![[University of Waterloo]](/images/logobars/goldbar.gif)
| Yesterday |
Tuesday, February 8, 2005
|
Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
Patricia VePari (photo courtesy Michael Davenport)
![[Patricia VePari lit by sunset]](/images/2005/0208vepari3.jpg)
Friends mourned her yesterday and classmates in engineering held a memorial service. "She was such an amazing person," one of her roommates told the Record. A funeral service will be held Thursday in her home town of Libertyville, Illinois, near Chicago.
In a statement, UW president David Johnston expressed "the university's deepest condolences to Ms. Vepari's family" and described the student's untimely death as "a tragic loss".
A UW news release says university health officials were told of her death on Friday morning and met with her chemical engineering class shortly afterwards. "Medical staff attended the class, briefed the students about the situation and offered health and counselling services on Friday and throughout the weekend."
"We're confident that there is no further risk to the campus or general public, and that everyone among her classmates and campus associates was contacted or is being contacted," said Martin Van Nierop, director of communications and public affairs. He said the university continues to be in close touch with the Region of Waterloo Public Health Unit.
The public health department confirmed the death yesterday, adding in its announcement that the department "has been supporting the University of Waterloo in ensuring proper follow-up with all close contacts of this person in the University population. (The follow-up of these persons is being coordinated through the University's Health services, with assistance from Public Health.)
"The general public and members of the university population who have not had close contact with this person, are not at increased risk because of this case."
"We're encouraged by the recommendations for reinvestment in higher education, which is something we asked for in our submission to the Rae post-secondary review," Johnston said in a news release yesterday afternoon. "This report links the development of talented people with Ontario's prosperity and quality of life. We want to praise former Premier Rae for his exhaustive work on the review."
It recommends a substantial increase in provincial investment -- a total of at least $1.3 billion new base funding to colleges and universities by 2007-08, including $700 million for quality improvements and innovation to make the student experience more rewarding and successful; $180 million for expansion of graduate education; $160 million for new enrolment and outreach, to expand participation in higher education.
Rae says that would be the government's contribution to meeting a $1.5 billion gap and making total revenue for higher education "at least comparable to other provinces. . . . The stretch target over the long term should be to bring the per-student revenue base up to the level of public institutions in peer North American jurisdictions."
The eagerly-awaited report was released yesterday morning. "The goals for reform are straightforward: great education, opportunities for more people and a secure future for higher education in Ontario," Rae said. "I am recommending practical actions the provincial government needs to take to ensure excellence, accessibility and sustainability of its higher education system."
Johnston said the review's commitment to accessibility -- which UW called for in its brief-- is a bold one. The Rae report recommends that every qualified student will have a place at an Ontario postsecondary institution and will have adequate financial support to afford it.
It calls for a $300 million overhaul of student assistance programs, including new up-front grants for more than 95,000 low-income students, more access to loans that better reflect the actual costs of study for low- and middle-income students and new loans to help parents contribute to their children's education.
Rae said that tuition fees should not increase at all until the student assistance system is reformed and government has made significant new investments. Fee levels would then be set by institutions, subject to a new provincial regulatory framework that ensures predictability, transparency and affordability for students.
Johnston also said the university community is encouraged by the report's acknowledgement of the importance of investing in university research. He added that UW looks forward with interest to the government's response to the report, beginning with the 2005 provincial budget. "We will work with the government, students, and sister institutions to implement key items quickly."
The full text of the report is available on the Rae web site.
![[O'Donovan in chancellor's robes]](/images/2003/0123odonovan.gif)
Klaus Woerner, founder and chief executive of Automation Tooling Systems of Cambridge, one of Waterloo Region's biggest industrial companies, and a supporter of UW in many ways, died Sunday. He was 65.
Says a statement from UW president David Johnston: "The University of Waterloo is saddened by the loss of two such outstanding community leaders. Val O'Donovan and Klaus Werner were integral to the life of the university in so many ways. Over the years, they both demonstrated tremendous generosity with their time, leadership and personal resources. They will be hugely missed by all of us who got to know them and their families so well.
"Val was a tremendous believer in higher education. He relished his role as Chancellor of the University and was instrumental in many advocacy efforts on our behalf and for education in general. I can tell you from personal experience that nothing brought him greater delight than interacting with our students, especially at convocation when he conferred degrees on thousands of our graduands over the years. He will be very tremendously missed.
"Klaus was a benefactor to Waterloo in a number of important ways, especially in helping to establish new programs and leading edge research such as Mechatronics Engineering and solar cell technology. He was really a strong supporter of higher education and the need for investment in brain power, and then followed that belief up with the hiring of more than 200 co-ops and graduates. He was a great community leader and he will be sorely missed."
As a step in that direction, the planned pharmacy curriculum -- leading to a degree of Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy, or BScPhm -- will be discussed by the senate undergraduate council at its meeting today (12 noon, Needles Hall room 3004). Curriculum proposals go from the council to the UW senate for approval.
| WHEN AND WHERE |
|
'An Appeal for a Humanistic Patent Regime for Pharmaceuticals',
Jillian Clare Cohen, University of Toronto school of pharmacy,
sponsored by UW International Health Development Association,
11:30, Davis Centre room 1302.
'Eating for Energy' workshop 12:30, followed by "One Woman's Story" 1:30, Student Life Centre room 2134 -- events for Eating Disorder Awareness Week. Germanic and Slavic lecture: Gisela Brude-Firnau, professor emeritus, "Discourses of the Centaurs: From Faust to Harry Potter", 2:00, Modern Languages room 245. Arts faculty council 3:30, Humanities room 373. 'Job search strategies' career workshop for international students, 4:30, Tatham Centre room 1208. 'Green Building Design: Engineering and Business Innovations', Peter Halsall (Halsall Associates) and Michael Pelton (Enermodal Engineering), 5 p.m., Davis Centre room 1302, part of Green Building Lecture Series. New Music of Leonard Enns noon-hour concert by Stephanie Kramer (soprano) and Catherine Robertson (piano), Wednesday 12:30, Conrad Grebel University College chapel. Canadian Alliance of Student Associations open session Wednesday 11:30 to 1:00, Student Life Centre room 2134. Screening of new video "Breaking the Silence: Giving Voice to Persons Living with Dementia", sponsored by Murray Alzheimer Research and Education Program, Wednesday 3:30, Lyle Hallman Institute auditorium, RSVP ext. 5040. Waterloo Institute for Health Informatics Research seminar: Marlee Spafford, school of optometry, "Searching for the Implicit amid the Explicit in Novice Case Presentations", Wednesday 3:30, Davis Centre room 1304. Malcolm Gladwell speaks about his new book, Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking, Saturday 3 p.m., Centre for International Governance Innovation, sponsored by UW library, retail services and alumni affairs, reservations 888-4973. |
More from the proposal: "The Admission Committee will be looking for applicants who not only demonstrate academic potential but most aptly display a motivation towards a career in pharmacy and demonstrate the qualities and skills believed to be the most valuable to be an effective pharmacist. . . .
"Projections suggest a Fall 2006 first-year class of 60 and a Fall 2007 first-year class of 120."
Applicants will need "at least one full year of study" at university, with specific requirements in English, physics, biology, chemistry and calculus.
As pharmacy students they'll take Pharmacy 120, "Introduction to the Profession of Pharmacy", and courses in "professional practice", "medicinal chemistry", "pharmaceutical care", "toxicology" and "health systems in society", "pharmacokinetics" and other topics. Electives include "Aboriginal Issues in Health and Healing", "Pharmaceutical Marketing", and "Alcohol and Substance Use Disorders". Course descriptions are part of the material that's going to undergrad council today.
Officials told the board of governors last week that they're hoping to introduce a co-op component to the pharmacy program, but that's not part of today's proposal.
The web site for the Flight 93 Memorial Project explains: "The flight left Newark Airport at 8:42 a.m. and began its journey to San Francisco. But at 9:36 a.m., as the Boeing 757 was nearing Cleveland, Ohio, it abruptly changed course, turning southeast toward the nation's capital. . . . Just after 10 a.m. the plane crashed, at an estimated speed of more than 500 miles per hour, into a reclaimed strip mine at the edge of the woods in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. . . . All thirty-three passengers, seven crew members, and the four hijackers were killed."
A memorial is planned near the site of the crash, and designers throughout North America were invited to submit designs. A total of 1,011 proposals were received. "The common thread among the five," a news release says, "is that each provides a 'memorial expression' while considering and respecting the land."
Architecture student Ken Lum, whose home is Toronto, is one of the five, with a project that's titled "(F)LIGHT: The Luminous Roofscape". Says the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "Lum, of Toronto, hopes his design conveys the sacrificial gesture made by the 40 passengers and crew members. . . . It's believed that the terrorists were headed toward Washington, D.C., and that the passengers and crew led an uprising against their abductors. One of the defining aspects of Lum's design is the way visitors would be channeled through a defined path as they head to the sacred ground at the crash site, which contains the victims' remains. 'It expresses a sense of loss,' he said. 'Although they were individuals, they worked collectively to save lives.'"
Lum writes: "Our proposal aims to transform a common field into a sanctuary that resonate a sense of individual and collective memory, sacrifice and loss. . . . Through its annual cycle of rebirth, the reclaimed landscape accentuates the experience of the memorial through a metaphor of life. Descending into the Bowl visitors are gradually removed from the sights and sounds of the park." The shape of the design echoes the path followed by the United Airlines jet in its last flight, and the "luminous" roof is "sculpted to invoke a physical and spiritual experience of awe, inspiration and hope through the recollection of events that unfolded".
Three of the other final entries in the design competition are from professional architects or designers; one is from a team headed by the dean of architecture at the University of Texas at Austin.
The five finalists will each be awarded $25,000 to begin work on Stage II of the design competition, starting with a workshop in Somerset later this month. They'll submit models to the jury in June, and the eventual winner will be announced this fall.
CAR