![[University of Waterloo]](/goldbar.gif)
| Yesterday |
Wednesday, December 8, 2004
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Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
![[Christmas ornament]](/images/2004/1209ball.jpg)
Howard Armitage, director of UW's Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology program, is the keynote speaker for the "Learning, Teaching and Technology: Innovation Day" event being held in Rod Coutts Hall all day today. Says Peter Goldsworthy of the Centre for Learning and Teaching Through Technology: "We have over 100 people from over 19 institutions. The keynote may be of greatest interest to UW faculty and staff." Armitage, who this year was recognized as a 3M Scholar for his work in teaching development, will offer "Confessions of an (Innovative) Educator" starting at 9:15 in RCH room 301. Everyone from the UW community is welcome, Goldsworthy says, and visitors can stay for as much of the day's proceedings as they like (except lunch, which was by preregistration). "Drop in or register online."
The English Language Proficiency Exam will be given at 7:00 tonight in the Physical Activities Complex -- just a little something to get people into the examination mood. "Students should bring their WatCard, imagination, and pen or pencil," writes Ann Barrett of the English language proficiency program. "Arts students who enrolled as of September 2004 should remember that they are required to write the exam by the end of their 1A term," which means that anyone who didn't do it in September should be there tonight.
And something that's not happening: the university senate will not hold a December meeting. Each year the senate executive makes a decision about the scheduled December meeting based on how much is on the potential agenda, and the word came yesterday: nothing that can't wait until January, so no meeting this month. It would have been set for Monday, December 20.
"We are getting quite a few calls about our holiday hours," writes Mari-Beth Davis of the retail services department. "The Retail Services stores (Bookstore, UWShop, TechWorx and the CampusTechshop) will be open regular hours until Thursday, December 23. All stores will be closed Friday, December 24, and re-open in the New Year on Monday, January 3, from 12 noon to 4 p.m." There's more information on the web site, of course.
Now a correction: I said yesterday that the men's basketball Warriors had defeated Carleton and Ottawa over the weekend. Although the Warriors did beat Ottawa on Sunday, in fact Saturday's game was a loss, 58-52, to the Carleton Ravens, last year's national champions. With the win, the Ravens extend their regular and post-season winning streak to 58 straight games. The weekend's action leaves the Warriors with a 7-1 record to defend in the new year.
The $58,348 grant to three faculty members -- Scott Jeffrey of management sciences, Daniel Heller of psychology and Natalia Kotchetova of accountancy -- is one of three grants announced this week from CFI's New Opportunities Fund.
The researchers say the mobile lab will address the limitations of using just undergraduate students in behavioural experiments, since it will allow employees to be studied in their workplaces under proper lab conditions. "The immobility of computer hardware has often required the use of undergraduate students in behavioural experiments," they said in a statement. "This in turn has limited the general applicability of research results to practitioners, since they are not certain that the behaviour of actual employees will be the same as undergraduate students."
With the CFI-funded mobile lab, the researchers can maintain the control of a laboratory setting, but will also be able to use more appropriate subjects in experiments. "It will lead to research that will allow for a deeper understanding of employee behaviour in the workplace."
CFI's New Opportunities Fund provides infrastructure for faculty members in their first full-time academic appointment in Canadian universities, allowing them to conduct leading edge research. The fund also enables institutions to recruit new faculty members in the areas of research identified as priorities in their strategic research plans. Over the years, the CFI has invested more than $262 million through the fund and provided 2,497 recently recruited faculty members with state-of-the-art equipment.
A second grant, for $145,000, is going to Kankar Bhattacharya of electrical and computer engineering and Miguel Anjos of management sciences. Their project title: "Electricity Market Simulation and Optimization Laboratory." The funding will establish Canada's first Electricity Market Simulation and Optimization Laboratory, which will carry out advanced research in electricity market modelling and simulation.
The lab's research is expected to lead to more efficient electricity markets by improving their operation, control, security and reliability. The lab will also support research in mathematical optimization techniques for solving complex problems arising in electricity market operations and other large-scale engineering problems. Its state-of-the-art facilities will allow collaborative research in the areas of analysis of electricity market operations and application of optimization methods to such problems, from a fundamental level to real-life applications.
The third grant is for $340,488 and is coming to Mustafa Yavuz, Kaan Erkorkmaz and Mir Behrad Khamesee, all of mechanical engineering, and Tze-Wei (John) Yeow of systems design engineering, to pay for a Micro-Systems Research Centre, dedicated to the development, fabrication, assembly and control of novel micro and nano-scale devices.
The research projects range from developing new biomedical imaging techniques with carbon nano-tubes, designing micro-surgical robots actuated by magnetic levitation, to contriving very high density information storage systems by "pinning" nano-particles on thin films, or developing precision control strategies for atomic force microscopes.
The funding will pay for key infrastructure, such as a magnetron sputtering system for thin fabrication, an atomic force microscope for controls and information storage research and a magnetic levitation system for enclosed micro-manipulation, as well as assembly and testing equipment for developing new biomedical micro and nano devices.
| POSITIONS AVAILABLE |
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On this week's list from the human resources department:
Longer descriptions are available on the HR web site. |
| WHEN AND WHERE |
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Federal-provincial conference high school simulation continues
today: luncheon 12 noon, South Campus Hall; concluding plenary,
1:30, Theatre of the Arts.
Centre for Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology presents Peter Kelly, Helsinki University of Technology, "The Financing Food Chain", 12 noon, Rod Coutts Hall room 105. 'Bioinformatics in the Health Sciences: Towards Tailored Medicine?', talk by Brendan McConkey, biology, 3:30, Davis Centre room 1304. US visas: meeting for students going to the United States for the winter term on co-op job or exchange and applying for J-1 visa for the first time, 4:30, Tatham Centre room 2218, repeated Thursday 9:30 a.m. Ontario Ballet Theatre production of "The Nutcracker", 7 p.m., Humanities Theatre. Centre for International Governance Innovation presents Colin Bradford, Brookings Institution, "Global Governance and the G-20 in an Age of Cultural 'Difference'," Thursday 5:30, 57 Erb Street West. Holocaust presentation: the story behind "Hana's Suitcase", Thursday 7:30, Humanities Theatre, free. Employee Assistance Program workshop, "Seven Things That I Have Learned About Close Relationships", psychologist John Theis, Wednesday, December 15, 12 noon, reservations to Johan Reis, health services. |
Says a memo from the university secretariat: "Consistent with the Protocol for the Appointments of External Board Members which was approved by the Board of Governors in 1994, the Board invites the University community to submit, for consideration, nominations of individuals to serve on the Board. Nominations are to be received in the Secretariat by January 28, 2005 and will be put into a pool of candidates for consideration when appointments are made.
"Prospective candidates must be Canadian citizens, experienced at governance at a senior level, with expertise in finance/investment, law, marketing, fund-raising or major construction, and with commitment to and knowledge of UW. They must also be able to make the commitment of time necessary to do the job."
Nominations go to Tracy Dietrich (tdietrich@uwaterloo.ca) in the secretariat, Needles Hall.
The invitation has to do with candidates for fewer than half the seats on the ten 36-person board of governors: the "community-at-large" members appointed by the board itself. Currently they include Arthur Church, president of Mancor Industries; Hilde English, a Kitchener lawyer; Serge Godin, chief executive of CGI; Bob Harding, chairman of Brascan Corp.; Linda Hasenfratz, chief executive of Linamar Corp.; Cathie Irwin, retired as a vice-president of the Bank of Montreal; Paul Koenderman, chief executive of Aecon Industrial Group; Peggy Mulligan, executive vice-president (systems and operations) of Scotiabank; Val O'Donovan, chief executive of Com Dev; and Ray Tanguay, president of Toyota Canada. Five of the ten -- Church, English, Harding, Koenderman, and Mulligan -- are UW graduates.
The board has seven more outside voices in the form of the "lieutenant-governor-in-council" members appointed by the Ontario government. The LGIC seats are currently held by Mary Bales, Kitchener real estate agent; Geoff Guy, executive vice-president of Manulife; Wendy Hallman, president of Hallman Construction and Property Management; Greg Mumford, retired as a senior executive of Nortel Networks; Janet Passmore, president of Cowan Insurance Group; Gerry Sullivan, chief executive of Priiva Corp. and Northern Dynamics; and John Wetmore, a vice-president of IBM Americas.
Other members of the board include seven faculty members; two staff; three undergraduate students; two grad students; the mayors of Kitchener and Waterloo; the chair of Waterloo Region; and UW's chancellor and president.
CAR