science, which is expecting 1,100 students overall and had a target of just 775, there are no areas that aren't bulging with applicants, but the percentages range from 110 in the tiny biotechnology-accounting co-op program to 149 in science and business (127 students confirmed, where the target was 85). In the regular programs, which admit more than half of science's first-year students, there are a total of 639 students against a target of 441. (And of those, 261 are heading for the "pre-optometry, pre-health" stream.)
Elsewhere on campus, regular arts is crowded (130 students versus a target of 96), while the applied studies and arts-and-business programs have spaces to spare. Engineering currently has 733 confirmed students for a target of 979, with spaces available in all programs. Environment and business is crowded, while architecture has several spaces still to fill. And math is oversubscribed in some areas but has room to fill in others, including the new "computational math" program, which has drawn only 22 confirmations for 40 spaces.
Burroughs breaks down the number of applicants and spaces by "OSS" (Ontario secondary schools), non-OSS, and visa (international students). The non-OSS confirmations have been slow to come in, while UW already has 256 confirmations from international students when it had set a target of 204.
"Engineering and possibly Arts will continue to make offers to OSS applicants," says a memo from Burroughs. "We will continue to receive and accept late confirmations from non-OSS and visa applicants for all Faculties except Science."
UW registrar Ken Lavigne said yesterday that there's definitely a pool of highly qualified students who originally wanted into UW's faculty of engineering, and who are now being offered spots that turn out to be available there. An updated report should be out next week.
The relationship between creativity and the spirit will be explored and celebrated at St. Jerome's University's first annual Festival of Art and Spirit. The open-air festival of writers, musicians, filmmakers, and visual artists begins this afternoon with Terrance Odette's film "Saint Monica", and continues tonight with the gala opening of Kevin Burns's "Some Mystery Must Remain", a multi-media presentation combining musicians, readers and moving images that explores how creativity links to spirituality. Michael Enright's live interview with Festival hosts KD Miller and JS Porter, and St. Jerome's president Michael Higgins, is the centerpiece of Saturday's events. Throughout the day, authors Gloria Sawai, Dennis Bock, and Anne Michaels read and converse about the role of the spirit in their creative process, and the Carousel Dance Company performs an original production. Saturday's Closing Gala is a contemplative jazz performance by Sanctuary, a partnership of organ, bass clarinet and cello. Throughout the festival there will be a book fair and an art exhibit in the St. Jerome's art gallery. Friday events are free. Saturday tickets are $7, $5 for students and seniors. Sanctuary tickets are $20.
UW architecture students are noted for their stage productions as well as for designs, and a play that's quite out of the ordinary will run tonight and Saturday night. Kelly Lam, one of the organizers, writes: "What is the connection between orphaned twin sisters on their way from Siberia, an Indian prince, a young aristocratic Parisienne, a missionary returning from the Rocky Mountains, and a dissolute layabout from the low-life of Paris? And what do they have to do with a cholera epidemic, a black panther, the Pope, and a lunatic asylum? What will happen on 13 February 1832 at 3 Rue St.-François? And who is the Wandering Jew?" The answers come in "The Wandering Jew", which starts at 7:00 both nights in the Humanities Theatre. Tickets are $10 at the Humanities box office.
Robert McNair, photographer for the mapping, analysis and design unit in UW's faculty of environmental studies, takes his camera with him off campus as well. The result is an exhibition under the title "Surrounded by Rock: Panoramas of Newfoundland", opening tonight at the Cambridge Galleries, 1 North Square in Cambridge. Opening celebrations are at 7:00 tonight; the show runs through August 30.
SWAD stands for Spinners Wheelchair Activity Days, and the SWAD Junior Wheelchair Sports Camp is taking place this weekend, with about 40 participants staying in the Ron Eydt Village conference centre. . . . A three-hour ACM-style programming contest is scheduled for tomorrow in the Math and Computer building. . . .
Here's a reminder that Phillip Street will be closed (because of city road work) at the corner of Columbia Street for the next few days. The closing was to start at 6:00 this morning and is to run through July 18. During this time, East Campus Hall and UW's parking lot B, both located on Phillip, can be reached only from the University Avenue end.
Nancy O'Neil, program coordinator in the Student Life Centre, happily sends word that she's just launched a web site, slcevents.uwaterloo.ca, for things happening there in the campus's so-called living room. "I am also pleased to announce," says O'Neil, "that I will be doing a radio talk show promoting events taking place in the SLC." She'll be heard ("What's Up in the SLC According to Nancy") Wednesdays at 9:10 in the morning on UW's student station, CKMS (100.3 FM).
The Waterloo Historical Society sponsors an annual essay competition organized through the UW history department for the best student papers dealing with the history of Waterloo Region. This year's winner is David A. Martin, who wrote on "Mennonite Fundamentalism and the Hawkesville Brethren: An Examination of the Origins of the Wallenstein Bible Chapel and its Impact on the Local Mennonite Community". He'll collect a $500 award from the society's president, Herb Ratz, who happens to be a former UW electrical engineering professor. Honourable mentions went to Rebecca Hahn for a paper on "A.R. Kaufman, Eugenics and the Central Ontario Birth Control Movement" and Colin Fraser for his paper "'Putt the ladies on a par:' Representation and Response in Canadian Women's Golf". All three papers were written for a senior seminar led this past winter by John Allison.
Wilfrid Laurier University announced the other day that its new chancellor will be former Ontario premier Bob Rae -- lawyer, author, civil war mediator, and government advisor, besides being leader of the alleged socialist hordes. "Laurier has a history of graduating students who are socially aware and significant contributors to their community," says WLU president Bob Rosehart. "With a background that includes extensive community service, political leadership, international mediation, and personal interests ranging from hockey to piano, Bob Rae is an ideal individual to fill this important post."
James Diamond, who holds UW's chair in Jewish studies, has won the 2003 Biblical/Rabbinic Scholarship Prize from the Canadian Jewish Book Awards Committee, for work on his book Maimonides and the Hermeneutics of Concealment. The award was presented June 9 at the 15th annual Jewish Book Awards Night in Toronto.
The minutes of UW's joint health and safety committee are a remarkable menu of hazards, accidents, protective measures and detailed regulations, as the committee deals with everything from dangerous driving to the West Nile Virus. And here's one recent excerpt: "Injury Reports. A mechanical problem or fatigue on a compressor caused a joint to break and the drain pipe to strike a worker. Compressor procedures were reviewed. Tunnel inspection team to review compressors in service tunnels."
Global meets local in this report on life in a UW residence, excerpted from the alumni newsletter of Conrad Grebel University College: "While every year comes with its share of ups and downs, the atmosphere in residence was more serious this year. On top of the looming war in Iraq, quite a few students experienced significant losses and crises in their lives. In addition to these losses, the construction work took its toll on students. Amidst the usual stresses of essays, exams, and tight budgets, students dealt with re-routed paths, navigated the slippery slope of ice, and tolerated noisy construction crews right outside bedroom windows, even at 7:00 in the morning. The construction coping committee worked extra hard to make the inconvenience more tolerable by leaving treats and notes for students, as well as ensuring that lives were disrupted as little as possible."
CAR