![[University of Waterloo]](/goldbar.gif)
| Yesterday |
Tuesday, October 7, 2003
|
Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
![[Demaine]](http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~edemaine/images/March2002_headshot_small.jpg)
Demaine is now a faculty member in computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is doing frontier work in computational origami, "the geometry of paper folding".
Demaine began undergraduate work at age 14. His doctoral thesis solved what is known to mathematicians as the Carpenter's Rule Problem. "During his tenure at UW," says dean of mathematics Alan George, "he worked with leading researchers from every corner of the globe. His genius was recognized by research leaders everywhere."
Earlier this year, he received a 2003 Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada doctoral prize worth $10,000 to recognize that achievement. But that pales beside the MacArthur award, as each of this year's 24 Fellows will receive $500,000 (US) in "no strings attached" support over the next five years.
|
|
The award will give Demaine -- and the other fellowship winners, ranging from a historian to a blacksmith -- five years to do what he likes: there are no restrictions, "and no reports are required."
Grad students elect a senatorNominations for the by-election of one graduate student representative to the UW senate closed at 3 p.m., Wednesday, October 1, the university secretariat reports. There will be an election; the candidates are:
Electronic balloting for full- and part-time graduate students will open at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, October 15, and close at 3 p.m. Wednesday, November 5. The election will be hosted on the secretariat's web site. Brief profiles/statements supplied by the candidates will be posted on the site as well as voting instructions. |
The study confirmed that individuals from higher-income families are much more likely to attend university. However, this has been a long-standing tendency. In fact, the participation gap between students from the higher- and lower-income families attending university narrowed through the 1990s.
This in part reflects increases in the participation rates among students from the lower-income families. It also reflects declines in the rates of those from higher-income families. Overall, postsecondary participation at college and university levels was at historic highs.
The correlation between parental income and university participation did become stronger, but only to about the mid-1990s, just after tuition fees first experienced substantial increases. The strength of the relationship has weakened since then. This reflects the fact that students, in an era of rising tuition fees, borrowed more once changes increasing the maximum loan limits were introduced to student loan programs.
The study found that the option to choose lower-cost community colleges and, in particular, to borrow more, were important factors influencing the relationship between family income and university education.
The only group to make steady gains in university participation rates through the 1990s consisted of young people from families with the lowest incomes. By the late 1990s, young people from families with incomes of $25,000 or less were almost as likely to be attending university as those whose parents had $25,000 to $50,000 in income. In addition, their level of university participation was much closer to that of people whose parents had up to $100,000 than was the case earlier in the 1990s.
At the high end of the scale, about 40% of young people from families with incomes of $100,000 or more had a university degree or were enrolled in university. This rate has ebbed and flowed a bit, but it has been substantially and perennially higher than those for lower income groups. The participation rate for young people from families with more than $75,000 to $100,000 was also notably higher than for lower income groups. It ranged from 20% to 30%.
The peak in participation rates seems to have occurred in 1991 or 1992. Only in the case of individuals from the lowest income families -- $25,000 or less -- has there been a steady progress in participation rates throughout the 1990s. Rates among this group started at less than 10% during the early 1980s and rose to 19% by 1997.
The correlation between parental income and university participation increased during the early 1990s and declined during the remainder of the decade. This is consistent with the fact that changes in the Canada Student Loan Program raising the maximum amount of a loan occurred only after tuition fees had already begun to rise.
Costs of higher education rose during the 1990s and, in part, these costs were shifted onto students. Nationally, from 1990/91 to 1999/2000, arts tuition fees almost doubled, on average, rising from $1,866 to $3,456. Students in Nova Scotia have consistently paid the highest fees, and faced the biggest increases.
Furthermore, during the 1990s, the average student loan increased considerably. In a single year, form 1992/93 to 1993/94, the average amount borrowed went from about $5,000 -- where it had been since the early 1980s -- to more than $7,500. It edged up a bit thereafter, ending the 1990s at $7,680.
![[Four in a row]](http://www.cecs.uwaterloo.ca/employers/uwrecruiter/current/images/rwdi.jpg)
Dimmick, Rowe, Hrynyk and Go worked at RWDI. |
Go says one of the best things about working at RWDI is that she "can walk past a huge building and say, I worked on that." Even though RWDI is often known for its projects involving wind, it works on numerous other engineering fields, including testing and finding solutions for problems associated with air quality, pedestrian comfort, industrial processes, earthquake and wind-induced vibrations, ventilation, snow, as well as acoustics, noise and vibration. Most recently, RWDI has begun working in areas such as turf microclimate, regional airshed modelling, and hazard and risk stack/source testing. This allows for a broad range of experience for co-op students on a work term with an internationally active firm.
Being exposed to a wide variety of projects is definitely one of the advantages, says Dimmick. He has worked on projects such as the World Trade Centre redesign in New York, the Wimbledon Tennis Stadium in England, and the new baseball stadium in Missouri. For the latter project, he worked on 3D models and helped with an acoustic study. A highway was built behind the area of the stadium that is close to home plate, and a study had to be done to find out if noise levels were acceptable, or if barriers had to be built to keep out the sound.
RWDI provides a great setting for co-op students. During his fourth work term, Hrynyk worked on various projects including projects based in Orlando, Miami and Shanghai. One of the areas he focused on was cladding studies. This is a wind engineering process wherein the gauge of windows needed for certain areas of a building is determined. It is most often used for structures located in geographical areas prone to typhoons and hurricanes. By completing wind tunnelling tests, it is possible to ascertain which parts of a building should have stronger windows. This is the sort of technology that allows a glass balcony structure on a building in Florida to survive a hurricane.
When asked how his co-op term was progressing at RWDI, Hrynyk responded, "It's better than the traditional co-op job where they just sit you down at your desk and expect you to figure out what to do. Here, they are really good at training you and teaching you." RWDI emphasizes teamwork and believes that the companyms greatest resource is its staff. Human resource coordinator Sheila Smith feels that the co-op students coming into RWDI are "bringing new ideas and new blood into the company", and that it hires a number of UW co-op students because Waterloo "has the courses and programs that are relevant to its business."
Also happeningToday and tomorrow bring the annual fall round of visits from faculties of education and teachers' colleges, chiefly from across Ontario. A detailed schedule is on the career services web site.And tomorrow will see the launch of "Cellnet", the Cell-Factory Bioprocessing Research Network, headed by emeritus professor of chemical engineering Murray Moo-Young. Ceremonies are at 11:30 in the Davis Centre. |
Last year, the agency took the program to 18 campuses, including UW, and reports a "positive response". Know the Score returns to UW all this week. Booths, staffed by students, will be in the Student Life Centre at midday today through Friday, the student services office says, and at dinner time they'll be either in the SLC or in one of the residence cafeterias.
"Our research has found that 18- to 24-year-olds are among the highest risk groups for developing gambling problems-that group has almost twice the rate of the general adult population," says Lisa Couperus, the Council's special events manager for prevention programs. Measuring Gambling and Problem Gambling in Ontario reported that more than 7 per cent of young people experience "moderate to severe gambling problems" compared to 3.8 per cent in the general population.
"We are here to give people the information they need to make informed decisions," says Couperus. The program also talks to young people about common myths regarding randomness and, if they choose to gamble, ways to keep it safer. As part of Know the Score, students are invited to participate in a contest by answering five questions designed to increase awareness. They can get the necessary information from the Council's website or from the highly visible Know the Score information booths, which are staffed by student participants. Entrants with all answers correct are eligible for one of two $1,500 scholarship awards, in addition to gift certificates for food, books and daily giveaways.
"Access to different types of gambling has increased and we recognize the need to ensure our students are informed about how to avoid problem gambling," said Ruth Kropf, health services supervisor at UW. "By partnering with the Responsible Gambling Council on Know the score, we're able to deliver a program that engages students and promotes dialogue on campus."
CAR