![[University of Waterloo]](/images/logobars/goldbar.gif)
| Yesterday |
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
|
Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
![[Seven happy people]](/images/2005/1123accounting.jpg)
Seven top
accountancy students have received scholarships from the
Deloitte Centre for Tax Education and Research, based at UW.
Winners of the $2,500 awards, from left: Dennis Pentsa,
Florence Fung, Kelly Russell, David Ha, Margarita de Guzman, Ashley
Houlden, Tony Chu.
The Deloitte centre is a partnership between UW's
school of accountancy and
Deloitte
& Touche LLP,
which calls itself "Canada's leading professional services firm".
Contest applicants were asked to submit a one-page essay answering
the question, "With the trend toward globalization today, how do
you think the practice of tax will look in the future?" Judges were
"most impressed by the quality of applications,"
says Bianca Melbourne of Deloitte.
Over four years, the firm has awarded 28 such scholarships.
|
"The Department of Housing and Residences," Walker wrote, "has doubled in size over the last ten years. The growth in residence facilities, residence life programs, residence network facilities, housing services and occupancy levels has been very extensive. Having come through this period of growth and change and being on the cusp of new directions like learning communities, graduate expansion, and more pervasive technologies, I have aligned the organizational structure to address the future of the Department.
"A new position entitled University Housing Officer will become the head of the Department of Housing and Residences. There will be four areas reporting to this new position: Residence Life, Finance and Facilities, Academic and Business Development, and Systems and Technology.
![[Charbonneau]](/images/2005/1123charbonneau.jpg)
"Pam Charbonneau (right) has been appointed to the position of Director of
Academic and Business Development for the Department. Jennifer
Ferguson will report to Pam in a new role entitled Manager of
Admissions and Marketing. There will be an open competition for
the position of University Housing Officer. Once the new
University Housing Officer is in place, final assignments can be
confirmed for the other positions.
"I want to thank the staff in the Department of Housing and Residences for their invaluable assistance and support in this restructuring review. Additional thanks is due faculty and staff, particularly those in Human Resources, who provided valuable advice.
"Please join with me in congratulating Pam and Jennifer on their new responsibilities. They are two of the many housing staff who have played a huge role in bringing our housing and residence operations to where they are today."
At a presentation to UW's senate in October, Walker and Charbonneau reported that the number of beds in UW residences has increased from 4,000 in 1995 to 6,000 today, the number of first-year students occupying them has risen from 2,200 to 4,000, and the housing budget has doubled from $13 million a year to $26 million. In that decade, $87 million ha been spent on residence construction and renovation. "Residences occupy 35% of all UW building square footage," their report said, "equal to Math, Science, Arts and Engineering [together]."
The senate discussion was focused on a planned Living-Learning Strategy that will emphasize "community learning and leadership development" in the residences.
| POSITIONS AVAILABLE |
|
On this week's list from the human resources department:
Longer descriptions are available on the HR web site. |
"Chess -- One of the World's Oldest and Most Popular Games" features artifacts from more than 25 different chess games and variants selected from the Games Museum's permanent collection. Visitors will have the opportunity to learn how to play and gain hands-on experience.
"For centuries, people all over the world have enjoyed playing chess or one of its variants," said Jinhee Chung, museum technician. "This exhibit looks at the origins of the game, how it migrated across continents, variants that evolved in East Asia, computerized chess, and contemporary European and North American variations."
The free exhibit is open to the public in the museum's public gallery through April 2006. Cash donations are welcome. Fall hours are Monday and Wednesday from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Friday from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. The museum will be closed from December 16 until January 3 for the holidays. Winter term hours are scheduled for Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The Games Museum collection includes more than 5,000 physical objects -- many of which have been exhibited in the Public Gallery in various shows since 1971. Generous private, public and corporate donations have supported the acquisition of artifacts from many parts of the world. A few hundred of these objects are documented on the museum's web site. The Games Museum is operated by the department of recreation and leisure studies, staffed by graduate students and co-op students.
The event stems from Nguyen's research as a member of the Teaching Based Research Group, a league of faculty members who carry out research about what happens in teaching and learning, whether high-tech, low-tech or what-the-heck.
![[Nguyen]](http://www.learning.uwaterloo.ca/research/imgs/trien.jpg)
Nguyen (right), a specialist in global trade with a special
interest in Asian economies, has been using computer and Internet
technologies in teaching for some twenty years. One recent
achievement: a year-long project intended
"to help students overcome their learning difficulties as
well as the psychological fears of mathematical and
problem-solving skills" -- a major handicap in a quantitative
field like economics.
But next month he'll talk about a supply-and-demand interpretation of interactions among the people involved in a university course. He explains: "The observation that motivates this research is that methods of economic analysis might be fruitfully used to explore interesting issues of teaching and learning within the context of a classroom economy. We model the economic behavior of two key groups of participants, namely, students and instructors. These groups face objective functions and constraints of their own. They search for optimal solutions to the best of their own interests.
"As a result, students achieve optimal time allocations for learning and work while instructors achieve optimal time allocations for teaching and research. In equilibrium, the demand and supply of teaching and learning fully match. Further extensions of the model were discussed to highlight the potential contribution of the approach to research in the scholarship of teaching and learning."
The talk is set for Thursday, December 1, at 3:00 in Needles Hall room 3001.
| WHEN AND WHERE |
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Miniature art show and silent auction, department of fine
arts, preview continuing, sale Friday from 4:30 to 9:00,
East Campus Hall.
Noon concert: Archiglas, Russian a cappella group, 12:30, Conrad Grebel University College chapel. Arts research seminar: "International Relations and Human Rights: Defining a Role for Canada," Lowell Ewert (peace and conflict studies) and Brian Orend (philosophy), 12:00, Humanities room 373. Café-rencontre du département d'études françaises: Jacqueline Viswanathan, Simon Fraser University, "Le scénario de film: une histoire racontée en images," 14h30, Tatham Centre salle 2218. Operation Wallacea scientific conservation expeditions, information session 3:00, Needles Hall room 3004, about opportunities for students to be involved in biodiversity monitoring, as well as faculty research possibilities. Warrior volleyball vs. McMaster, women 6:00, men 8:00, Physical Activities Complex. Women's basketball at McMaster tonight. Staff association craft sale Thursday 10 to 7, Friday 9 to 3, Davis Centre room 1301. Germanic and Slavic workshop: Nicola Würffel, University of Giessen, Germany, "Internet Based Exercises and Task for Foreign Language Learning", Thursday 9:30, Flex Lab, Dana Porter Library. Educational games workshop: Jennifer Jenson, York University, "Digital Game Design for Learning", Thursday 12 noon, Flex Lab, Dana Porter Library. Consul-general of Japan Hisao Yamaguchi, "Experiences of Modern Japan and Its Foreign Policy Challenges", Thursday 12 noon, Renison College chapel lounge. Japan at Renison Music student recital Thursday 12:30, Conrad Grebel University College chapel. Communitech annual general meeting Thursday 5 p.m., CIGI building, 57 Erb Street West. Ottawa alumni reception Thursday 5:30, National Gallery of Canada, details online. Pamper night -- manicures and mini-makeovers sponsored by UW Recreation Committee, Monday 7 p.m., details online. |
Also yesterday was the "Putting a Cap on Tuition" event in the Student Life Centre, sponsored by the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, which unfortunately I had said was going to take place today. . . . Heads of academic departments across campus have been invited to a breakfast and conversation with provost Amit Chakma on the second Thursday in December. . . . Alan Bernstein, president of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, will visit campus on December 1, and Leslie Copp in the UW office of research can provide details for those who can't wait to read them here in the next few days. . . .
The Waterloo Institute for Health Informatics Research will hold another of its Smarter Health seminars today, as Richard Alvarez of Canada Health Infoway speaks on "Accelerating the Development and Implementation of Electronic Health Records". The mass media are starting to notice the issues involved in health informatics -- the Star, for instance, just had a three-part front-page series about the difficulties in storing and moving medical information -- and Alvarez is a big name in the field, having previously headed the Canadian Institute for Health Information. He'll speak at 3:00 in Davis Centre room 1302. WIHIR tries to webcast its seminars, but had to send a memo out to its e-mail list the other day apologizing for technical troubles with the October 26 seminar: "We are introducing redundancies and procedures to greatly reduce the likelihood of our webcast transmissions being interrupted. . . . We operate, as you know, within a university environment where unexpected events are expected."
Tonight brings a presentation about the Nahanni River wilderness of the Northwest Territories, under the title "Nahanni Forever". Co-sponsored by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, it's brought to campus with the involvement of Phil Howarth of UW's geography department, who chairs the RCGS lectures committee. Several people who know the Nahanni will talk about it, and a slide show "emphasizing the beauty and importance of the Nahanni" is part of the evening. Admission is free; things start at 7:30 in the Theatre of the Arts.
Donations are just trickling in for the Engineering Society's big Canadian Cancer Society fund-raiser, says EngSoc president Karim Lallani in a memo circulated yesterday. "We still need $20,000 to reach our goal. Let's work together!" Donations are accepted in the Carl Pollock Hall foyer at midday, "or pledge one of your friends," he advised engineering students, since bold and generous folks across the faculty are having their heads shaved to draw attention to the cause. Indeed, some shaving might start (again in the CPH foyer at noontime) as early as today, with the celebrity names set for next week.
The "Sixth Decade" draft plan, described in Monday's Daily Bulletin and given a first round of discussion at the UW senate meeting that evening, is now available online as a PDF. . . . Graduate students and faculty members are still wanted to take part in a brief web usability test set for early December. . . . Information systems and technology warns that its dial-up service will be out of commission from 10:00 to noon today. . . .
Finally, with snow in the overnight forecast, here's a reminder that the plant operations grounds crew is in need of early morning shovellers, any time there's been an inch of snow or more. It pays $10 an hour. Anyone interested should e-mail lpvandon@uwaterloo.ca in advance (today, maybe) to ask for information or get on the list. Also here's a reminder that when serious snowstorms come -- not tonight, but perhaps sometime this winter -- UW closes or stays open in harmony with the local public school board; the full storm closing procedure is available online.
CAR