![[University of Waterloo]](/images/logobars/goldbar.gif)
| Thursday |
Monday, April 17, 2006
|
Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
Something else that's been rising steadily: UW's operating budget,
which will pass $350 million in the coming year. The graph is from the
provost's presentation to the board of governors last week. The operating
budget represents about two-thirds of UW's total spending, and does not
include research funds or business enterprises such as food services.
![[Dip in 1997, then a steady rise]](/images/2006/0412budgetgraph.gif)
It shows that the figure was 763 in 2002-03, 795 in 2003-04, and 850 in 2004-05, with a further increase of 32 professors this year. The figures count only full-time faculty, and don't include positions that have been approved but are vacant.
A breakdown reveals that arts has lost its traditional ranking as UW's largest faculty in the number of faculty members. As recently as last year, arts was ahead of engineering by 213 positions to 211, but in the current year engineering has 218 faculty slots and arts 216. Mathematics is third with 199.
Science has 151 full-time faculty, applied health sciences 52 and environmental studies 46. (The data are organized so that professors in architecture, which officially moved to the faculty of engineering this year, are counted under engineering for all the years.)
The chart from IA&P shows that 575 of the current faculty members have tenure, 222 are on probationary contracts (on the way to tenure), 27 have "continuing" but not tenured status (the largest number of them being in the optometry clinic), and 58 are on definite-term appointments.
The average "nominal salary" of those faculty members is $103,410, up from $99,542 last year and $88,577 in 2001-02.
The two UW students, both in environment and resource studies, are Crystal Bradford and Robin Jay Sano. Bradford, competing in the education category, entered a project titled, "Teaching Energy, Efficiently," while Sano, in the transport category, presented a project, titled "Analysis of Automotive Energy Efficient Technology with a National and Community Based Focus.'
Launched in the fall of 2002, Energy Ambassadors is an annual federal government competition that recognizes and rewards undergraduate post-secondary students for achievements in the field of energy efficiency. "I am pleased to congratulate the winners of this year's Energy Ambassadors competition," Gary Lunn, federal minister of natural resources, said in a news release. "These young people have demonstrated solutions and innovative technologies that will help reduce energy consumption and contribute to making Canada a world-leading economy."
The program, delivered by Natural Resources Canada's Office of Energy Efficiency, draws attention to the role of energy efficiency in reducing consumption and conserving energy resources. Each winner or winning team receives a prize of $1,000 per person (maximum of $3,000 for team entries).
In her project, Bradford used interactive teaching styles in lesson plans for students in Grades 5 to 8, complete with fun activities to help students appreciate the significance of energy efficiency. The kit is classroom-ready and, because it ties in with the standard curriculum set by Ontario's Ministry of Education, it can be deployed in a range of subject areas.
Sano's project compiled research that shows that if almost all Canadians purchased a fuel-efficient vehicle, the country would meet or exceed the greenhouse gas reduction targets set by the Government of Canada's One-Tonne Challenge.
The two students from Conestoga College are Jon Douglas and Amanda Ford for a project titled "Building Green." Their project looks to energy efficiency and environmental sustainability as guiding principles for architectural design. They developed plans for a business facility that would incorporate the latest in energy efficiency and environmental solutions.
| WHEN AND WHERE |
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Senate long-range planning committee 3:00, Needles Hall room 3004.
UW senate 4:30, Needles Hall room 3001. Alumni networking workshop 6:00, Tatham Centre, details online. Retirees Association spring luncheon 11:30 Tuesday, great hall, Luther Village, with speaker Herb Lefcourt, department of psychology, $20, information ext. 2015 or 745-1689. Credit union seminar: "Tips on Purchasing and Financing a Vehicle", Tuesday 12:15, Davis Centre room 1302, sponsored by Education Credit Union. Architecture Projects Review: exhibition of undergraduate and graduate student projects, on display in Design at Riverside in the Architecture building, April 18 through June 3, opening reception Tuesday 6:30 p.m. Teaching dossiers workshop sponsored by teaching resources office, Wednesday 9 a.m., Math and Computer room 4041. Used book sale (42nd annual) sponsored by Canadian Federation of University Women, Friday 9 to 9, Saturday 9 to 1, First United Church, King and William Streets. German drama: "Ein Diener zweier Herren", staged by students of Theaterakademie Vorpommern as part of an exchange with UW Drama, Saturday (8 p.m.) and Sunday (2 p.m.), Theatre of the Arts, tickets 888-4908. David Suzuki speaks and reads from his autobiography, April 25, 7 p.m., Humanities Theatre, sponsored by UW bookstore and alumni affairs. Theatre tickets sold out; overflow area (video lecture) tickets available, $2, Humanities box office. |
![[Goose]](/images/2006/0417goose.jpg)
I had a note in this space Thursday about a goose who may be raising the
younger generation as a single mother, after the male was hit by a car in
parking lot A earlier last week. Various messages have come in about the
condition of both mother and father, and Saturday's Record featured
the story, with a picture of the injured bird as well as one of the female
on her nest. It's apparently good news that humane society staff have not
been able to catch the male -- if he's able to evade them, he's probably
not too badly hurt. But in case he's not able to play his role as provider,
a faculty member phoned me Thursday to say that she has laid in a supply of
cracked corn and is promising to make sure the mother goose has enough to
eat over the coming days until the eggs hatch.
Goose stories generally mean it's spring. The temperature has not yet hit 20 Celsius, though, which means there's still no winner in the contest organized by the UW weather station. One of my colleagues got pretty excited on Thursday afternoon as the figure on the station's web site edged upwards, but no luck: it peaked at 19.7 Celsius. Should be another week or ten days, I think, before 20 is reached.
The annual report of UW's engineering faculty introduces "a new face" on campus: "Christopher Andreae came to UW in 2005 with degrees in geography, industrial archaeology, and museology, and 25 years of experience in his own heritage planning consulting firm. A good background for a lecturer in the Centre for Society, Technology and Values (CSTV), Andreae says, "since much of the work involved the assessment of historic engineering structures." Andreae has dug deeply into Canada's industrial past on scores of projects, from early distilleries, mines, sawmills, railways, gas works, lime kilns, bridges and dams, to the site of Ontario's first parliament in downtown Toronto. He also consulted widely on the heritage impact of new construction projects -- and, conversely, on the environmental impact of old industrial sites. 'I have studied the history of Canadian engineers and how they helped shape the country,' he says. 'I have worked with professional engineers and experienced the challenges they face in improving our present environment. And I look forward to teaching future engineers to appreciate their role in society and take pride in their profession.' Andreae's more than 40 publications include the award-winning book Lines of Country: An Atlas of Railway and Waterway History in Canada (Stoddart/Boston Mills, 1997)."
Here's a note from the UW Recreation Committee that should be of widespread interest: "Due to the overwhelming response to the Clearing Up Clutter workshop, the UWRC will be providing a free exchange service. If you have items you would like to give away/exchange/sell, send a short email to mykurtma@uwaterloo.ca describing the item and provide a contact number. Your ad will be listed on our Exchange Board for two weeks. Please note that you can also bring your items/plants for exchange at the annual UW Blooms event on Thursday, May 11."
Today begins the spring training camp for UW's football Warriors. . . . Wednesday is the nomination deadline for positions on the staff association executive for the 2006-07 year. . . . Fran Filipitsch, a staff member in UW's biology department since 1969, officially retired March 1. . . .
Finally . . . the other day I mentioned that a number of Apple Macintoshes are connected to the Nexus computer network, as well as thousands of machines that run Microsoft Windows. "The School of Computer Science," somebody who knows about these things tells me, "is getting rid of its Nexus labs in favour of iMacs. This would bring (just for the labs alone) the Mac count to over 240 machines. It would be interesting to see how many Macs there are on campus."
CAR