January 5, 2004

Monday, January 5, 2004

New students meet Tie as term starts
UW mourns its second president
Graduate students can apply online
Pixels in the big picture

Editor:
Chris Redmond
credmond@uwaterloo.ca

Welcome to the International Year of Rice

The Pink Tie, jumbo size, hangs on the Math and Computer building on major occasions. This photo (by Stephen Forrest) is from the summer of 2002.

New students meet Tie as term starts

This morning brings all the chaos of a new year and a new term -- and for more than 100 UW students, a whole new life, the beginning of their university careers. It's even orientation week.

UW has always admitted a few first-year students in January, but this year -- to help cope with the double-cohort crowding -- more than 100 applicants were "deflected" from September to January, and hit campus this week for the first time. Peter Burroughs, UW's director of admissions, said exact figures on the number of brand-new first-year students in math and, on a smaller scale, in arts will be available later this week.

The student Math Society, with support from the faculty of mathematics and UW's student services office, has a lively orientation program planned -- "the most amazing orientation ever", according to co-chairs Yolanda Dorrington, Louis Mastorakos and Craig D'Amelio.

Yesterday was residence move-in day -- not just for new first-year students, most of whom are in Village I, but for returning upper-year students as well. Today, the new students are being offered academic sessions, tours, and a chance to "earn your tie", giving them just as much in the way of Pink Tie bragging rights as mathies who got here four months earlier. There are more events tomorrow, and Wednesday will be the first day of classes for the newcomers, followed by a semi-formal dance in the evening.

Bookstore hours this week

Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Back to regular hours (8 to 5) as of Friday. TechWorx and the UW Shop will also have extended hours this week.

Upper-year students, meanwhile, start winter term classes today. Some of them even have their textbooks already, as the bookstore provided an unusual Sunday afternoon opening yesterday. Sunday was also move-in day at the residences, where about 800 students were expected, including new first-years, returning co-op students and others who weren't in the Villages during the fall term.

For the first time in history, I'm told, UW's residences are full this term, with people sleeping in some 4,419 beds in UW Place and the four Villages. Yep, four; the Columbia Lake townhouses are now "Columbia Lake Village", and it's grown, with the opening of the first 96 houses for graduate students, to the north of the original cluster.

Wilmot Court, one of the low-rise buildings at UW Place, is closed for renovations this term, being converted from apartments to residence-style groupings of rooms. It'll hold 255 students when it reopens next fall.

Burt Matthews at his desk in Needles Hall, 1974

UW mourns its second president

Burton C. (Burt) Matthews, who was the second president of UW, died Friday at the age of 77.

Matthews became president in 1970 when -- seeking a successor to the founding president, the charismatic Gerry Hagey -- the 13-year-old university looked for an established scholar and administrator. The search committee found a small-town Ontario boy who had become a professor of soil science and was serving as vice-president (academic) of the University of Guelph.

Visitation: Today 7 to 9 p.m., Tuesday 2 to 4 p.m., Edward R. Good Funeral Home, 171 King Street South.

Funeral: Wednesday 11 a.m., Church of St. John the Evangelist (Anglican), Duke and Water Streets, Kitchener.

Reception: Wednesday following the service, great hall of Village I.

Death notice from the Globe

Tall, good-looking, and with a pleasant word for everybody, Matthews arrived at a time when "student power" unrest was at its height in North American universities, and when Waterloo was becoming just big enough to need written policies on everything from salary processes to the structure of its own governing bodies. Matthews -- skilled at listening and consulting, but equally skilled at guiding the decision-making process -- laid the administrative foundation for the next quarter-century.

In 1972 the Ontario legislature passed a new University of Waterloo Act. Among the dozens of policy documents approved at UW between 1970 and 1981 was the "Matthews-Dubinski Agreement" that set out the relationship between the university and its professors, without union certification.

The university's construction boom was almost over by the time Matthews arrived, but his term saw the completion of half a dozen new buildings and the steady growth of the university's enrolment and expansion of its research activity. Academic innovations included the Guelph-Waterloo Centre for Graduate Work in Chemistry, and the accounting "group", forerunner of today's school of accountancy.

At the same time, Matthews led the university as it coped with the rapid inflation of the 1970s and the government financial cutbacks that resulted -- mild by comparison with what would come in the 1990s, but tough for their time.

In 1981, Matthews left UW to become chair of the Ontario council on University Affairs, a government advisory body, and later served a term as president of the University of Guelph. He also lent his experience to international development as chair of the board of the International Center for the Improvement of Maize and Wheat, based in Mexico City.

UW named him president emeritus in 1991, and also named a building after him: B. C. Matthews Hall, home of the faculty of applied health sciences.

Graduate students can apply online

UW will be the first university in Ontario to accept electronic applications to graduate programs, thanks to a project involving the Ontario Universities Application Centre. OUAC already handles applications for undergraduate study and programs in teaching, law and medicine across the province.

[Judge] "We are the first graduate studies partner with OUAC for a customized on-line application," says Lynn Judge (right), director of graduate studies academic services at UW. She said it's likely that other graduate schools across the province will start using OUAC's facilities as well.

"Several graduate faculties and schools in Canada have implemented on-line applications using other software products over the past few years," she noted.

Judge said the collaboration "was initiated by UW to develop an electronic self-service application for graduate studies applicants and to implement data interfaces to populate the Student Information System.

"A group led by the GSO, including several academic department/school/faculty representatives defined data and web design requirements. Information Systems & Technology developed the UW data interface and data transfer process. OUAC utilized facilities and expertise to design standard edits and a distribution interface and install links to UW Graduate Studies supplemental forms, graduate program requirements and admission evaluation data.

"The application includes electronic payment of application fees (credit card) and electronic applicant acknowledgement."

She said her colleagues "examined three other products and selected OUAC for a number of reasons including our undergraduate experience with distribution and transfer interfaces; the OUAC fee processing service (credit card payments) and automated acknowledgement, and their ability to manage required changes such as table updates for new programs and degrees on request; level of customization Our experience working with OUAC to design and implement the system was very positive."

The new application was launched on December 5, and can be reached through a link on the graduate studies home page.

WHEN AND WHERE

Executive committee of the UW senate, 3:30 p.m., Needles Hall room 3004.

Library books borrowed on term loan during the fall are due Wednesday, January 7.

North campus information meeting for developers, 2 p.m. Wednesday, Waterloo City Hall.

FASS 2004 auditions, Wednesday-Friday, 7 to 9 p.m., Humanities third-floor lounge.

'Become an Optimal Person' half-day workshop sponsored by Employee Assistance Program, Friday afternoon -- reservations through Johan Reis, health services.

Benefit concert for three-year-old cancer patient Hope Monaghan, Friday evening, Federation Hall, pipe bands performing.

Pixels in the big picture

A couple of administrative positions at UW have new occupants as of January 1. Robert Park, professor of anthropology, becomes associate dean (computing) in the faculty of arts; William Chesney becomes chair of the department of drama and speech communication.

The student awards office announces that Ontario Student Assistance Program loans, Canada and Ontario Student Loans, "as well as some other provincial loans", will be available beginning today. The office is on the second floor of Needles Hall, and will have extended hours this week, 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Regular hours, as of next week, are 9:30 to 4:00, except Wednesdays only noon to 4 p.m.

As it does on the first working day every term, the co-op and career services department is holding a professional development day today. Says the week's events listing for the department: "Human Resources will use most of the day presenting the first module of the 'Leadership for Results' program to staff."

UW's voicemail system is no longer Meridian Mail -- it became CallPilot on the Monday before Christmas. It's still reached at 888-4966 (that's ext. 4966 for on-campus calls), but some of the prompts sound a little different, and the familiar voice of "Ivy" is no longer with us. The "migration" to the new system "was a complete success", says Greg Cummings of information systems and technology. He notes that some messages received during the changeover, which took much of the working day on December 22, may not be in the new system; they can be found instead by calling ext. 4965.

The long-awaited fitness centre in the Columbia Icefield opens for business today. . . . The key control office will be open 8:30 to 4:30 this week, rather than closing for lunch hour as it does most of the time. . . . The elevator in Ron Eydt Village is shut down for maintenance from now through January 23. . . .

CAR

Communications and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1
(519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
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