Last day before the holidays

Today (Friday) is the last working day of 2006, as well as the last day of fall term exams, with some papers scheduled for as late as 7:00 tonight. Then in a few hours the university will close for its longest holiday of the year, and apart from a few staff providing round-the-clock essential services, the institution will be quiet until the new year.

Things are already slowing down. Many offices and services will close early today (Key Control is scheduled to shut at 3:30), and the Computing Help and Information Place has limited hours, 8:00 to 11:45 and 1:30 to 4:30. The Physical Activities Complex and Columbia Icefield are open until 4:30. There's a recreational skate at the Icefield from 11:30 to 12:50, and the last fitness and rec swim of the year is from 11:30 to 1:30. Recreational facilities will be closed through the holidays. Central stores will provide a "condensed" mail pickup and delivery service today, with the last run to departments starting at 1 p.m. The bookstore, UW Shop, TechWorx and Campus TechShop will be open until 5:00 for Christmas shopping and a head start on January textbooks.

The majority of food services outlets have closed for the season, including REVelation in Ron Eydt Village, but Mudie's cafeteria in Village I is open today until 7 p.m. So is Tim Horton's in the Student Life Centre, which will then be closed all through the holiday. Open this morning are Pastry Plus in Needles Hall (until 1:30 p.m.), Tim Horton's in South Campus Hall (until 2:00), and Brubakers in the Student Life Centre and Browsers in the Dana Porter Library (both until 3:00). The University Club will offer its Christmas buffet lunch today, one last time.

The safety office has told managers of laboratories that there are precautions they should take before they lock the doors and head out for a holiday break. A web page dealing with the Christmas and New Year's shutdown warns that, among other things, labs have to be prepared for the power going off during the holidays: "Due to winter weather conditions utilities, especially electricity, may be affected. It is a general rule that all laboratory processes be designed to safely survive a service failure. During the holiday shutdown this is particularly important." Emergencies can be reported to ext. 3-3793.

Custodial staff who usually work later in the evening will start today's shift at 4 p.m.

The Davis Centre library will close at midnight tonight, reopening in January. The Dana Porter Library is open 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. today. The Musagetes Architecture Library will close at 12 noon and the University Map Library at 4:30 p.m.

Today is payday for faculty and staff members (both monthly and biweekly payrolls). Employees can check their payroll information by logging on to myHRinfo. The human resources web site now lists information about 2007 payroll deadlines and pay dates. The human resources department will be open until 4:30 today for employees who need assistance.

And then the long break begins. "The university will be officially closed," says Rick Zalagenas, director of maintenance and utilities. "Building heat will be set back to night and weekend temperatures, and most ventilation will be turned off." He invites everybody's help with conservation, predicting "substantial" savings in utility costs. He particularly urges people to turn off computers if they won't be needed before January. "Many people," says Zalagenas, "have the mistaken impression they have to be left on." Plant operations also calls on staff and faculty to turn off coffee-makers, office equipment and unused fumehoods. "And please make very sure all windows are closed before you leave."

There's no one temperature that will be reached in all buildings — it depends on their size, the heating system, the difficulty of raising the temperature back to normal levels in January, and so on — but in general, anyone coming to campus during the holiday can expect to find a cool environment, and it might be worth bringing a sweater along.

The UW police advise: "Do not leave any personal valuables or smaller 'attractive' items, such as laptop computers, radios and cameras, in the office or workplaces. These items should be secured in a cabinet or removed to home for safekeeping over the holidays. Also, prior to leaving your office, please ensure that you have secured all your windows and doors."

One group of staff who can't lock the door and forget the place at 4:30 this afternoon is John Cunningham and his three colleagues in the WatCard office. They can't get on with de-activating fall term accounts (for things like residence room access) and loading winter term funds (so doting parents can be assured that their children have meal money) until the last exams have been written on Friday night. So the WatCard update will be done Saturday. "We'll do it from home," Cunningham says. "The files will be ready — it's a matter of dialing in. It's a big job, so it's best to get it out of the way." The result will be that students can check their WatCard accounts online over the holidays. But access to residence doors won't be activated until the new year, lest somebody should be tempted to pay an unauthorized holiday visit.

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On campus over these ten days

UW buildings will be closed December 23 through January 1, reopening on Tuesday, January 2. A major exception is the Student Life Centre. There will still be people on campus — some who live here year-round, some who drop in to take care of research priorities, some international students who can't easily go home — and the SLC is always open to look after their needs. The turnkey desk (phone 519-888-4434) will be staffed 24 hours a day, with directions, coffee, bus tickets and other essentials. The SLC also has Internet access, a piano is available, rooms can be booked, and there's a TV set that can be rolled out into the great hall. On a darker note, UW Food Bank hampers are also available through the turnkey desk, in case of need. On the SLC's lower level, the Student Health Pharmacy and CIBC bank branch will be open some days during the holiday period. Automatic teller machines are available at all times.

The Architecture building in Cambridge will be entirely closed only December 24-26 and January 1. On other days, students will have access to their work areas, and the Melville Café and Riverside Gallery will be open to the public. Back in Waterloo, the Education Credit Union, at its office in East Campus Hall off Phillip Street, will keep its usual business hours, 10:00 to 6:00, on December 27, 28 and 29.

Snow removal on the main campus over the holiday period will be "limited", says plant operations — "nonexistent" might be more like it, if December's weather continues this balmy. "Grounds staff will respond to serious snow issues," is the official word, especially to clear priority areas such as the ring road. (Grand River Transit buses will continue to make the rounds, with holiday schedules in effect some days. And the Airporter will make its usual stops at the Student Life Centre.)

Construction work is scheduled at various places around the university, and particularly at two big jobs: the Photovoltaic Research Centre near Matthews Hall and the first stage of the Health Sciences Complex in downtown Kitchener. Byron Murdock of plant operations mentions other jobs including the box office renovations in the Humanities building, a laboratory installation in Biology, roof repairs at the Physical Activities Complex and renovations in the Environmental Studies buildings.

Health services will be closed like other UW departments. "Students with medical problems over the holidays," says supervising nurse Ruth Kropf, "should call Telehealth Ontario, 1-866-797-0000, for medical advice. There is also a physician on call for health services, who can be reached by following the telephone instructions on the health services line, 519-888-4096."

Says a note from information systems and technology: "If you notice an outage of the campus network or any major IST-maintained computing facility, you can leave a voice message with the help desk at 519-888-4357 or submit a request online. Both will be checked daily." The Quest student information system and the library's Trellis catalogue and database will be available all through the holidays — "subject to unexpected system outages". (Quest support is not available — any issues that arise, including the mailing of distance education materials, will be dealt with in January.) Also still in operation is the JobMine co-op job system, and new jobs will be added to the system next week as employers submit them.

All parking lots will be open and free throughout the holidays, except for lot D under Needles Hall and the ECEC lot at the PAS building. There's no need to put money into any pay-and-display machines.

Just one Warrior team is competing over the holidays: the men's hockey squad, playing St. Francis Xavier and Dalhousie December 28 and 29 at a tournament in Antigonish. Men's volleyball and women's basketball will both have training camps in UW's facilities, while the men's basketball squad leaves Boxing Day for a training camp in Cuba.

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Looking ahead to the winter term

Staff will be back to work on Tuesday, January 2. Offices, athletic facilities and libraries reopen that day, and a number of food services outlets will be open: Tim Horton's in South Campus Hall and the Davis Centre, Brubakers in the Student Life Centre, the Modern Languages coffee shop, and Pastry Plus in Needles Hall. Notably missing from that list is Tim's in the SLC, which won't be opening until January 3 (at 8 a.m.).

Mudie's cafeteria in Village I will open in mid-morning on the Tuesday, since it's move-in day for thousands of students in the residences, either returning from co-op work terms or picking up where they left off in the fall term.

Classes for the winter term begin on Wednesday, January 3, but students are reminded that fee payments for the winter are due by December 28, with late fees calculated starting December 29. (That's for payments by bank transfer; cheques are late already.) "Please use Quest as your primary source of account information, as the university no longer mails out fee statements," the finance office advises.

The bookstore, UW Shop and TechWorx will be open starting January 2, with extended hours (to 7 p.m.) on January 3, 4, 8 and 9. The Campus TechShop also reopens on January 2. ArtWorx in East Campus Hall will be open from 11 to 7 on January 3 and 4.

A "welcome reception" for new students will be held Wednesday, January 3, at 4:30 p.m. in the multipurpose room of the Student Life Centre. It's aimed at both undergraduates and graduates, as well as transfer students, and will provide information about services from UW, the Federation of Students and the Graduate Student Association. An orientation session for international students is scheduled for Sunday, January 7, from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Columbia Lake Village community centre; details are online.

Unofficial marks for the fall term will start appearing on Quest tomorrow. Instructors can submit final grades through the usual electronic procedure all through the holidays. Registrar's office staff will process these submissions, and e-mail notifications will be sent to instructors. The "fully graded date" for fall term undergraduate courses — when official marks are available on Quest — will be January 24.

This Daily Bulletin will return Tuesday, January 2. Any emergency announcements before that date will be made through a headline on the UW home page.

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A final word for a quiet time

So some of us go now to church,
and some to feast, and some to skis,
and some to bed — and most of us
to loving friends and families —

though some must study or must work:
a dozen faiths, a thousand ways
to live in harmony with truth
through cold and dark December days.

We pause from labours, when we can,
and hear the season's whispered call
to burn the candles of our lives
for Peace on earth, good will to all.

CAR   

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