March 12, 2004

Centre for International Governance Innovation noon seminar, Francisco Ruge-Murcia, Université de Montréal, "The Backing of Government Debt and the Price Level", 11:45, 57 Erb Street West.

Sandford Fleming Foundation debates, finals 12:00 outside POETS pub, Carl Pollock Hall.

Psychology colloquium: Shelly Gable, UCLA, "Will You Be There for Me When Things Go Right?" 2:00, PAS room 1229.

Games to Explain Human Factors: meeting of the Waterloo Computer-Human Interaction Group, 2:30, Graduate House.

Space movie night, "5th Element" and "Solaris", 7:00, POETS pub, Carl Pollock Hall, $2 includes pizza.

Quiz Bowl event, Watbowl VI, Saturday, all students welcome, must register today.

DaCapo Chamber Choir spring concert, including music by UW's Leonard Enns, Saturday 8 p.m., St. John the Evangelist Church, Kitchener, tickets $15, students $10.

Engineering Explorations for high schoolers, Monday, details online.

Budget, 'rainbow' films, and more

The UW senate's finance committee will be meeting today (10:30 a.m. in Needles Hall room 3001) and will see a draft budget for the university for the coming year. Agenda material from the office of provost Amit Chakma is showing a sketched-out budget based on zero tuition fee increases (in accordance with the Liberal government's campaign promise) but a 5 per cent increase in the co-op fee. There is, however, a hypothetical "tuition offset grant", one estimate of how much extra funding the government might provide because of the fee freeze: about $3 million. The budget calls for a general 2 per cent cut in departmental spending, with sizeable increases in "strategic" areas. Altogether spending would be up about 6 per cent from the current fiscal year, which ends April 30.

Undergraduate students finished voting last night on whether the UW Federation of Students should continue as a member of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations. Results of the vote are to be announced at noon today, says Brandon Sweet of the Federation staff. Meanwhile, CASA announced yesterday that it's launching a "cross-country petition calling on the federal government to address the growing inaccessibility of post-secondary education in Canada. . . . The petition asks that a dedicated transfer payment for post-secondary education be created to ensure that Canadian colleges and universities receive adequate funding to keep tuition fees down. Second, it asks for the creation of new grants to help low-income students and to alleviate student debt loads."

[Rainbow Reels logo] This weekend brings the annual Rainbow Reels film festival, sponsored by the Waterloo Public Interest Research Group -- "the fourth annual queer film festival dedicated to exploring queer issues and experiences on film by reflecting on a diverse selection of films and videos". Showings are Friday, Saturday and Sunday night in Davis Centre room 1302, and start with tonight's 6:15 feature, "F**K the Disabled", followed by a question period with director Greg Walloch. A full scheduled, with descriptions of the films, is available on the web.

[Hand in Hand logo] Also happening over the weekend, and also sponsored by WPIRG, is "Students Hand-in-Hand", a student-organized seminar on HIV and AIDS. "The event is free," a news release notes, "and will bring together a number of pertinent scholars and activists from across southern Ontario." (Among them: Steve McColl, chair of UW's department of health studies and gerontology, who will be the opening speaker.) Things run from 10:00 to 6:00 tomorrow in the Arts Lecture Hall. Registration is by e-mail: handinhand@pirg.uwaterloo.ca.

A group organized by the staff association social committee will head off tomorrow for the Toronto Wine and Cheese Show. And a memo went out this week from the committee: "Time to start planning summer events." Suggestions were invited: "We are always looking for new ideas and events and welcome your feedback." Already on the calendar is a women's car care clinic on Saturday, May 1. Meanwhile, I should clarify that the proposed outing to the Harlem Globetrotters game on April 9, which I mentioned yesteday, is not a staff association activity, but an individual initiative by one staff member, Verna Keller (vkeller@admmail).

[Crouched]

Goalie a 'hero' on TV tomorrow -- from athletics and recreational services

Goaltender Scott Gouthro of the Warrior men's hockey team (right) will be featured on CBC television tomorrow. He's at the centre of an episode of the program "Hero", which "profiles young people that have made a difference in their community while pursuing their athletic dreams" -- part of a long afternoon of sports on the national network.

Gouthro was diagnosed with diabetes when he was fifteen years old, an aspiring hockey player growing up in Cape Breton. He was devastated and figured the worst, not being knowledgeable about the disease. Coincidentally, a friend of the family, Norm Batherson, also had diabetes and played hockey. The family introduced Gouthro to Batherson, who at the time was playing professionally with the Portland Pirates of the American Hockey League. "Norm was able to answer all my questions about living and playing hockey with diabetes," Gouthro says now. The older player became a mentor and someone Gouthro could look up to, both in and out of hockey.

Two years ago while attending Dalhousie University and playing Junior A hockey in Halifax, Gouthro in turn received a call from his family doctor about a teenager from Cape Breton who recently was diagnosed with diabetes. Josh Piercy, a 15-year-old goalie playing midget AAA for Gouthro's old team, was shocked with the news of his diagnosis. The boy had become depressed and stopped going to school thinking his life and playing hockey was coming to an end.

"I called up Josh and gave him the same advice Norm gave me," Gouthro says. "If you take care of yourself, you can live a long and happy life and still play hockey." The two continue to keep in touch by phone and e-mail.

During the same hockey season, while Gouthro was playing for the Junior A Oland Exports in Halifax, the team had a fundraising night in support of the Canadian Diabetes Association. During a pre-game puck drop ceremony, he was chosen to participate with nine-year-old Ryan Parlee, a young hockey player growing up with diabetes. The two of them immediately hit it off, and Gouthro became an instant role model for Ryan. "After the game I kept in touch with Ryan and his family. I went over to their house for dinner one night and answered a few questions about playing hockey with diabetes," Gouthro says. For the past two years, they have been partners for the annual Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's Walk to Cure Diabetes event in Halifax.

Most recently, Gouthro's wisdom has inspired Josh Piercy, now 17 years old, to become a mentor to other young hockey players in Cape Breton. "Josh and I have the same characteristics," says the Warrior goalie. "He is hard working and determined. I am proud that I have had a positive influence on Josh and he has decided to help other kids in the same situation."

Batherson has now been playing professional hockey in North America and in Europe for over 10 years. Scott Gouthro is finishing his degree at Waterloo and looking to go south next year to play professional hockey. And both Ryan and Josh continue to play minor hockey in Nova Scotia.

Gouthro has made the most of his condition and uses diabetes as a motivating factor in life. "I see having diabetes as a blessing in disguise. Now I have to eat properly. Now I have to exercise regularly. It has helped me become a better person and a better hockey player." CBC interviewed and filmed him at a Warrior game in Waterloo on February 7. He responded with the best game of the season as the Warriors blanked the visiting York Lions 3-0. The resulting documentary, involving all four players, airs tomorrow at 12:30 p.m.

Grant supports art history research -- by Barbara Elve, from this week's Gazette

"An artist who wants to innovate must have an acute historical knowledge," explains fine arts professor Robert Linsley. "You can't create unless you know what's already been done."

It's a concept he attempts to convey to his students -- and the basis for Linsley's current study, "Painting as a Paradigm for Conceptual, Sculptural and Installation Practices Since the Late 1960s." The research is the first fine arts project in the province to receive an Ontario Premier's Research Excellence Award.

Linsley's $150,000 PREA will fund an investigation into "a period of art in the late 1960s when many artists gave up painting and began to work with sculpture -- but sculpture that was informed by the fundamental properties of abstract painting."

The phenomenon, he adds, was "very specific to their times." It was expressed by such American artists as Robert Smithson and Eva Hesse, who, influenced by the paintings of Jackson Pollock, created three-dimensional works using such media as fibreglass, wire, rope (Hesse) and tons of earth and rock arranged by bulldozer (Smithson).

Researcher Robert Linley with winter term co-researchers, artist Mike Murphy and art historian Shep Steiner.

Linsley, who describes himself as "a rare bird" in being both a published scholar and a practising artist, will lead the investigation into abstract painting and sculpture of the period from 1967 to 1972 in both the U.S. and France, employing graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and other young researchers to assist with the research.

He believes Canadians are in a unique position -- "we're not as chauvinistic as Americans" -- to bring together perspectives from both continents. The two-pronged project will break new ground, he adds, in employing both research and creative streams. The doctoral and post-doctoral students Linsley employs will include art history researchers, as well as artists "making original work dealing with the same ideas.

"They will present their work in seminars, lectures and exhibitions, both in Waterloo and abroad. At least once each year, our department will sponsor a conference combined with an exhibition that will present research results."

Linsley predicts the program "will contribute substantially to the development of contemporary art in Ontario. For too long, art in the province has been oblivious to theoretical concerns current in the international art world." As well, he believes it will complement the university's strengths in "computer graphics and other visual technologies . . . (marking) the beginning of a new cycle in the relationship between technology and art."

CAR

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