February 18, 2004

Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Board member makes $500,000 gift
Concern continues over grad enrolment
Happening while students scatter

Editor:
Chris Redmond
credmond@uwaterloo.ca

The fire trucks outside Earth Sciences and Chemistry yesterday belonged to the Waterloo Fire Department's new hazardous materials response unit, which carried out a training exercise in conjunction with UW's Spill Team. "The exercise, a mock drum spill near the ESC loading dock, was conducted with the assistance of the chemistry department and UW Police," says UW safety director Kevin Stewart. He said the project was done during reading week "to minimize disruption of campus services" and is "a further enhancement to UW's collaboration with the City of Waterloo's emergency services".

Board member makes $500,000 gift -- from Campaign Waterloo's Talent Trust newsletter

Art Church (right) is an engineering alumnus (BASc '76, Mechanical) who remembers his roots. This fall he donated $500,000 to the university. Of that amount, $300,000 will establish the Arthur F. Church Graduate Scholarship Fund.

Each year, three outstanding graduate students enrolled full time in mechanical engineering will receive scholarships worth $15,000 each, after being matched two-to-one by the Ontario Graduate Scholarships or Ontario Graduate Scholarships in Science and Technology fund.

[Church] A further $200,000 will fund a mechatronics lab in the new Engineering III addition. This fall the first 109 students registered in mechatronics engineering, a program designed to produce grads with the skills to design computer-controlled electromechanical systems.

The gift is not Church's only important contribution to the university -- he serves on the board of governors -- nor was it his first. In 1999 he endowed the Arthur F. Church Scholarships in Mechanical Engineering -- two $5,000 scholarships presented annually to high-achieving students entering mechanical engineering and three $1,000 awards for upper-year students.

Since 1997 Church has been president and CEO of Mancor Industries, Inc., a mid-volume parts manufacturing company. The company has hired nearly two dozen UW co-op students and grads. In 2002, he received the Faculty of Engineering Alumni Achievement Medal "for his exemplary business leadership in the manufacturing industry and his ongoing personal commitment to the Faculty of Engineering and the University of Waterloo."

Concern continues over grad enrolment

While UW is talking about how to build up its graduate programs, the number of students receiving PhDs from Waterloo has actually fallen from the level a decade ago.

[Bird] Ranjana Bird (left), the dean of graduate studies, told UW's senate at its January meeting that there were 134 PhDs granted in 2003 (and just 106 in 2002), compared to 159 in 1994 and 161 in 1995.

"I find this data shocking," said provost Amit Chakma, who has been outspoken, like other administrators, in wanting to build up graduate studies at Waterloo.

Bird briefed the senate on what's been done so far, and presented figures showing that in other areas there has been some improvement. Total graduate enrolment has gone up by one-third in the past three years, and the number of master's degrees awarded hit a record 680 last year, up from 528 in 1994. (In answer to a question, the dean said some of that increase can be attributed to new, non-research degrees such as the Master of Taxation program. Not all master's students move on to PhD work, but some do.)

Three years ago the grad dean at that time, Jake Sivak, told the senate that grads make up 10 per cent of UW's total full-time enrolment. Comparable figures elsewhere: 24 per cent at Toronto, 25 per cent at British Columbia and McGill, 15 per cent at Western and McMaster, 13 per cent at Laurier. He called for an increase, and at the recent meeting Bird did the same: "Twenty per cent of the total population should be graduate students," she said. "We're only half of that."

Waterloo offers graduate studies in 47 disciplines, said the dean, and more programs are on the way, including a professional master's degree in nuclear engineering.

It's not that nobody wants to do graduate work at Waterloo, Bird stressed. "Last year we processed six thousand applications!" To be precise, for 2003-04 there were 6,441 applications, UW made offers to 1,340 applicants, and 1,202 new graduate students registered. (Of that 1,202, a chart showed, 678 are Canadian citizens, 254 are permanent residents, and 270 are international students.)

Still, too many of the most promising students end up at other universities that can offer them better financial support, the dean said. New budget allocations, including a fund to provide "incentive awards" for students who arrive with good-sized external scholarships, are expected to help. Bird said the goal is to support every PhD student with the equivalent of full tuition fees plus $15,000 a year for living costs -- a target that's still a good way off.

As a way of attracting UW students into grad work, the faculty of mathematics will hold two open house sessions about graduate study this Saturday.

A special concern, she told the senate, is to persuade more of UW's own undergraduate students to sign up at Waterloo if they're interested in graduate work. As things stand, UW students receive a good share of prizes and fellowships offered across the country -- and then take them to other universities to do their master's and PhD work.

Bird drew senators' attention to a report issued in November by a Council of Ontario Universities task force, under the title Advancing Ontario's Future Through Advanced Degrees. It recommends a ten-year goal for the province: "doubling graduate enrolment in Ontario's universities" -- exactly the same thing UW leaders are now seeking to do.

WHEN AND WHERE

Theatre Beyond Words performance for children, "My Father's Circus", 10:00 and 1:15 today and tomorrow, Humanities Theatre.

'Personal Tax Strategies' workshop offered by Education Credit Union, 12:15, Davis Centre room 1302.

Warrior basketball, women 6 p.m., men 8 p.m., PAC main gym.

Pension and benefits committee Thursday 8:30 to noon, Needles Hall room 3004.

Maple software in the mathematics and applied science curriculum, seminar by Robert Lopez, Maplesoft, Thursday 9 a.m. to noon, Carl Pollock Hall room 1346, information hchatterton@maplesoft.com.

Senate finance committee Thursday 2:30 p.m., Needles Hall room 3001.

Happening while students scatter

"Reading week" continues for the majority of UW students. And although there are classes today in the faculties of engineering and mathematics, those too will be cancelled tomorrow and Friday for a brief "reading period".

High school students by the thousand will lick their pencils today and tackle three of the math contests operated by UW's Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing -- the Pascal contest for grade 9 students, the Cayley for grade 10 and the Fermat for grade 11. Each is a 60-minute test with 25 multiple-choice questions based on the high school curriculum. "Rather than testing content," the CEMC's brochure tells teachers, "most of the problems test logical thinking and mathematical problem solving. The last few questions are designed to test ingenuity and insight. We remind teachers that these Contests are not examinations. There is no passing or failing grade. We believe that all students will enjoy and benefit from the experience of contest writing. . . . Competition is on an individual and team basis. A school's team score consists of the sum of the scores of the three highest scoring official contestants. Rankings are provided at four levels: school, zone, provincial, and national."

The Federation of Students web site announces that the Feds will present some recommendations to the city of Waterloo's Student Accommodation Study Advisory Committee today. "The recommendations report was authored by Feds President Chris Edey, and was endorsed unanimously by Students' Council on Sunday, February 8. . . . The main recommendation of the report is for the City to cooperates with developers and property managers in transforming the existing low-density neighbourhood to the east of UW (the Lester-Sunview neighbourhood) into a student-friendly medium density precinct. Replacing inefficient, and occasionally unsafe, lodging houses with walk-up apartments and townhomes will allow more students to live closer to the university and to the services and amenities that they enjoy. This will also take the growth pressure off lodging houses in areas that are far from UW. The recommendations have been well-received by City planners, the Mayor's Office and local neighbourhood associations. It is hoped that this consensus will result in meaningful action on the issue of student housing in Waterloo."

Obeying the law is a complex matter, which is why the audit committee of UW's board of governors reports every year on how the university is doing. Said its report to the winter meeting, held earlier this month: "As has been the practice in recent years, UW's legal counsel reviewed federal and provincial statutes which would pose the greatest potential liability for Board members in the event of non-compliance, and identified the following: Commercial Tenancies Act, Construction Lien Act, Copyright Act, Employment Standards Act, Environmental Protection Act, Fire Protection and Prevention Act, Hazardous Products Act, Income Tax Act, Liquor Licence Act, Occupational Health and Safety Act, Ontario Human Rights Code, Ontario Water Resources Act, Pesticides Act, Tenant Protection Act, Tobacco Control Act, and Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act. Staff responsible for institutional compliance have reviewed these statutes and have signed a declaration indicating that there are no areas of substance where UW is not in compliance."

Novelist Neil Bissoondath will be reading at St. Jerome's University on February 25. . . . Noted theologian Karen Armstrong visits St. Jerome's for a lecture February 27. . . . Work is under way for an "employee wellness fair" to be held at UW April 26-28. . . .

This week's Positions Available list from the human resources department includes five jobs:

Registered nurse, health services, USG 9
Manager, financial aid, registrar's office, USG 10
Lab technician, earth sciences, USG 6
Administrative/scheduling assistant, office of the president, USG 6
Chair's secretary/department assistant, biology, USG 5

More information is available on the HR web site.

And . . . there are clearly some people who read the Daily Bulletin very closely, mouseover links and all. A total of seven students found their way from yesterday's edition, through the Ian Wright poster and onto the page that offered a pair of tickets, compliments of the Federation of Students. Dave McDougall of the Feds says an engineering student was the eventual winner and gets free admission to what's billed as "an evening of travel and humour" a week from tonight. I have to confess that until this week I wasn't familiar with Wright, but there was a lively piece about him in the Globe and Mail on Saturday.

CAR

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