![[University of Waterloo]](/images/logobars/goldbar.gif)
| Yesterday |
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
|
Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
![[As small as a kiddie car]](/images/2005/1012parade.jpg)
Downtown crowds
got a look at UW's Mini-Baja vehicle (aboard the Alternate Fuels
Team truck, right) and Formula SAE car (left) during Monday's
Oktoberfest parade through Waterloo and Kitchener. Escorting the
vehicles on foot are Mini-Baja team members Steve
McNabb and Jeff Moulton, both of 4A mechanical engineering. The
Midnight Sun solar car also appeared in the parade. Photo by
Duane Cronin, mechanical engineering.
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Paul Gipe, who has lectured widely in North America, Europe and South Pacific, will deliver his talk beginning at 8 p.m. in the Humanities Theatre. Admission is free. Gipe will give a broad overview of wind energy development around the world, including the technology employed in both large and small wind turbines, environmental costs and benefits of wind energy, aesthetic design of wind turbines and wind power plants, and community wind development.
The World Renewable Energy Congress honoured Gipe as a pioneer in 1998 and the American Wind Energy Association named him as the industry's "Person of the Year" in 1988.
"Mr. Gipe ranks as one of the top few people who really understand what is going on in wind energy throughout the world," said Brandon Seegmiller, director of STEP and a third-year environment and business student. "His visit to Waterloo is in perfect timing, as the Ontario provincial government is about to pass standard offer contract legislation that will encourage Ontarians to set up renewable energy systems, allowing them to sell clean power back to the grid at a fixed premium. As in Germany and Denmark, this will surely cause the wind energy industry to explode in Ontario. I believe this is an excellent opportunity for students and the community to hear from the expert about wind energy and how it will affect the future of Ontario's energy mix."
STEP is a student-led organization committed to educating the public on renewable energy and climate change issues. Its past success includes a 36-panel, 2000-watt solar array that was installed on Federation Hall in 2004. STEP is also demonstrating solar thermal technology to heat the pool and shower water at the Physical Activities Complex.
Now STEP is moving forward with plans to demonstrate wind energy on campus. The student volunteers plan to showcase multiple configurations of wind turbines.
![[Competing Against America]](/images/2005/1011america.jpg)
Also speaking today
is author Michael Alexander, whose
new
book Competing Against America discusses "why Canada has
fallen behind in the race for talent and wealth -- and what to do about
it." His appearance at the Architecture building (7:00 tonight) is
sponsored by the UW bookstore and the alumni affairs office. UW president
David Johnston will preside.
Also at the Architecture building tonight will be Christopher Hume, urban critic for the Toronto Star, who's giving the second in a three-part lecture series sponsored by the Cambridge Galleries. (Ticket information is available from the Galleries.) Hume will speak at 7:30 on "The Tower in the 21st Century, an Update".
Bill Gates of Microsoft Corporation will be on campus tomorrow morning, with some private meetings and just one public event, a 10:30 talk in the Humanities Theatre. Tickets for that event are all taken, having been distributed mostly through quotas for the student societies. However, there will be a video feed of the event on big screens in two locations: the great hall of the Student Life Centre and the lobby of the Davis Centre. Everyone's welcome there. A webcast of the talk is also planned, but details aren't available yet.
![[Bury with BlackBerries]](/images/2005/1012bury.jpg)
Bury (right) is a 3B systems design engineer who, until last fall,
never had the chance to venture outside of North America. The
Oakville native had completed four work terms -- three
with the Greater Toronto Airports
Authority, and one at Research In Motion as a project coordinator.
The adventure began when he learned about RIM's United Kingdom office. With his manager's help, Bury was able to contact the director of the UK office. "I talked with a member of the UK team who visited Waterloo on training. He was interested, and requested a co-op position in the UK."
As a field test specialist, he learned, updated, and refined test procedures, and improved internal templates for results gathering to achieve faster testing and simpler summarization of data. But his main task was field testing, as he and another RIM employee tested BlackBerry devices on the radio networks across Europe, covering hundreds of kilometres each week.
| WHEN AND WHERE |
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Jumpathon in support of hurricane relief, organized by
Fraternity and Sorority Awareness Club, 11:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.,
Student Life Centre.
Music department noon concert: "Opera and More" (tenor, baritone, piano), 12:30, Conrad Grebel University College chapel. Playwright and novelist Cordelia Strube reads from her work, 2:30, St. Jerome's University room 2011. New Classroom workshop series, for faculty members interested in using online teaching techniques, this Thursday and October 27, or October 17 and 31, 9:30 to noon, details from Centre for Learning and Teaching Through Technology. James Bater, department of geography and former dean of environmental studies, retirement celebration Thursday: reception 3:00, dinner 6:30, University Club. Information and dinner tickets from Susie Castela, ext. 2433. Computer science colloquium: Tim Bray, Sun Microsystems, "Hard Open Problems in Network Computing and Hints on How to Solve Them," Thursday 3:30, Davis Centre room 1302. Faculty of Mathematics Distinguished Lecture: Randy Ellis, Harvard Medical School and Queen's University, "From Scans to Sutures: Computer-Assisted Orthopedic Surgery in the 21st Century," Thursday 4:30, Math and Computer room 2065. Reception follows. Games tournaments: "Assault on Zanzibar" and "Hard Boiled", from 6 p.m. Thursday, Student Life Centre great hall, organized by UW Gamers. Hiroshima survivor Setsuko Thurlow speaks about her 1945 experience and her career as a peace activist, Thursday 7 p.m., great hall, Conrad Grebel University College. Arriscraft lecture: Annette LeCuyer, State University of New York at Buffalo, "Space, Time and Tailoring," Thursday 7:00, Architecture lecture hall. Oktoberfest evening at Bingemans, organized by Federation of Students, Thursday, buses from the Davis Centre; tickets $8 from Feds office in the Student Life Centre, or student societies. Pizza lunch in support of the United Way campaign, Friday 12:00 to 1:30, PAS room 2030, sponsored by sociology department. Warrior Weekend activities Friday and Saturday nights, details online. Hand drum making workshop Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m., St. Paul's College, information j2becker@uwaterloo.ca. |
On weekends, he travelled with a London friend, taking part in Oktoberfest celebrations in Munich, La Ramblas festivals in Barcelona and tours of the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower in Paris . "These weekend trips were very intense -- seeing most of the popular tourist sites and also the night life. This involved museums, ancient churches, world famous parks, boat tours, and national monuments. Shopping and great local food were a big part of every trip."
Bury came home with a memorable experience and a wealth of knowledge. "I learned what aspects of a job I enjoy and dislike, and what I would and would not want to do in a full-time career. In Europe, I didn't just learn on the job skills with testing, but I learned about histories, cultures and current lifestyles."
He offers some advice for students entering their first work terms: "It can start out frustrating, where you just accept the only job you can get, since you don't have any experience. But eventually, if you work hard at your jobs, things will work out for you, and if you return to a company you can explore more, and better things will happen. . . . I am at Microsoft for my last term, where I feel like a full-time employee because of the responsibilities that I have."
| POSITIONS AVAILABLE |
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On this week's list from the human resources department:
Longer descriptions are available on the HR web site. |
Today brings a Professional and Post-Degree Day event, providing information about programs in law, nursing, education, business and other fields. "Come and visit with representatives from 72 institutions from North America, Europe and Australia," the sponsors at career services suggest, "to find out more about applications, programs, career options and salary expectations." Things run from 11:00 to 2:00 in the Student Life Centre.
Ontario energy minister Dwight Duncan visited campus Friday, meeting with senior administrators as well as faculty members and students in engineering. The purpose of his visit, which didn't include any public events: to discuss "green energy" research. Duncan toured labs, met with faculty and students associated with the Green Energy Research Institute, and saw presentations by green energy researchers, including topics such as solar and wind power as well as fuel cell technology. Michael McWilliam, a graduate student in mechanical engineering, gave a presentation on behalf of the student Solar Technology Education Project, stressing the group's mandate to take "a STEP towards a sustainable future."
UW has been rated among the world's top 300 universities in the third annual Shanghai Jiao Tong list of higher education institutions. The 2005 list places the University of Toronto at 24th in the world, followed by UBC at 37, McGill at 67 and McMaster at 90. In the top 200 (rankings aren't as precise after the top hundred) are Alberta, Queen's, Calgary, and Montréal. UW shares a spot in the 201-300 category with Dalhousie, Guelph, Laval, Manitoba, Ottawa, Saskatchewan, Victoria and Western. The rankings are based on such criteria as academic excellence, research, and number of Nobel prizewinners among alumni.
Information systems and technology sends a reminder -- and will be sending reminders often over the next few months -- that UW telephone extensions will be getting five-digit numbers as of next summer. (It's not too soon to plan, especially if you're getting things printed.) The change means that if your extension now is 3004, as mine is, it's going to become 33004. Or, as I like to write it, 3-3004.
A scarlet oak tree has been planted outside the Modern Languages building (on the side facing Needles Hall) in honour of recently retired French language instructor Pat Aplevich. . . . The staff association has announced the dates for its annual pre-Christmas craft show: November 24 and 25. . . . The teaching resource office is holding a graduate student workshop today on "The Craft of Research Writing", and found the topic so popular that the workshop was fully booked within hours of being announced. . . .
CAR