![[University of Waterloo]](/images/logobars/goldbar.gif)
| Yesterday |
Friday, July 29, 2005
|
Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
![[Mathies at lectern]](/images/2005/0728mathies.jpg)
Ron Mathies,
former director of peace and conflict studies at Conrad Grebel University
College, will return to Grebel in 2005-06 as the first Rodney and Lorna
Sawatsky Visiting Scholar. The new position
has
been created to honour
Sawatsky, president of Grebel 1989-94, who
died last year.
Mathies is completing nine years as executive director of the
Mennonite
Central Committee, and has been prominent on the Canadian and international
stage this year in connection with tsunami relief. At Grebel for the coming year
he will "debrief and reflect on his important contributions to service and
development", work in the college's academic and residential programs, and
teach a PACS course titled "Doing Development: Issues of Justice and Peace".
He's pictured speaking at UW during International Celebration Week in March.
|
University offices and most services will be closed on Monday. There is no change to the current 24-hour-a-day operation of the Davis Centre library, but the Dana Porter Library will be open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. only. Hours on Saturday and Sunday are as usual.
Of course some key UW services continue as always:
Meanwhile, people are looking ahead to the fall term. This weekend concludes the period when new students had exclusive access to the "class enrolment" function on Quest; starting Tuesday, it's "open enrolment", a chance for anyone who will be a student in the fall term to choose or change course selections.
East Campus Hall should be open for business this morning after two busy days for the plant operations electrical section. Rick Zalagenas of plant ops said late yesterday that he was expecting power to be restored in the building sometime in the evening. The finance office, procurement and contract services, fine arts, central stores and the Carousel Dance Centre have been closed or operating from temporary locations since a panel failed on Wednesday morning, cutting off the electricity in ECH.
Fans of men's hockey will be pleased to hear that Alex Staudt, a six-foot-three defenceman from Cranbrook, British Columbia, is coming to UW this fall to study environmental planning and patrol the Warriors' blue line. . . . The ISIS Canada Research Network (that's "Intelligent Sensing for Innovative Structures") has announced Jamie Hamelin of UW's civil engineering program as this year's winner of its Gary Bosgoed Scholarship for Aboriginals in Engineering. . . . The health services clinic will be closing early on Tuesday, at 4:30, for a staff development session. . . .
At the north end of the campus, it's looking as though Hagey Boulevard, which bisects the Research and Technology Park, is complete all the way from Columbia Street to Bearinger Road. Bicycles and runners have been using it, but it won't be open to vehicles until early September, says Tom Galloway of the plant operations department, as the contractor still has work to do on sidewalks and landscaping.
The staff association has filled its bus for a shopping weekend in Erie, Pennsylvania, November 11-13, and is now taking reservations for seats on a second bus. . . . Students with fall term jobs outside North America who still haven't attended a "pre-departure session" in the co-op department should be in Davis Centre room 1302 at 4:30 on Tuesday. . . . Canadian Blood Services sends "a big thank-you" to the 323 people who donated blood at a clinic in the Student Life Centre earlier this month. . . .
A headline in yesterday's Daily Bulletin gave the wrong idea. A one-day "institute" for education policy researchers, sponsored by the UW-based Canadian Centre for Knowledge Mobilisation, was not held "at UW", but at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, a unit of the University of Toronto. The session was "an amazing day that gave CCKM the chance to discuss research review practices with an exceptionally talented, skilled and dedicated group of policy advisers and analysts", says CCKM director Kathleen Bloom.
![['The Full Spectrum of Research']](/images/2005/0727brain.jpg)
The four-page "Brain Research" summary joins previous brochures on automotive research, health, green energy, international studies, and other topics.
Its cover (right pictures James Danckert, of the psychology department, working with graduate student Denise Marigold to test "eyetracker" equipment that can be used to assess which parts of the brain are active during certain tasks. Danckert's research includes work on how brain-damaged and healthy people interact with the world, what they see and how well they can reach or grasp. Holder of a Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience, he's working towards improved understanding of the parietal cortex and more effective methods of rehabilitation for patients with brain injuries.
Elsewhere in the psychology department are the Waterloo Synaesthesia Research Group -- studying people whose senses overlap so that they see numbers as colours or can taste musical tones -- and researchers looking at cognitive function in patients with depression or schizophrenia. Kathleen Bloom of psychology is a specialist in early language and literacy; Colin Ellard studies the functional and neuronal organization of navigation. Barbara Bulman-Fleming works in the area of brain laterality, the division of brain function into two hemispheres.
But brain research extends far beyond the psych department, the brochure indicates. For example, Sivabal Sivaloganathan and Giuseppe Tenti in the applied mathematics department are working on mathematical models for hydrocephalus, the condition in which fluid builds up inside the brain -- something that can cause permanent impairment or death, but which can't easily be examined in physical tests in living patients.
The Computational Neuroscience Research Group is based in the philosophy department. Kinesiology researchers are looking at relationships between the brain and physical functioning, and the changes in brain and body that come with age. Brain research also draws on health studies and gerontology, electrical and computer engineering, even civil engineering, where Wayne Brodland works on computational modelling of brain development.
"To uncover the secrets of the mind," says a note in the brochure from psychology professor Michael Dixon, "neuroscientists must often delve into the unusual. Strangely, much of what I know about the 'normal' brain comes from studying patients who could recognize tools, but not common animals, and synaesthetes who experience colours whenever they view ordinary black digits or letters."
![[Banic in blue]](/images/2005/0501banic.jpg)
"Michelle spends her days maintaining historical and current databases containing information about students, courses, and faculty at Waterloo. Michelle also compiles data for various surveys such as the Maclean's Reputational Survey, Statistics Canada Full-Time Academic survey, and the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada surveys. Her work keeps her busy, but she loves it because 'no two days are ever alike!'
Michelle is no stranger to volunteering, also spending her spare time raising money and awareness for the Arthritis Society. This particular charity is closest to Michelle's heart because her oldest daughter Amanda suffers from Juvenile Arthritis. One of the campaigns that Michelle organizes across campus is the 'Two for Blue' campaign which encourages staff to pay a toonie in support of juvenile arthritis research.
"Michelle claims that anyone who knows her knows about her passion for Disney World -- she's planning her 9th trip for next year. What people may not know is that she studied Broadcasting, Radio, and Television at Conestoga College. Michelle jokes that this program helped hone her gift for gab. When Michelle gets a moment to breathe in her busy schedule, her favourite thing to do on campus is to call a friend and go for a walk around Ring Road -- 'Just grabbing some fresh air on this beautiful campus,' she says."
CAR