October 21, 2004

Thursday, October 21, 2004

President, provost answer questions
Federal funding for piano research
Faculty describe sabbatical plans

Editor:
Chris Redmond
credmond@uwaterloo.ca

Small stuff: A UW program in nanotechnology engineering will begin in September 2005, and Siva Sivoththaman of the electrical and computer engineering department has been named director of the nanotech program. His two-year term began September 1.

President, provost answer questions

Yes, students are experiencing cramped classrooms, and faculty and staff members have heavy workloads, provost Amit Chakma said at last night's "town hall meeting" in the Humanities Theatre. But he added some good news: the number of staff and faculty is on its way up.

"We need more, no doubt about it," said Chakma. "But if someone thinks we're shrinking, we're not."

To help keep up with the enrolment increase of the past few years, UW has added 32 staff positions since 2001, he said. As for faculty, the net increase in the same period is 62 (including some Canada Research Chairs, who teach only a partial load).

"My dream," said the provost, "would be, without growing our student base, to add maybe 200 faculty positions and 200 staff positions -- back to the pre-1996 level." He said the increases so far are a step in that direction, although things have been slowed by the limits on income produced by the government's tuition fee freeze, "a major blow to our institutional plan".

Said the provost: "Balancing our aspirations and the resources that we can bring to the table is probably our biggest challenge. . . . We are aware of the pressure, and we are doing our best to minimize those workload issues."

There were officially 326 people at yesterday's session, to hear Chakma and UW president David Johnston give a rundown on recent achievements, the university's position on the provincial Rae commission on post-secondary education, the success of Campaign Waterloo, the beginning of the "Sixth Decade" planning process and other matters. The two leaders spoke for about half an hour and then answered questions.

They told their audience that the campaign, with a $260 million goal, is already at $225 million, with three years to run. Chakma said it's time for a "review" of the priorities listed in the campaign, in case UW's top needs have changed since the Campaign list was put together at the end of the 1990s. He observed that many of his listeners "will have your pet projects that may or may not have been funded" by gifts so far. "Maybe some repackaging of those priorities is in order," he said.

Some of the other things raised during yesterday's session:

"Guidelines" on the employment of post-doctoral fellows -- including an official minimum stipend -- have been under discussion in executive council and will shortly be out to the faculties for their comments, before going to the UW senate.

In answer to a question, Johnston said university leaders "would love" to restore some of the lounge and casual space across campus that's been lost to classrooms as the result of recent enrolment increases.

As part of the continuing emphasis on excellence, "we continue to expand our catchment area" for students, Chakma said, noting a sharp rise in the number of international students this fall.

The current review of UW's co-op education was stressed: "we need to reinvent co-op," said Chakma, "because other institutions are establishing co-op programs."

Discussions of UW's future held among the deans and top executives make it clear that "a vast majority would like Waterloo to be more focused," said the provost. "We need to be very careful how we expand or contract."

The president announced that "to show our appreciation to our wonderful UW family", staff and faculty members are invited to a pancake breakfast next Tuesday, October 26. It will run from 7:30 to 9:30 at the Student Life Centre. (An ice cream social will be held at 10:00 that evening for night shift employees.)

Federal funding for piano research -- from the UW media relations office

A Waterloo research project exploring the behaviour of pianos has received $111,999 (representing 40 per cent of total project funding) from the Canada Foundation for Innovation.

[Birkett] The CFI money -- from the New Opportunities Fund -- supports the research work of Stephen Birkett (left), a newly recruited faculty member in the department of systems design engineering. The project is titled "Facility for Research in Piano Design, Technology, and Manufacturing."

The award helps pay for the work of the Waterloo Piano Systems Group, which is investigating the engineering of both conventional and innovative new piano designs. The interaction between the pianist and the piano will be covered in the study.

Birkett said the CFI award will support the development of a new laboratory, including sophisticated test equipment to study the mechanical behaviour of materials and components used to manufacture pianos. Also, the industry partner in the award will make available concert grand pianos and component parts for experimentation.

"Accurate mechanical and acoustic data is critical for testing and application of the computer simulation models being used to study the piano," Birkett said.

WHEN AND WHERE

General book sale in South Campus Hall concourse outside UW bookstore winds up today.

Ring road reduced to one lane near PAS (Psychology) building today from 10 a.m. for major repairs on building.

Blood donor clinic today, all next week, and November 1, from 10 to 4, Student Life Centre, sign up at turnkey desk.

Employer interviews for winter term jobs finish today. Job rankings open tomorrow; coordinators available to provide advice to students, 10:30 to noon and 1 to 4, Tatham Centre. Rankings close Sunday night.

Garage Band Jam trying out "Garage Band" digital recording software at Campus TechShop -- musicians welcome 10 to 3 today, lower level of Student Life Centre.

Know the Score' responsible gambling campaign, booths in Student Life Centre 11 to 2, Ron Eydt Village 5 to 7 p.m.

Mexico study tour in February, information meeting 5:30, Renison College room 106.

Electronic Arts Campus Roadshow, gaming firm seeking to hire students, 6 p.m., Tatham Centre room 2218.

German 359 film: "All That Heaven Allows" (1957), 6:30, Rod Coutts Hall room 308, free to capacity of room.

Pascal Lecture, second of two by Dennis Danielson, University of British Columbia, "In Search of a New Copernican Principle", 8 p.m., Humanities Theatre, free.

Contemporary Issues in Native Communities lecture series: Lorna McNaughton, "The Mush Hole Indian Residential School", 8 p.m., MacKirdy Hall, St. Paul's United College.

Dress Down Day Friday for the United Way campaign.

Tourism lecture series: "Ecotourism or Eco-terrorism? An African Case Study", John Waithaka, Parks Canada, Friday 9:30, PAS room 1229.

School of architecture, 7 Melville Street, Cambridge, opening ceremonies Friday 10:30 a.m.; open house Saturday and Sunday noon to 5 p.m.

'Teaching Dossiers' workshop, of interest to students in the Certificate in University Teaching Program, Friday 1:30 to 3:30, Arts Lecture Hall room 211, details online.

Planet Simpson author Chris Turner, pop culture reporter for Shift, speaks Friday 7 p.m., Arts Lecture Hall, tickets $2 at the bookstore.

Eighty-Ninth Convocation Saturday, Physical Activities Complex: 10 a.m. for arts and applied health sciences, 2 p.m. for other faculties.

Programming contest sponsored by Computer Science Club, Saturday from 11 a.m., Math and Computer room 2037. "Design and implement an artificial intelligence for a simple game."

Faculty describe sabbatical plans

Here's another listing of some faculty members who are on sabbatical leave starting September 1, 2004.

(According to UW Policy 3, "The purpose of a sabbatical leave is to contribute to professional development, enabling members to keep abreast of emerging developments in their particular fields and enhancing their effectiveness as teachers, researchers and scholars. Such leaves also help to prevent the development of closed or parochial environments by making it possible for faculty members to travel to differing locales where special research equipment may be available or specific discipline advances have been accomplished. Sabbaticals provide an opportunity for intellectual growth and enrichment as well as for scholarly renewal and reassessment.")

Alexander Penlidis of chemical engineering is on a twelve-month leave: "After six years as Associate Dean, a sabbatical leave to 'catch up' with research and further pursue research projects related to Canada Research Chair and an Inter-American Materials Collaborative Project."

Mark Pritzker, also of chem eng, is also on a twelve-month sabbatical: "During September-December 2004, I will be at the Electrical Engineering Department, Vrije University in Brussels, Belgium, working with Professor Johann Deconinck. Professor Deconinck has been recognized for his modelling of electrochemical reactors and processes. From January-August 2005, I will be based at UW, continuing the collaboration with Professor Deconinck, writing journal articles with my graduate students and attending research conferences."

[Bols] Niels Bols (right) of the biology department is on a six-month sabbatical leave: "Due to an enormous teaching load and serving on a national granting committee for the past 3 years, I have had much less time to focus on research. I will use my sabbatical to concentrate on publishing research from my lab and supervising my 4 graduate students. I also want to initiate collaborations with scientists in the US and Chile."

John Lawrence of pure mathematics is taking a twelve-month sabbatical, "to study finite presentations of associative algebras and solutions of equations in symmetric groups."

Alan Macnaughton of accountancy also has a twelve-month leave: "Three papers are planned. One paper is a theoretical model of the behaviour of governments in choosing to levy taxes on visiting athletes. The other two papers are tax policy analyses -- one on the prevention of tax evasion regarding restaurant tips, and the other on whether one agency should collect all taxes imposed in Canada."

Richard Oakley of chemistry is taking a twelve-month sabbatical to work on "development of synthetic methodologies for selenium based neutral radical conductors, structural analysis and transport property measurements".

And Jun Cai of statistics and actuarial science is taking six months: "I plan to concentrate on an NSERC supported project, "Ruin Theory Under Stochastic Rates of Interest'; develop a new research project, 'Dependent Stochastic Models for Insurance Risk Analysis'; and carry out cooperative research and complete papers with colleagues at the University of Melbourne and the University of Hong Kong."

CAR

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