Neighbours welcome students to town

a news release from the City of Waterloo

”Welcome to the City of Waterloo‚” is the message that the City of Waterloo and its residents want to share with students returning for their fall term of studies. Over 8,000 new students will be moving into campus residences on Labour Day weekend, welcomed by numerous on-campus orientation events. When classes begin the following week, many of the remaining 22,000 students will be moving into housing in the community, or living on their own for the first time.

“Students are a very large part of what makes this community so vibrant and healthy‚” said Councillor Jan d’Ailly, a member of the City’s Town and Gown committee. “Ensuring they feel at home, get along well with their neighbours, and that they take full advantage of what the city has to offer is a very important part of the university experience.”

An information session, scheduled for tonight from 7 to 9 p.m. at St. Michael’s Church Hall, 80 University Avenue West, Waterloo, will highlight the positive environment that can be created in a university community. Students and permanent residents will make presentations that will provide information on orientation events, as well as on how to make students feel welcome in their new neighbourhoods. City and police officials will also provide information about how to reach emergency help and police will give a special talk about Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, which is focused on keeping property and pedestrians along property safe.

“This session will focus on the win-win of being a town and gown community. It offers permanent residents an opportunity to say hello, get to know their student neighbours, and to provide them with information about the community. Students at the session have a chance to express why they like living in the community, and to share information about how new students can feel more connected. In the long-run, the evening helps build mutual respect between the permanent residents and the students, which also helps strengthen our neighbourhoods,” says Kaye Crawford, manager, community relations, protective services.

For the third year, the City of Waterloo will also be offering Student Welcome Bags. This program was created as a way to bridge the gap between students and their neighbours. These bags contain information and products, provided by local businesses and agencies, and are given to students by their neighbours and by neighbourhood groups. The bags are a gift that permanent residents can give when they approach their new student neighbours to welcome them to the community. It serves to help break down barriers by providing an opportunity for permanent residents to talk to students and share neighbourhood information such as garbage days and parking rules.

Over the next few weeks, the Student Welcome Bags will be distributed directly to neighbourhood associations and individuals — e-mail kcrawford@city.waterloo.on.ca or phone 519-747-8716. Open Houses for residents to pick up the Student Welcome Bags are scheduled for 4 to 7 p.m. on September 7 and 14 at 90 Westmount Road North (former fire hall, now EMS).

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Thousands to write English exam

Record numbers of students writing the English Proficiency Examination will mean some changes to procedure this year, says Ann Barrett of the UW Writing Centre, who sends this advisory about next week's schedule:

"Although all incoming UW students are now required to write the ELPE, not all of them are required to write in September.

"Students in the Faculties of Arts or Science who have under 80% in E4U (high school English) write on Wednesday, September 6, at 11:00 a.m. for Arts and 1:00 p.m. for Science. All students (regardless of E4U grade) in Engineering-Architecture write at the same time as Science students.

"All Engineering students (regardless of E4U grade) write on Thursday, September 7, at 11:00 a.m. All Math students (regardless of E4U grade) write on Thursday, September 7, at 1:00 p.m. All Software Engineering students (regardless of E4U grade) write at the same time as Math students, but must sit in the Blue North Upper section of the PAC.

"All Applied Health Sciences students, all Environmental Studies students, and Arts or Science students with 80% or over in E4U get to enjoy an ELPE-free week, as they now write in December.

"If all this is confusing, we do apologize, but changes were necessary as we have run out of room in the PAC, and our marking team can only meet our time lines with about 3,500 essays to read. Students can prepare themselves for the exam by visiting our web site, where we have posted our marking scheme, faculty requirements, sample essays, and a note to Distance Education students who are not able to come to campus to write the exam. Students must bring their WatCard to prove their identity, a pen or pencil to write with, and great ideas, but must leave all aids (both electronic and paper) behind."

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Notes from the bookstore and elsewhere

“The Bookstore is ready,” says May Yan, director of retail services, looking to the rush that will hit at the beginning of next week and last well into September. “We have approximately 70,000 units of textbooks and courseware available,” she says. “About 93% of first year textbooks have arrived and textbook shipments continue to arrive daily. Out of the 1,368 textbook titles, 5% are new editions or completely new books. We expect sales in this category to be higher than previous year adoptions. We rely on our team of 60 part-time students — all UW students — to assist with stockpiling textbooks, shelving, cashier and customer service in order to be ready for September Rush. The Bookstore will have 15 cash service stations setup in the store.” The bookstore, along with the UW Shop, Techworx, and the Campus TechShop, will be open from noon to 4 p.m. on Monday (Labour Day) and then from 8 to 5 (9 to 5 for the TechShop) the rest of next week.

Frank Reynolds (right) retires officially on September 1, after 35 years as a faculty member in UW's department of statistics and actuarial science. A University of Manitoba graduate, he had worked briefly in the insurance industry before starting as a lecturer in 1971, then becoming an associate professor in 1978. He has described himself as specializing in such fields as underwriting, taxation, asset valuation, risk classification and other branches of actuarial science. He's also put this expertise to use at UW over the years, with long service to the faculty association (particularly in salary negotiation) and on UW's pension and benefits committee.

Here's an offer you probably couldn't refuse if you were a sun-loving optometrist: “The School of Optometry is celebrating our 40th Anniversary, along with the University of Waterloo’s 50th Anniversary! To celebrate these milestones along with the announcement of therapeutics for optometrists in our province, the School is pleased to present an additional continuing education programme for 2007. Join us on the Celebrity Cruise ship Millennium from January 7-14 and combine your continuing education hours in TPAs with a cruise! Your week of sun, relaxation and learning will start at Fort Lauderdale and sail the Caribbean to ports in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and St. Thomas before returning to Fort Lauderdale. This timely TPA Refresher Course will cover new diagnostic pearls and treatment strategies in the management of our patients in the TPA age.” (If you’re an optometrist, you'll know already what TPA is: apparently it’s tissue plasminogen activator, a key drug in the treatment of glaucoma and other conditions.) The optometry school runs land-based continuing ed programs for optometrists every summer, but the January cruise is something new. Details are online, of course.

A report from the office of development says a total of 22,233 donations to UW's annual fund, worth $5.2 million, arrived in 2005-06 from alumni, parents, "friends" of UW, faculty, staff, and retirees. . . . The journal Alternatives, published in UW's faculty of environmental studies, has issued an invitation for papers to appear in a special issue on "green politics". . . . Watch for a new flowerbed in the middle of the arts quadrangle when the current pavement repairs there are completed. . . .

CAR

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