The elf at the wheel was mechanical engineering student Avi Berger. The UW-built "mini-Baja" vehicle, with auxiliary reindeer power, was part of Saturday's Santa Claus parade through Waterloo and Kitchener along with the Formula SAE car and the Alternative Fuels Team vehicle. "The weather was nice, with only a few snowflakes in the air," writes Duane Cronin, who took the photo.

Back to top

Wednesday walks a non-starter

This foggy day is a Wednesday, which makes it the scheduled day for two activities sponsored by UW's Employee Assistance Program. One is the "Wellness Walk", departing shortly after noon from outside Needles Hall; the other is a stress relaxation session starting at noon in Math and Computer room 5158. The relaxation sessions are going well this fall, I'm told, with anywhere from 10 to 20 people taking part in a given week. The walks have been, well, less successful, with just about no turnout. However, EAP organizers are working on some new communication techniques — their web site recently had an upgrade, for starters — and we can be watching for announcements of new events. (There's an evening session tomorrow on "Mindfulness Meditation" — see the details in the "When and where" column at right.)

Meanwhile, the Federation of Students has announced some less contemplative doings for today: "If you're up to your ears in student loans, tired of sucking back Kraft Dinner for dinner, or just plain upset about the lack of access to quality education, the Federation is asking you to 'Be an educated voice'. . . . The Federation will be launching the 'Be an educated voice' campaign, leading up to the provincial election next year, along with the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance. We will be near Wasabi! and the dental plan office from 10 to 2 p.m., spreading the word and giving out prizes. You could win backdoor to the Bomber and DJ White Gold on November 22 and/or a number of other prizes just for stopping by and participating in our campaign."

Word from the UW police is that "a sum of found money" was turned in recently, and the owner can get in touch with Staff Sergeant Wayne Shortt at ext. 3-6966. . . . A reception and "virtual dinner party" were held Friday night to celebrate the 100th issue of the UW-published literary magazine The New Quarterly. . . . Frank Erdelyi, who worked as a maintenance person in what's now the plant operations department from 1965 to his retirement in August 1986, died November 18. . . .

Nominations are invited, says a memo from the university secretariat, to fill a seat on the UW senate as a representative of faculty members in the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences. It's for a term that runs through the end of April 2007. Each nomination must be signed by at least five members of the constituency, and nomination forms are available online. Nominations should be submitted to the secretariat, in Needles Hall room 3060, by 3 pm. on Thursday, November 30.

Achievements, as noted in the engineering faculty's e-newsletter: "Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering PhD candidate Hamidreza Alemohammad won an award from the Laser Institute of America for his paper 'Embedding fiber Bragg grating sensors within metallic structures using laser solid freeform fabrication.' And a paper written by Shahab Ghafari, also a mechanical and mechatronics doctoral candidate, has been selected as the best presented at the 24th Machinery Vibration conference, recently held in Montréal. Ghafari's paper is titled 'Rolling Element Bearings Fault-Diagnosis Based on Neuro-Fuzzy Interference Systems'."

Back to top

Arts researchers talk of partnerships

Ken Coates, UW’s dean of arts, will be the lead speaker tomorrow in a colloquium on “Developing Partnerships for Knowledge Mobilization” that the arts faculty is sponsoring. The event is aimed chiefly at professors and graduate students in arts, but people from other faculties are welcome too, says Angela Roorda of the dean’s office.

Tomorrow’s event starts at 3 p.m. and will be held in Humanities room 334. Anybody planning to attend should e-mail aroorda@uwaterloo.ca to reserve a space.

The colloquium will provide an opportunity for faculty and graduate students at UW to hear from arts researchers who have worked with policymakers and practitioners at the local, national, and international levels, and to ask them questions. Says an announcement: “We will find out more about their projects, learn about the challenges and successes they’ve experienced in partnering and communicating with non-academic groups, and discover the factors that motivate them to engage in such research mobilization.”

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the federal agency that provides much of the funding for research in arts fields, has been urging researchers to recognize the importance and social relevance of their research, and encourages university-community collaborations that might help to facilitate knowledge transfer: “Humanities and social sciences ideas can have enormous impact on society,” SSHRC notes in its Strategic Research Plan, 2006-2011. “There are paradigm-shifting ideas of great philosophers, historians, economists and psychologists and there is the practical knowledge coming from research that helps us understand and address immediate issues such as third-world poverty, security and human rights, education, and health-care delivery.”

The colloquium will feature three faculty members who are making those connections to bring their research into active use: Geoff Fong of psychology (an internationally known expert on tobacco control), Kathleen Bloom of the same department (a literacy researcher who heads Canadian Centre for Knowledge Mobilisation), and Lori Curtis, who holds a Canada Research Chair in “health economics and technology” in the economics department.

Curtis, for example, says she seeks to bring her research on the implications for women and children of Canadian health and social policy to those who have the power to effect policy change. “Why do I do this?” she asks. “Because it’s important. I was a practising nurse for thirteen years before coming to academia, so I know how policies play out on the ground level. I conduct my research in the traditional manner, but it’s important to me that my findings have an impact on policy and make a difference to those women, particularly lone parents, and children who may be underserved by the system.”

Back to top

Latest preparations for UW's 50th

announcements from the 50th Anniversary organizing committees

With UW’s 50th anniversary right around the corner, the UW Shop is putting together a selection of items to help commemorate 50 years of "the spirit of why not". Clothing and gift items with the 50th anniversary logo will be available for sale at the shop in South Campus Hall starting in January.

Manager Darrell Kane has selected a number of items that can be viewed on the 50th anniversary website. These include lapel pins of the 50th anniversary logo, designed for those formal occasions, and balloons for festive events being planned for next year. Other items for sale include the 50th anniversary poster and a colourful magnet. Some of UW’s clothing line will be slightly modified for next year, inserting a small version of the 50th anniversary logo at the back of T-shirts and golf shirts.

“We are also working on adding a golden 50th logo on products such as clocks, watches and letter openers. The 50th anniversary website will be updated as soon as items become available,” says Kane.

On another front , a question for alumni: What are your fondest memories from your time at UW? Were they of your classmates? Your residence experience? Being part of a club or society? Being part of the Warrior Band?

Perhaps you would like to get together with your old friends and revive old memories. If so, the Office of Alumni Affairs would be happy to help. Jason Coolman, director of alumni affairs, encourages all alumni to consider organizing reunions that coincide with Homecoming 2007, September 28-30.

The office can assist by creating a list of attendees and providing their current addresses, planning ideas, and selecting dates, time, location, and venues for different types of events.

Anybody interested in organizing a reunion can start by taking a look at the online Reunion Planners Guide. If there are more questions, or to move ahead with planning, the person to consult first is alumni officer Pat Duguay, e-mail pduguay@uwaterloo.ca.

Finally, there's word that UW president David Johnston, whose colourful career includes a stint hosting television's "Reach for the Top" quiz competition, will come back to the moderator's chair during 2007 for a series of on-campus competitions. They'll test "trivia knowledge of UW and its faculties and disciplines during the past 50 years", says Heather FitzGerald of the student life office, who's one of the organizers. Students, staff and faculty are being invited to put together four-person teams and get registered now. Details are online, and the Daily Bulletin will say more about it all in the weeks ahead.

CAR

Back to top