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| Friday |
Monday, February 16, 2004
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Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
![[In the stairwell]](/images/2004/0216feds.gif)
John Andersen, Jeff Henry, Raveel Afzaal and Becky Wroe after the election results were announced Friday. Photo by Barb Elve. |
Becky Wroe will be the new Fed president as of May 1, Jeff Henry will be vice-president (education), and John Anderson will be VP (internal). Team Yellow didn't have a candidate for the other executive post, VP (administration and finance). That slot was taken by math student Raveel Afzaal, who had been a running-mate of unsuccessful presidential candidate Kevin Ma.
The Team Yellow campaign web site emphasized the issues of accountability, student safety, academic change, and -- as always in student elections -- communication and awareness. "As the representatives of students," the candidates wrote, "the FEDS should keep their constituency involved in the development of the student community through availability and unbiased thought."
Wroe has been president of the undergraduate Science Society, and along with her running-mates has been active in orientation. She told 'uwstudent.org' in an election interview: "Students need a representative willing to listen, negotiate, and determine the best course of action, whether dealing with the City of Waterloo, UW Administration, or on-campus resources. The skills I have shown demonstrate that I am that person."
Election results were announced at midday Friday. "The total number of eligible voters," said a memo from Feds staff member Brandon Sweet, "was 19,514." Turnout for the presidential race was 14.2 per cent, with slightly fewer students voting in the vice-presidential contests.
Votes for president: Wroe 1,479; Ma 1022; declined, 279.
Votes for VP (administration and finance): Afzaal 1,141; Andrew Clelland 1,081; declined 355.
Votes for VP (internal): Andersen 1,457; Brent Taylor 624; declined 306.
Votes for VP (education): Henry 1,364; Muneeba Omar 1,052; declined 181.
Students also had the opportunity to vote for several other positions last week. The winning candidates: For undergraduate at-large senator, Tanveer Ali; for mathematics senator, Albert O'Connor; for arts senator, Paul Lehmann; for science co-op representative on students' council, Rebecca Baxter; for arts regular representatives on students' council, Pat Borrelli, Jonathan Hart, Steven Hayle and Paul Lehmann.
And arts students were asked to vote on a proposed endowment fund with a refundable fee. There were 358 votes in favour of the plan and 176 opposed. "However," Arts Student Union vice-president Andrew Dilts wrote Friday on 'uwstudent.org', "it has been noted that there were 5237 voters on the voters list for the referendum, meaning that 358 votes indicates a 6.8% voter cast in favour of ratification. A 7% voter turnout is necessary for the results of a referendum to be binding."
Students will be going back to the polls next month, the Federation has announced. A referendum is scheduled for March 10-11 on whether the UW Federation should continue its membership in the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations.
| Pending case at Western |
Says a message from the president, Catherine Schryer of the English department, in the newsletter: "We have already raised this issue at the Faculty Relations Committee and learned that the Administration considers such a change almost inevitable. For one thing, we in Ontario are out of synch with other jurisdictions in the United States and in Europe that do not follow such policies. Consequently, our programs did not seem as attractive to senior faculty.
"This change could have some benefits for some faculty, but might not be welcomed by other faculty. Some faculty, especially women faculty, come into their careers late. Consequently, they do not have well developed pensions on their retirement. Other faculty, both male and female, have projects in place, perhaps well funded projects, that they have not completed by the mandatory retirement age. Some are in good health, actively involved in their scholarship, and supporting a number of graduate students. They are simply not ready to retire and, in fact, losing such people could prove counterproductive.
"We are only now beginning to recover from the effects of the SERP retirement plan. SERP took a significant number of grant holders out of our system and has affected our ability to get other grants. Retaining senior faculty who can achieve grants and bring newer faculty into the grant networks makes sense.
"However, there are definitely some negative implications to the end of mandatory retirement. A number of university administrations are indicating that they believe tenure should cease at age 65 and that faculty after that point would have to, as it were, prove their worth to their institutions. One senior university administrator has observed that universities will have to become colder and more aggressive in their treatment of both faculty and staff. With mandatory retirement in place, administrations could afford to let somewhat less productive employees drift towards retirement. However, if the new legislation is enacted, then administrations will be more inclined to force those perceived as non-productive out of the workplace.
"The change in retirement legislation could also cause problems for faculty renewal. It might prove more difficult to create positions for new faculty.
![[Van Reenen]](/images/2004/0212marius.gif)
Staff member
Marius Van Reenen will retire March 1, after more than 35 years as a
technician in mechanical engineering -- he started work for UW October
7, 1968, the human resources department says. Van Reenen has been active
in campus affairs, and served a long stretch as a staff representative on
the pension and benefits committee. A retirement party is scheduled for
February 27 at 11:30 in the Laurel Room; Ethel Spike at ext. 6740 has
tickets.
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"Our basic position, however, remains straightforward. We believe that faculty need to be offered informed choices when they reach retirement age. The option of early retirement ought to remain available for some faculty, and the option of extending their careers beyond 65 ought to be available to other faculty.
"If the legislation is enacted that will eliminate mandatory retirement and if that legislation is applied to universities (and we expect both eventualities), then we will be working with the administration to develop new policies and procedures to guide interactions over this important time in our careers."
Today's noontime speaker at Kitchener Public Library (12:00 at the main branch on Queen Street) is Marj Kohli, retired from UW's department of information systems and technology, and an authority on Canadian genealogical issues. She'll be speaking about her recent book, The Golden Bridge: Young Immigrants to Canada, 1833-1939.
The engineering faculty council meets at 3:30 today in Carl Pollock Hall room 3385, and guest speaker for the day is Ranjana Bird, the dean of graduate studies. Bird was also a major speaker at last month's meeting of the UW senate, with a report on the state of graduate studies and UW's progress in strengthening and expanding the graduate program. I have some notes from her senate presentation, and will be reporting on some of her remarks in the Daily Bulletin within the next few days.
The city of Waterloo will hold "an informal public meeting" tonight to talk about "the West Side District Plans Review Discussion Paper" -- which, if nothing else, could win an award for the most consecutive nouns. The "district" in question is the last frontier for expansion west of UW's campus -- it lies beyond the existing Columbia Hills and Clair Hills neighbourhoods, stretching out to the Wilmot Line, and north from Erb Street to where Columbia Street would be if it went that far west. Among the big questions is whether, in fact, Columbia should be extended, or whether a different route is better for the rural areas that border the District. "No decisions will be made" tonight, the city stresses: "The purpose of the meeting is to hear community input." It starts at 7 p.m. at City Hall on Regina Street.
Tomorrow is a very big day in the life of engineers at UW, particularly fourth-year students who will, all being well, graduate within a few months and move into professional careers. It's the long-awaited day of the solemn Iron Ring ceremony and the less-than-solemn partying that generally precedes and follows it. I'll say (a little) more about the Iron Ring events in tomorrow's Daily Bulletin.
A preliminary look at UW's 2004-05 budget should be available Thursday as the senate finance committee holds its first meeting of the year and hears from provost Amit Chakma. The meeting is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. in Needles Hall room 3001.
UW Innovate's Business Start-Up Boot Camp, a program aimed at helping students and alumni find their way to entrepreneurial success, is seeking participants for this spring. The third annual business boot camp, to be held April 26-29, will help students and alumni to assess their technical and business skills and evaluate whether they might be ready and able to start their own ventures. Co-sponsored by KPMG, Sun Life Financial and Miller Thomson, the event is open to students and alumni from any UW academic program, ranging from computer science to engineering and arts. More information is available from John Cullen in co-op education and career services, phone ext. 2494.
And . . . here's a note from the registrar's office:
"Cognos is now available
on the Quest
website under the Faculty and Staff web pages.
Cognos' Powerplay Web is a powerful
"A limited number of core users
in Finance and Procurement Services are using the system in production
to ensure that all processes are working well," she wrote at the end of the
week.
As purchase orders are issued under the new system, she tells users,
"they are being
delivered to the end user in an electronic form (PDF) with subject
Purchase Order #####. For security reasons, the mailer id is
lpd@penguin.uwaterloo.ca. Please don't delete as an unknown origin.
Although the electronic format is new, we believe that it will present
much more accurate information, in a much timelier manner."
And speaking of timely:
"Please continue to submit documentation at the earliest possible date.
Finance and Procurement Services staff are working to process the
backlog. . . . Thank you for your continuing support and patience."
She also advises that
"Implementation and training for the new FORE has been scheduled for next
week. FORE users will be able to access production data starting
February 16. Users will be sent the link to access the manual in PDF
format via the web."
Demonstration sessions will be offered tomorrow at 1:30 in CEIT
room 1015; Thursday and Friday at 1:30 in Math and Computer room 1085.
CAR
Financial system is running again
The first payments generated by UW's upgraded financial system
should appear today, says Helen Hannusch in the office of
finance, reporting that the recent
upgrade
of the Oracle system went the way it was supposed to.
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