![[University of Waterloo]](/goldbar.gif)
| Yesterday |
Tuesday, November 4, 2003
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Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
'Information commons' gift announcedCelebrations start at noon, in the Davis Centre lounge, to mark a major gift to UW from RBC Financial Group, parent company of the Royal Bank. The gift will establish the "RBC Information Commons" -- an electronic learning and study space in the Davis Centre library. Taking part in today's event will be Martin Lippert, RBC vice-chairman for global services and Chief Information Officer, and David Johnston, UW president.Architecture project moving alongSupporters of the school of architecture will gather tonight at the Cambridge Gallery on Queen's Square in Cambridge, starting at 5:00, to mark the launch of construction on the school's new building beside the Grand River, and "to recognize the private donors whose generous contributions gave impetus to the campaign for the school of architecture and have now brought it close to its final goal". "At this point," says director Rick Haldenby, "over half the tenders for the project are in and it is clear that we are going to complete the school of architecture on budget and on time to open in September 2004 as planned." |
An announcement on the faculty of arts web site has been inviting applications for both honours arts and the regular (not co-op) arts and business program. Application deadline was set as October 31.
Stephanie Checketts Keating, recruitment officer in the arts faculty, says arts "has always accepted applications for Honours Arts for the Fall, Winter and Spring terms for main campus, Renison and Jerome's. Normally we have about 50 new students in the Winter term but this number fluctuates depending on the number of applicants, the acceptance rate and other factors for each term."
New this year is honours arts-and-business. Keating says a "late" decision was made to admit students to that program in January, "as a one time initiative in order to attract some more applications and possibly some more international applications".
Most new students arrive at UW in the fall term. For arts, as for math, January admissions would be a way of spreading out the September bulge -- not to mention such advantages as the availability of residence rooms that are in less demand in the winter than in the fall term.
Keating said arts will offer "a limited number" of entrance scholarships for the winter 2004 term to highly qualified domestic and international applicants. "Scholarship decisions are made after students have been admitted."
She also said there will be a one-day orientation program on Sunday, January 4, the day before winter classes begin. Students "will be able to meet their Academic Advisors, be welcomed by current students and enjoy an opportunity to meet each other."
The application deadline for spring admissions is March 1; classes start at the beginning of May.
![[Parked cars are a blur]](/images/2003/1104runner.gif)
Running
for something, but probably not for UW's presidency, is
Ron McCarville, faculty member in recreation and leisure studies (not to
mention one of this year's
Distinguished
Teacher Award winners). McCarville was competing in Saturday's
"fun run" on the ring road, a feature of UW's Homecoming since 1985. This
year's run
attracted 111
participants, and was won by Drew Graham with a time of 17:25 for the
five-kilometre distance. Kristie Henry came in as top woman just 17 seconds
later.
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Membership of the 19-person committee is complex, and results of a series of elections have been trickling in. The process was completed at last week's meeting of the board of governors, the university secretariat has announced. It's up to the board to appoint members from several backgrounds, including the two student members.
Chosen by the board, in closed session on October 28, were undergraduate student Avi Caplan (independent studies) and graduate student Simon Guthrie (optometry, and president of the Graduate Student Association.
The board also chose these committee members:
Staff: The election of one regular ongoing staff member to the Presidential Nominating Committee closed Wednesday, October 29. The results were as follows: Anne Jenson, 355; Linda Kenyon, 238; Alison Zorian, 141; spoiled, 3. The candidate declared elected is Anne Jenson. Of the 2,084 ballots sent out by the Secretariat, 737 were returned for a return rate of 35.36 percent.
Mathematics faculty: The election of one Mathematics Faculty Senator to the Presidential Nominating Committee closed Wednesday, October 29. The results were as follows: Alan George [computer science and dean of mathematics], 65; Edward Vrscay [applied mathematics], 47. The candidate declared elected is Alan George. Of the 176 ballots sent out by the Secretariat, 112 were returned for a return rate of 63.63 percent.
Faculty at large: The call for nominations for the election of a second regular faculty at-large member to the Presidential Nominating Committee closed Wednesday, October 29. Paul Schellenberg, combinatorics and optimization, has been acclaimed.
Previously elected faculty members on the committee were Ranjana Bird, kinesiology and dean of graduate studies; Bob Kerton, economics and dean of arts; Manoj Sachdev, electrical and computer engineering; Geoff McBoyle, geography and dean of environmental studies; William Power, chemistry; James Frank, kinesiology.
The secretariat reports that the church college representative on the committee will be Hildi Froese Tiessen of Conrad Grebel University College.
As required by Policy 50, the committee is chaired by UW's chancellor -- Mike Lazaridis, chief executive of Research In Motion -- and its vice-chair is the vice-chair of the board of governors, Ian McPhee of Sybase Inc.
Back on campus, people are talking about jobs, particularly the co-op students who found out yesterday what positions they're matched with for the winter term. Appropriately, today brings a workshop on "Successfully Negotiating Job Offers", starting at 3:30; details and registration are through the career services web site. Students with jobs are also attending "acceptance of employment" meetings today, while those who weren't matched with a job are scanning the Tatham Centre bulletin boards for the "continuous phase" job postings.
A workshop on "Teaching Dossiers" runs from 9:30 to 11:30 this morning, aimed mostly at graduate students. . . . A representative of the Washington Centre for Internships and Academic Seminars, which runs internship programs in the American capital, will hold an information session at 1:30 today in Humanities room 334 (information, ext. 6568). . . . The classical studies department presents a talk today by Daryn Lehoux of King's College, Halifax, "On the Strange and Wonderful Properties of Magnets in the Pre-modern World: Tropes, Facts and Empiricism" (3:00, Arts Lecture room 105). . . .
The Co-op Student Services group -- organized by the Federation of Students -- sponsors a forum today about the long-awaited "Co-op Online" computer system. The forum, says CSS coordinator Karen Ng, "will inform students of the new co-op system, its development, how it will affect the process and how students will need to adjust." It's set for 4:30 in Rod Coutts Hall room 101.
It's Holocaust Education Week in Kitchener-Waterloo, and at 4:30 this afternoon the Jewish Students Association will present a talk about her experiences by Holocaust survivor Judy Cohen. Location: Davis Centre room 1350. One of the week's other talks is also to be held on campus: "Did Anti-Semitism Die in Auschwitz?" by Leo Adler, Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in Siegfried Hall, St. Jerome's University. Meanwhile, Jack Pasternak of UW's biology department spoke last night ("Race, Scientific Racism, and Racial Anti-Semitism"); and Robert Jan van Pelt of the school of architecture will speak Wednesday night at the Seventh Day Adventist Church on Williamsburg Road ("Truth on Trial"). set for 4:30 in Rod Coutts Hall room 101.
![[Koehler]](http://literaturbuero-nrw.de/pics/koehler.jpg)
"X-rated hypnotist" Tony Lee is the attraction tonight at Federation
Hall (sold out, I think). . . .
German poet Barbara Köhler (right)
will
read from her work at 7:30 tonight
in Tatham Centre room 2218A, with a reception to follow. . . .
Tomorrow at noontime, Mei Han and Randy Raine-Reusch play "Chinese
Fusions" in a free concert at the Conrad Grebel University College
chapel. . . .
Catching up on the news of faculty achievements: Mark Nagler, now retired from Renison College, was a featured speaker as the Cerebral Palsy Associations of New York State held their annual conference in the last week of October. Nagler, who has lived with cerebral palsy himself, spoke on "the importance and value of humor as it pertains to disabilities".
Also travelling is Patti Cook, UW's waste management coordinator. "I am off to Taiwan for 11 days!" she wrote in late October. She says Shin-Cheng Yeh of the National Kaohsiung Normal University visited UW last year as part of a tour of universities with "greening the campus" programs, and liked what he saw, so much that UW was one of two institutions invited to send people to Taiwan to speak. She's making the trip along with Greg Michalenko of the environment and resource studies department.
And on a much more local scale, the plant operations department asks people to be careful on the front steps of Needles Hall (the side facing the ring road), where repairs will be in progress this week.
CAR