![[University of Waterloo]](/goldbar.gif)
| Yesterday |
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
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Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
![[Johnston at the lectern]](/images/2004/1020dj.gif)
The president
of UW, David Johnston, as well as provost Amit Chakma will speak at
a "town hall meeting" this afternoon, aimed at faculty and staff.
The meeting runs from 4 to 5 p.m. in the Humanities Theatre.
UW's leaders will talk about major current issues and answer questions
-- and "there's no dire news," Johnston promises.
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"UW will respond in a focused manner, building on our preliminary brief," said the vice-president (university relations), Laura Talbot-Allan. She and president David Johnston told senate about plans for UW's involvement with the Rae commission, as well as briefs that Rae will see from the Council of Ontario Universities, which has the tough job of crafting something that all 19 universities across the province can live with.
| Town hall meeting in Hamilton today . . . Rae planning at U of Toronto . . . Consultations at Western |
By contrast, UW and a number of other institutions are calling for "flexibility" on all fees, Johnston said, stressing that possible fee increases have to be coupled with measures for "accessibility" to make sure that all qualified students can afford what their education costs.
He said COU will tell Rae that "a strong post-secondary education system benefits all of Ontario" in "economic performance, competitiveness and well-being", and will call for funding that's "on a par with the best in the United States". That could mean another $1 billion a year from the province on top of the current $2.6 billion spending for universities.
COU will also stress the need for a clear difference between universities and Ontario's colleges, said Johnston, warning that the distinction is in danger of being "blurred" as each group launches programs that overlap the role of the other group.
Colleges are pushing their agenda hard with the Rae commission, said Paul Schellenberg, combinatorics and optimization professor and UW's representative to COU. He said the two "town hall" meetings held by Rae so far have been largely dominated by voices from the colleges.
![[Waving from the gallery]](/images/2004/1020globe.gif)
Theatres,
museums, galleries and architecture are all part of the "Music and
Culture in London" travel course to be offered in May by Conrad Grebel
University College. Students even get a chance to wave hello from the
gallery of the replica Globe Theatre. The trip offers an experience of culture in the
British capital from the 16th century to the present. Information
sessions about the two-week trip will be held Thursday at 6 p.m.
and next Monday, October 25, at 12:30 p.m., in Grebel room 1110.
There's more information
online.
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The preliminary brief from Waterloo, submitted in late summer, talked about flexible fees and the need for higher government funding, and also emphasized the costs of co-op education. It said government grants should include a 20 per cent "premium" for the extra cost of year-round operation.
Talbot-Allan told senate that the final brief to Rae will "tell the UW story", explaining the achievements and benefits of co-op education, technology transfer and the other things that make UW special, and how they "might be replicated" to Ontario's benefit. A draft will be in preparation this week, she said.
A discussion paper issued by Rae on October 1 brought out five key areas: "improving access and success", "improving quality", "improving system design" (including the relationship between colleges and universities), "paying for higher education" (Rae made it clear that the student assistance program "is broken"), and "improving accountability".
![[Danielson]](/images/2004/1020danielson.gif)
The speaker is Dennis Danielson (right) of the University of British
Columbia, an English professor whose study also has something to
say to scientists. He'll speak tonight and tomorrow on "Copernicus
Lost, Copernicus Regained". Both lectures are at 8 p.m. in the Humanities
Theatre, and admission is free.
In addition, Danielson will give a seminar today for the department of English ("Milton and Copernicus", 3:30, Arts Lecture Hall room 208) and one tomorrow for the department of physics ("Beauty and Truth, or, Beyond Science Envy", 3:30, Physics room 145).
The annual Pascal Lectures bring to UW "outstanding individuals of international repute who have distinguished themselves in both an area of scholarly endeavour and an area of Christian thought or life. These individuals discourse with the university community on some aspect of its own world, its theories, its research, its leadership role in society, challenging the university to a search for truth through personal faith and intellectual inquiry which focus on Jesus Christ."
Says Danielson on his web page: "I grew up in Victoria, on Vancouver Island, surrounded by the ocean and obsessed with birds and fish. Perhaps this is what gave me my taste for awe-inspiring and beautiful things, helped along by my subsequent study of philosophy and literature, by the eventual harmonious influence of my wife, Janet Henshaw Danielson, who is a composer, and by John Milton, whose epic Paradise Lost spans the whole physical universe and then some. In any case, my teaching and research interests are now an amalgam of poetry, history, and science, with an emphasis on the literature of cosmology."
Danielson has degrees from Victoria, Sussex, Oxford and Stanford, and has taught at the University of Ottawa and, since 1986, UBC. He has written a couple of books about Milton as well as scholarly articles about various poets and their views of the universe. Previous lectures have such titles as "Milton and Seventeenth-Century Astronautics". In general his work deals with the shape and nature of the universe, and how English writers have interpreted or described it.
His key book is an anthology, The Book of the Cosmos: Imagining the Universe from Heraclitus to Hawking, which "presents my choice of western cosmology's greatest hits from ancient times to the present . . . not only colorful gems of scientific prose but also brilliant excerpts from poetry and philosophy, diaries and dialogues, essays and epistles."
| 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. |
It will be the second Canadian site for the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) event, to be held next March.
Says a UW news release: "The annual competition now reaches more than 20,000 students and 929 teams in 27 competitions. The teams are from Canada, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, Great Britain and almost every U.S. state. The competitions are high-tech spectator sporting events, the result of lots of focused brainstorming, real-world teamwork, dedicated mentoring, project timelines and deadlines."
Attending today's announcement -- in Davis Centre room 1301 -- will be John Abele, FIRST chairman and founder of Boston Scientific Corp. There will be robot demonstrations at the event.
| WHEN AND WHERE |
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'Know the Score' responsible gambling campaign, booths in
Student Life Centre 11 to 2 and 5 to 7.
Group skills workshop series sponsored by Waterloo Public Interest Research Group, Wednesdays 12 noon, Student Life Centre room 2139, starts today with "What Is Consensus?" Free noon concert: Philip Thompson, classical piano, 12:30, Conrad Grebel University College chapel. Study in Norway information session 2 p.m., Needles Hall room 1043. Migrant workers: 'Hear Their Story' 5:30, Rod Coutts Hall room 205, sponsored by Waterloo Public Interest Research Group. South African bishop David Beetge, Diocese of the Highveld, member of the Lambeth Commission, speaks about the work of the Compass Rose Society, Wednesday 7:30, Renison College chapel lounge. (Also, sandwich lunch 12 to 1, chapel lounge; reception, 3:30 to 4:30, great hall extension, RSVP 884-4404 ext. 604.) Warrior women's hockey vs. Guelph, 7:30, Columbia Icefield. 'Modern Architecture in Canada' final lecture in series by Brian Hunt, 7:30, Cambridge Galleries, 7 Melville Street, Cambridge, $10. President's Committee Breakfast with Bernard Duncker, biology professor, speaking on "From Budding Yeast to Improved Biomarkers for Early Cancer Detection", Thursday 7:30 a.m., South Campus Hall. Tickets $15 (bring a guest at no charge) from the development office, 888-4973. Ring road reduced to one lane near PAS (Psychology) building Thursday from 10 a.m. for major repairs on building. School of architecture, 7 Melville Street, Cambridge, opening ceremonies Friday 10:30 a.m.; open house Saturday and Sunday noon to 5 p.m. |
"The so-called laws of nature have always posed a number of puzzling riddles and questions for which the answers are sometimes found through the use of logic, sometimes by use of what seems like magic -- and sometimes -- appear to be insoluble," says graduate student Marianne Staempfli, who is working at the museum.
People all over the world continue to be enthralled by the thousands of puzzles available. In fact, the popularity of mystery stories is probably rooted in the interest people have in solving puzzles, she said.
The museum exhibit has examples of two-and three-dimensional shapes, lines and angles made from wire, wood, cardboard or string material. There is even a section on brainteasers and trivia games designed to leave players confused and puzzled. The exhibit also features a "hands-on" opportunity for visitors to play and enjoy many of these puzzles.
This free on-campus exhibit is open to the public through mid-December. Cash donations are welcome. Fall visiting hours are Monday and Friday from noon to 5 p.m. and Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
In honour of the significant contributions made by retired recreation professor Elliott Avedon since he founded the gallery in 1971, the museum was renamed the "Elliott Avedon Museum and Archive of Games" in 2000. The museum Web site is still updated by Avedon from his home in Florida, enhancing the "virtual museum" presence that continues to evolve on the World Wide Web.
Among recent donations was a special collection of about 60 crokinole boards ranging in date from 1884 to 1987. They were donated by Elizabeth Mustard of Toronto. The museum collection includes some 5,000 objects -- many of which have been exhibited in the on-campus public gallery.
The museum is operated by the department of recreation and leisure studies and staffed by graduate students.
CAR