One of 27,733 people at UW, according to the Diversity Campaign web site, is geography student Dalton Garrison, who describes himself as "Jamaican-Canadian, or Canadian-Jamaican" in an interview posted there. "I’m donning in Columbia Lake Village and living in a very diverse setting," he writes. "My community is a mix of domestic, international, exchange, masters and PhD students, students with dependents, people of all ethnicity and ages." A series of "diversity profiles" are scheduled to appear on the site over the months t come.

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Help in audio-visual emergencies

from Derek Madge, audio-visual services, information systems and technology

Audio-visual Services has upgraded its emergency help phone line. If an instructor runs into a problem or just needs a bit of direction when using audio-visual equipment in electronic classrooms, he or she can simply pick up the red phone inside each AV cabinet and call the priority "Emergency Line", 3-3233; the number is taped to the phone.

This system was initiated about two years ago and completed about a year ago. However, with the dedicated line, only one caller could call at a time. Since there are now over seventy-five E-Classrooms, the line tended to get very busy at times! Thanks to IST Phone Services, up to four callers at a time can now be helped by phone. In the unlikely event that a fifth caller phones in while the other lines are busy, that caller will get a recording offering some alternate ways to get hold of quick help. Most calls are resolved in about two minutes. While many callers can be helped with their A/V problems over the phone, this number can also be used to dispatch an A/V technician to any Registrar's room on campus for help with E-Classrooms or other, traditional A/V equipment.

The 3-3233 phone is answered in the A/V office from 8:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. After 4:30, Monday through Thursday, the line is forwarded to a single technician's cell phone for service around campus. Instructors may also find the answer they need in the detailed instructions on the top of the E-Classroom podium cabinets.

The A/V technicians also welcome general inquiries about how to get the best use out of the equipment. Please call extension 3-3033 or 3-6197, to arrange for training of instructors, at a convenient time.

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More profs’ plans for sabbaticals

Here's another list of UW faculty members who are on sabbatical leave. Each of these individuals began a six-month sabbatical on September 1. The summaries of planned activities are taken from agenda material for the board of governors, which has to give formal approval to any sabbatical.

Daniel Heller, department of psychology: "As a probationary faculty member I would like to use the six-month early sabbatical to write up three or four promising research projects, work on revising and re-submitting two or three other manuscripts that are currently under review, as well as design and develop new research projects to be pursued together with graduate students upon my return."

Justin Wing Lok Wan, computer science: "I plan to visit the research institutes of several key collaborators in the United States (Prof. Jameson and Prof. Golub, Stanford University; Prof. Chan and his image processing group at UCLA) and overseas (Prof. Chan, CUHK, Hong Kong) to strengthen and extend my research on scientific visualization, medical imaging and simulation, and computational finance."

Pin-Han Ho, electrical and computer engineering: "During my sabbatical leave I will execute my two industry projects (BUL and Snipe Network Security) and three NSRC projects, visit Professor Muriel Medard at MIT in Boston from August 2006 to October 2006 (for a maximum of two months), and prepare for my tenure applications."

Levent Tuncel, combinatorics and optimization: "During this six month sabbatical leave, I will focus on the completion of various research projects in mathematical probability and mathematics of operations research. I intend to stay in Waterloo, except to participate in a few workshops (one at the Institute for Mathematics and Applications at Minnesota, and another one at the Banff Research Station), each of them a week long."

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Smoke signals on a bright morning

The UW library has announced some specifics about the introduction of the new electronic security system at the Davis Centre library — which means the end to attendants at the door checking book-bags for possible contraband. "The installation of the security gates is tentatively scheduled to commence on Monday, October 30," according to Circulation Services manager Wish Leonard. "At this time, there will be some minor disruptions involving noise and traffic flow in and out of the Davis Library. I would like to thank our visiting students, faculty, and staff for their patience during this period." And more from the library’s electronic newsletter: “Once the security system is activated at the Davis Centre Library, there is the possibility for false alarms to be triggered by students, faculty, and staff returning books. To help reduce the number false alarms, the Library sent a courtesy email to patrons with books on term loan.” They’re advised to return or renew those books — in the next few days at Davis, or before February at the Dana Porter Library, where the electronic system will be coming online in a few months. “To date,” says the newsletter, “over 800,000 library items have received RFID tags. Staff at the Dana Porter Library are currently busy tagging books on the eighth floor. For further progress updates and information about this security system, visit the Inventory and Security Implementation Group’s (ISIG) web site.”

The staff association sent a memo to its members yesterday announcing an online poll about paydays. "The UW Staff Association Dept./Area Representatives conducted an informal poll several months ago," it says, "to see if those staff that are paid on the last Friday of the month would be interested in being paid on a different schedule. (Note that the majority of UW staff are paid on the last Friday of the month, however, there are some groups that are paid every two weeks.) The UWSA itself would now like to conduct a more formal poll of all staff that are paid on the last Friday of the month. There is no guarantee that such a change would be implemented, but we are interested in whether or not there is a desire for change." Voting online began yesterday morning and continues just until 5:00 on Thursday night. "Feel free to contact the UW Staff Association office at staffasc@admmail.uwaterloo.ca if you have any questions or to obtain a paper copy of this poll," the memo adds. Staff members were polled on the same issue in the spring of 1999, in a formal vote conducted by the staff compensation committee, and at that time answered No by a ratio of about 3 to 1.

There's a week left in the month of October, the official time frame for the United Way campaign on campus, and while I haven't seen any results figures in recent days, I know the gifts and pledges are continuing to come in from faculty, staff and retirees, building toward the target of $165,000. Special events are also continuing. One of the big ones comes tomorrow, the United Way lunch at the University Club, where diners feast on such things as roast chicken breast with pear and currant chutney, shrimp mousseline with mango cream sauce, and spiced apple crisp with calvados cream, all at $17 per person. The value of the tips collected will go to swell the United Way coffers. "We would encourage all volunteers and others in the university community to come out," says Karen So of the United Way office, promising "great food for a great cause". Reservations: ext. 3-3801.

Sherman Shen, professor of electrical and computer engineering, will be the technical program chair of next year's global communications conference for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, according to the engineering faculty's e-newsletter. GlobeComm is the IEEE communications society's flagship conference and features a program of technical and professional activities spanning a range of topics in voice, data, image and multimedia communications.

The faculty of arts, in the shape of marketing manager Tobi Day-Hamilton, reports that psychology professor Aaron C. Kay has been awarded the 2006 Social Issues Dissertation Award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. The SPSSI is "an international group of over 3,500 psychologists, allied scientists, students, and others who share a common interest in research on the psychological aspects of important social issues. In various ways, the Society seeks to bring theory and practice into focus on human problems of the group, the community, and nations, as well as the increasingly important problems that have no national boundaries." Kay's PhD was done at Stanford University. "In my primary line of work," he explains, "I investigate the myriad ways by which people cope with, adapt to, and rationalize social inequalities."

Yesterday's issue of the Record had a warm little story about the posthumous degree awarded at Saturday's convocation to Katharine Marshall, who had completed enough courses for a general BA before her death in a road crash earlier this year. . . . The Federation of Students says it's organizing some focus groups to help plan the new convenience store on the main level of the Student Life Centre that will replace the present Aussies shop downstairs. . . . John Sagi, who worked as a UW custodian from February 1967 to his retirement in May 1987, died October 10. . . .

CAR

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