New students attend Student Life 101

Students attending the UW for the first time this fall will gather, along with their parents, on campus Saturday to explore their brave new world, far away from home.

The annual event, called Student Life 101, is an all-day orientation program designed by students for students. It seeks to help with the transition to university life before the fast-paced weeks of classes in the fall term.

Karyn Nelson, UW's first-year student life co-ordinator, said the event will "show students the ropes and help prepare them for university life." Nelson organizes the event, now in its 10th year, with the help of more than 200 student volunteers.

The summer-time orientation event was created "to relieve student and parent anxiety and reassure them that UW is a warm and friendly place," she said. "We want to let them know that there are a lot of people and services here to help them and to make their years here fun."

A key presentation – Student Life at UW – provides students with information about the diverse services and resources available to help them throughout their university career. It will be held at 10 a.m. in the physical activities complex for students in applied health sciences, arts, science, architecture and software engineering. At 11:15 p.m., it repeats for students in engineering, mathematics and environmental studies.

Architecture students will attend an academic session and introduction to the school of architecture in Cambridge starting at 2:30 p.m.

Also on the day's agenda is Meet Our People, which gives students an opportunity to discover the services available on campus and talk to the people running them. Participating departments include: athletics and recreational services, co-operative education and career services, counselling services, distance and continuing education, student life office, food services, housing and residences, information systems and technology, library services, office for persons with disabilities, Walksafe, retail services (bookstore, computer store and UW shop) and student awards (loans and scholarships).

Afterward, students and their parents can visit the Student Life Centre – known as the living room of the university – and learn about the federation of students, academic rights advisers and off-campus dons, as well as clubs and student associations.

Among other presentations are:

• Take the bridge to health – to share tips for maintaining a healthy lifestyle, provide basic nutrition facts, answer student health concerns and offer tours of the health services centre.
• Adaptive technology – to showcase services available to assist students with disabilities offered by the office for persons with disabilities and adaptive technology centre.
• Co-operative education – to introduce and inform students about the co-op system.
• Career services – to outline the resources and services available for students to become career activists and plan for the future.
• Getting off on the right foot – to give advice on how to combine academics and extracurricular activities.
• Making the transition – to discuss how to ease the move from home to campus life.
• Show me the money – to learn how to receive government loans and assistance this September.
• So, you're living off campus – to find out how to search for accommodation in the local community, plus tips on being an off-campus student.

In addition, each faculty will host a presentation for incoming students on academic support available to them during first year.

During the day, students can also visit UW's federated and affiliated institutions: St. Jerome's University, Conrad Grebel University College, St. Paul's United College and Renison College.

This year, Student Life 101 will also offer podcasts of many of the large cross-faculty sessions for those students and parents unable to come to campus, as well as the information materials used at sessions throughout the day. These materials will be available after Saturday on the event website.

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Used bookstore helps with library dream

The federation of students' used bookstore is helping to fulfill the dream of a University of Manitoba history student to provide English-language books to a public library in his hometown in China.

Arthur GuoBin Yin, who has been visiting campuses across Canada, approached the store earlier this week for book donations on the last stop of his tour. Through a book drive, and his library dream project website, Yin has collected thousands of books to benefit the city library in Shenyang, a metropolis of about seven million in China's northeast.

"We told him that he could have more than 3,000 books and they are all less than three years old," said John Jongerius, manager of the used bookstore, located in the Student Life Centre lower mall. "We've made book donations before to people in Guyana and Jamaica. It is far better to give the books away than sell them or send them away for recycling."

Yin said that people in Shenyang do not have much access to an English-language library. "Only the wealthy families can support their children to go study abroad," he said in an interview.

He added that while many Chinese are learning English, only a few can obtain a wide range of English-language books to develop and broaden their reading skills and knowledge.

"In fact, books written in English have not been easily available in China for decades," Yin says on his website. "The publications once brought in by missionaries and foreign visitors have deteriorated and are outdated while the few books offered by government bookstores are too expensive for ordinary people to purchase."

Yin said that besides the generous donation from the used bookstore, he also appreciates the support he's received from UW's science dean George Dixon and mathematics dean Thomas Coleman, as well as from Emanuel Carvalho, associate dean, faculty of arts, and Alister Mason, director of the school of accountancy.

"They circulated a message to faculty members for book donations, which was very helpful," he said.

The used bookstore offers students an opportunity to buy used textbooks and sell old ones by consignment. Students can leave their books for sale at the store for up to a year and a half and, if they are not sold or reclaimed, the books become the property of the used bookstore.

As well, the bookstore will buy current edition textbooks that are no longer in use at UW and export them to companies in the United States that supply books to colleges and universities.

The used bookstore is open Monday to Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended hours at the beginning of each term. For more information, call 519-888-4567 ext. 2390 or visit the federation's website.

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