![[University of Waterloo]](/images/logobars/goldbar.gif)
| Yesterday |
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
|
Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
Postcard distributed with the Keystone mailing points readers to
more information
on the
library's web site
![[Are YOU up to the Challenge?]](/images/2005/1129postcard.jpg)
The "Challenge Grant" comes from the Kresge Foundation, which typically supports projects on a challenge basis -- that is, the local agency has to find whatever other funding is needed, and the Kresge money comes all-or-nothing. In Waterloo's case that means UW gets the $750,000 "if we are able to raise the balance of the funds ($2.8 million) needed to complete our renovation plans by December 2006," the Keystone mailing explains.
A mailing from Keystone, the on-campus branch of Campaign Waterloo, is the usual thing just before the end of the year. As always, this year's mailing to staff, faculty and retirees reminds them that December 31 is the cutoff for tax deductions for the current year. But most years the biggest emphasis in the late-fall mailing is scholarship funds, so the library project is something new.
"There has been approval from Deans' Council for this to be a major focus for the next year, because the library is used by all faculties," says Jennifer Lorette, manager of the Keystone Campaign. She noted that making the appeal campus-wide builds on what's already been done inside the library, where a campaign for Kresge matching funds has hugely increased the number of library staff contributing to the university through Keystone. Mary Stanley, the library's development officer, called the respond "tremendous . . . as of today, 91% of our staff have made a contribution to help meet the Challenge."
Plans are in place to take the challenge beyond the campus with targeted appeals to parents, alumni, and the local community. Lorette said the library will look to corporate donors too, as it attempts to raise all the money before the end of the new year.
Projects in what has been called the "Next Generation Library" renovation include creating an "information commons" of software-loaded computers in the Dana Porter Library, providing new individual and group study areas, enhancing the available computing equipment, and building a "flexible learning lab" in the Davis Centre library. The just-completed first phase of the library project has helped transform spaces including the RBC Information Commons in the Davis Centre Library and a reading room for current periodicals in Dana Porter.
"We are the second library in Canada to ever receive this grant," says the Keystone publicity. "This is a one-time opportunity."
Kresge is an independent, private foundation created in 1924 by the personal gifts of department store millionaire Sebastian S. Kresge. Since its establishment, the Foundation says, it has awarded a total of 8,222 grants amounting to $1.92 billion to institutions in higher education, health and long-term care, arts and humanities, human services, science and the environment, and public affairs. On a challenge basis, they aid in the construction or renovation of facilities and are made to recipients that have raised initial funds toward the respective projects before they ask for assistance. Recipients then are challenged to raise the rest.
"Together we can meet this Challenge!" says the Keystone mailing this week. It includes a pledge form (with options of cheque, credit card, payroll deduction or UW pension deduction) and the usual desktop "tent" calendar, this one in UW colours and noting university holidays and paydays for 2006. At last count, says the covering letter, Keystone had reached 1,806 donors on its way to a target of 2,007.
Most of those given tenure were already on the university's faculty, and most were being promoted from assistant professor to associate professor at the same time. But 13 faculty members were given tenure as they arrived at UW from other institutions, presumably after earning tenure or similar credentials there.
As of June 2005, the university had a total of 914 professors, including 210 women, the report says.
In addition to keeping statistics, the committee is responsible for dealing with appeals if a professor who applies for promotion or tenure doesn't get it. In some cases that can mean losing a job, as most faculty members are originally hired in "tenure-track" or "probationary" appointments and are expected to achieve permanent status within half a dozen years.
There were two appeal cases this year, says the committee, chaired by optometry professor Jake Sivak. In one of them, the president -- whose desk is the final stop for a tenure application -- said no to a faculty member who had asked for early tenure under a provision for "exceptional" candidates. A tribunal looked at the files "and weighed the additional oral and written submissions made available to it", the report says. Unanimously it voted against the faculty member: "This case should not have come forward this year because the evidence presented re contributions in teaching and research were not exceptional enough to warrant early consideration."
In the other case, a faculty member in a probationary post was considered for reappointment and turned down. "The Dean noted that, for probationary reappointment, the Faculty is looking for a minimum threshold in all three areas (teaching, scholarship and service)." The committee hearing the appeal "concluded that the standard had not been met."
The UTPAC report also includes general comments on what needs to be improved in UW's processes, and this year's report focuses on teaching issues: "From time to time a department chair/school director may decide to pay more attention to teaching, but the initiative is often lost with the transition to the next chair/director. . . . At the very least, tenure-track faculty must be made aware of the importance of teaching in their reappointment and tenure cases, and be provided with assistance in diagnosing and correcting any deficiencies or weaknesses. . . .
"We feel that more care could be taken in the hiring process to judge whether candidates have the potential to build a record as a good teacher. This involves carefully examining not only quality of research, but also quality of communication, both oral and written." There can be a particular problem when professors are hired at more senior levels, and "the whole process is rushed," the report warns.
| WHEN AND WHERE |
|
Hagey Lecturer
John
Meisel, student colloquium 10:30, Needles Hall room 3001.
Electronic grade submission demonstration 2:30, Arts Lecture Hall room 113. Economics Society wine and cheese reception 5:00 to 7:00, University Club, all economics students, faculty and staff welcome. Arts research seminar: "How to Critically Evaluate and Use Existing Survey Data: Info for All Disciplines," Wednesday 12 noon, Humanities room 373. Music student recital Wednesday 12:30, Conrad Grebel University College chapel. 'Extreme Buildings in Extreme Climates', Joe Lstiburek and John Straub, Construction Specifications Canada and UW school of architecture, Wednesday 1:30, Architecture lecture hall. Angelo Graham, UW safety office, retirement reception Wednesday 3:30 to 5:30, University Club. 'Travel Abroad to East Asia' session with Yan Li, coordinator, Chinese language program, Renison College, Wednesday 7 p.m., Renison chapel lounge. The Starlight Tour: The Last Lonely Night of Neil Stonechild by Susanne Reber and Robert Renaud, reading and signing, Wednesday 7 p.m., Arts Lecture Hall room 116, admission $2, sponsored by UW bookstore and Aboriginal student office. Jewish studies program presents Michael Higgins, president, St. Jerome's University, "The Pope for the Jews: John Paul II and Catholic-Jewish Relations", Wednesday 7:30 p.m., Siegfried Hall. 'Greening the Campus' environment and resource studies course presents 18 projects from this term, Environmental Studies I courtyard, Thursday 10:00 to 11:30. Christmas at the Davis Centre: annual concert by music department choirs, with public carol-sing, December 7, 12 noon, Davis great hall. |
There's pride in the school of accountancy, after a team of four fourth-year students -- Chris Deruyter, Carol Wong, Brent Sellors and Faisal Hadibhai -- took first place in the second annual University of Ottawa Accounting Competition this month. The competition is designed to challenge upper-year students as they get closer to their Chartered Accountant designation. A total of 11 teams from five universities took part, including the UW group, selected by lecturer Alastair Lawrence based on their academic achievements and success in UW's WatCase competition. In the first round the students had to solve mock cases and questions from the Uniform Evaluation that they'll face on the way to the CA qualification. The final round involved another mock case, which the team had to present to a panel using PowerPoint. Hadibhai took first place in the one individual part of the competition, a set of mock multiple-choice questions, and the UW team's accumulated scores on all the parts brought the overall top finish.
The clippers continue at work in Carl Pollock Hall, where money is now rolling in for the Engineering Society's fund-raiser on behalf of the Canadian Cancer Society. If the original $25,000 target is reached by noontime today -- I hear rumours it's been surpassed already -- then two well-known members of the staff in engineering, Sue Gooding of the dean's office and Colleen Bernard of the undergraduate office, are scheduled to have their heads shaved publicly today. Tomorrow, same time, same stage: several members of the Federation of Students executive go glabrous.
The Ridesafe program is looking for "F class" drivers for the winter term, says a note from Jesse Ariss, one of the coordinators of the program, which gives people a ride home from campus in the dangerous night hours. "To apply," he writes, "bring a resumé with covering letter to the police and parking services," who are in the building dubbed Commissary, along the ring road near the smokestack.
Pearl Seitz, a former member of UW's staff, died November 17. She was a bindery clerk in UW Graphics, who worked for the university from 1963 to her retirement in 1974.
Students in a UW drama course, taught by Gerd Hauck, will connect with their counterparts at Bradley University in Illinois on Thursday in an electronic scene. Actors from the two locations will be doing a scene from August Strindberg's "A Dream Play", as part of the annual electronic "Megaconference" for drama students. It runs all day, with the UW scene scheduled for 4 p.m. -- see it in the Theatre of the Arts or online. I'll be saying more about this miracle of the modern age in Thursday morning's Daily Bulletin.
CAR