![[University of Waterloo]](/images/logobars/goldbar.gif)
| Yesterday |
Friday, November 4, 2005
|
Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
How the Globe ranked UWWaterloo has an A-plus academic reputation, and lots of high marks on other criteria, according to the "University Report Card" published this week by the Globe and Mail.The grades are based on comments by students who are "members of the studentawards.com database", the Globe said. Students gave rankings to their own universities for technology, food, community spirit and other topics. The paper said 26,000 students nationwide took part in the survey, but didn't say how many were from any one university. The "Report Card" also included articles elaborating on each major area, with a lead story on "e-classrooms" and texts about online library resources, tuition costs, residences and so on. UW was ranked with other "medium" universities with an enrolment between 12,500 and 25,000. Here are the marks the Globe gave Waterloo:
Waterloo scored "top marks" among the universities in 24 of 67 sub-categories, according to an analysis by the marketing and undergraduate and recruitment office. |
The government trip, led by premier Dalton McGuinty and economic development and trade minister Joseph Cordiano, will take officials and corporate executives to Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and Hong Kong, looking to increase business dealings between Ontario and the world's biggest country. The Ontario delegation will host business lunches, dinners and receptions at each location. Plenary sessions will be followed by break-out sessions tailored to the sectors represented by participating companies. "The Premier and the Minister are prepared to advance the particular agendas of Ontario businesses," an official told a seminar of interested corporate leaders earlier this fall.
Johnston will take part in a series of meetings related to the Trade Mission in Hong Kong and in Nanjing, and will be speaking at one of the Mission's plenary sessions on November 11 in Nanjing, said Avvey Peters, UW's director of government relations. "His remarks relate to the role of higher education in economic development."
While he's in Nanjing, she said, the president is planning to visit the Nanjing University of Finance and Economics. "One of the pieces of UW business taking place on the trip is a re-signing of our existing educational agreements with Nanjing University, the Nanjing University of Technology, and the Nanjing University of Finance and Economics. The re-signing is intended to reaffirm our partnerships with these institutions, so as to build on them in the future."
Altogether UW has exchange agreements, Memorandums of Understanding or other links with 26 universities in China and Hong Kong, UW's international programs office says. An agreement with Tsinghua University in Beijing, the capital city, was signed this summer.
In addition to reinforcing those connections, Johnston will meet with UW alumni and potential donors in Hong Kong. He'll also attend a lunch meeting of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, featuring many Waterloo graduates, at which premier McGuinty is the keynote speaker.
Also visiting Hong Kong for part of the time, to be there for the alumni activities, are associate vice-president Gail Cuthbert Brandt, who's responsible for UW's international activities; John Crossley, principal of Renison College, where the East Asian studies program is based; Linda Kieswetter, director of Campaign Waterloo; Johnny Wong, director of the school of computer science; and businessman Bob Harding, the chair of Campaign Waterloo.
The event comes as Ontario grade 12 students are making up their minds which universities to apply to.
The "UW Day" event runs from 9:00 to 3:00 tomorrow, with tours starting from the Student Life Centre, information booths open all day, and hourly presentations by the secondary school liaison staff. More detailed academic presentations by the various faculties, running about 90 minutes, will start at 10:00 and 1:00.
Residence tours and visits to the colleges are also offered, and future students are invited to eat in the SLC coffee shops, browse in the bookstore and UW Shop, and get a briefing about the co-op program from CECS staff in the Humanities building. Free parking is offered all day in half a dozen main campus lots.
Students who like the looks of Waterloo tomorrow will likely be back during March break, when the university holds the traditional "Campus Day" open house (Tuesday, March 14) aimed at those who are applying for admission in September 2006.
![[Higgins]](/images/2005/1104higgins.jpg)
"You've read the article, now come hear Michael Higgins for yourself,"
says David Seljak, director of the St. Jerome's Centre, which is
presenting the man himself -- religious studies and English professor,
media personality and president of St. Jerome's University -- in a
lecture tonight.
That's a live lecture, as opposed to the video talk
on a similar topic that Higgins
(right) delivered recently as part of the
"Best
Lecturer" competition on TVOntario.
Last Saturday, Seljak points out, the Record newspaper devoted the Faith page to Mirko Petricevic's article on Higgins's talk for tonight, "Stalking the Holy". That's also the title of his new book, published by Anansi and aired on CBC radio's "Ideas" program. The book's subtitle is "In Pursuit of Saint-Making".
Says Seljak: "Michael will discuss how we recognize icons of holiness in our midst and in our history. Why do we choose the ones we do? What is the politics of saint-making about? His new book is a personal quest as well as a serious study of our complex, quirky, and endlessly-shifting paradigms of holiness. Saints, Higgins argues, subvert our complacency. And official sainting can be controversial, as we will discover when we explore the cases of Pius XII, Teresa of Calcutta and Padre Pio."
The talk tonight -- 7:30 in Siegfried Hall at St. Jerome's -- is the second in the 2005-06 series for the Centre, with the overall title "Amazing Church". Last month Stan McKay, former moderator of the United Church of Canada, spoke to an audience of 300 people about the aboriginal experience of Christianity in Canada.
As part of the Somerville Lecture, which is sponsored by the Catholic Register, Higgins gave the same lecture Wednesday night at the Newman Centre at the University of Toronto. Back in Waterloo, he will be speaking again November 30 in a lecture on Catholic-Jewish relations, sponsored by UW's Jewish studies program.
| WHEN AND WHERE |
|
Touring Players children's performance: "Cinderella", 10:00
and 1:30, Humanities Theatre.
Sandford Fleming Foundation Debates for engineering students, final round 12 noon outside POETS pub, Carl Pollock Hall, "refreshments served". Co-op residence open house: Waterloo Co-operative Residence Inc., 268 Phillip Street, today and Saturday 2 to 6 p.m. Tourism lecture series: Sarah Nicholls, Michigan State University, "Global Terrorism and Tourism," Monday 9:30 a.m., Arts Lecture Hall room 105. 'One Waterloo' film presentation: "Paper Clips", Monday 7 p.m., Humanities Theatre, free, sponsored by Diversity Awareness Campaign. |
![[Lepock]](/images/2005/1104lepock.jpg)
A memorial reception will be held starting at 3:30 today at the
University Club for Jim Lepock (right), long-time physics
professor at UW and most recently chair of medical biophysics at the
University of Toronto, who
died a
few weeks ago. "Jim was a dear friend and colleague to many of
us," says a memo from the faculty of science, announcing the creation of
the Jim Lepock Memorial Award: "This award will be made possible through
the support of family, colleagues and friends of Jim's and will be
awarded to an undergraduate student in the Faculty of Science who is
enrolled in a third or fourth year biophysics course and who
demonstrates academic excellence. Making all students in the Faculty
eligible for this award is in recognition of the breadth of
interdisciplinary work which Jim undertook." Information about supporting
the new award is available from Andrea Carthew, development officer in
the science faculty, acarthew@uwaterloo.ca.
The university's Joint Health and Safety Committee has announced that it's going to start posting the minutes of its monthly meetings on its web site, as a way of making information available to more people. (Actually UW has three JHSCs: one for the Gage Avenue outpost, one for the Architecture building in Cambridge, and one for the main Waterloo campus, which is the one taking this new step.) The most recent batch of minutes, from the September meeting, refer to such issues as fume hoods and fire alarms; October minutes haven't been posted yet. The committee holds its next meeting November 21 at 10 a.m. In another note from the safety office, administrative assistant Sheila Hurley says it's been decided that the whole office will be moving, likely in February, from its current home in the Health Services building to new space in the Commissary, adjacent to Graphics.
Nice weather for November, isn't it? And the same was true in October: "The month started out so warm," writes Frank Seglenieks of the UW weather station, "that even a cold snap near the end of the month couldn't prevent the overall temperature from being above average. In the end, the average daily high was 1.2 degrees higher than average and the average daily low was 2.9 degrees higher than average. The first day when the temperature went below zero was October 20 -- this is the latest first frost in the eight-year history of the weather station." The last frost in the spring was May 6, he adds.
The co-op and career services department says it's looking for nominations for the UW Co-op Student of the Year Awards. . . . The Pragma Council, advisory body to the UW school of planning, met October 27 and 28 to talk about the hot issue of "Implementing the Provincial Growth Plan". . . . The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations is seeking nominations for this year's provincial Teaching Awards and Academic Librarianship Award. . . .
Renison College will offer a series of three public lectures this month under the title "What Then of Faith in This World?" The speaker is Darren Marks of Huron College at the University of Western Ontario, who will talk this coming Tuesday on "The Eclipse of the Church, or the Road to Self", and follow up November 15 and 22 on other issues about "the role of faith communities to our culture". The Tuesday night events start at 7:00 and are free. More information: 884-4404 ext. 628.
Spring term work reports that were marked by co-op coordinators are available for pickup as of today in the Tatham Centre. . . . Attendance at Tuesday's "town hall meeting" with the president and provost was officially 211, the Humanities Theatre staff report. . . . A day before UW's open house day, Wilfrid Laurier University is holding Laurier Day for potential students today. . . .
Sports this weekend: Women's volleyball vs. Western, Saturday 7 p.m., Physical Activities Complex. Swimming, at McMaster on Saturday, home to the PAC pool to host Carleton starting at 9:45 a.m. on Sunday. Women's hockey at Laurier (that means in the Waterloo Memorial Recreation Complex) Saturday at 2 p.m. Men's hockey at Brock Saturday night. Men's volleyball at Queen's on Saturday. Badminton and women's basketball (now there's a tandem!) at Western on Sunday.
CAR