Two speech communication students — Jessica Verney and Kate Duggan — organized a "World Café" on Sunday evening in the Humanities building. "We had round-table group discussions on different issues," says Alex Lippert of the faculty of arts, "i.e., how can alumni and students connect, what does it mean to have an arts degree." Dean of arts Ken Coates (fourth from left) was among those who dropped in.

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Campus plan getting a new look

The board of governors Building and Properties Committee is "very aware" of concerns that green space and trees are being lost to campus construction projects, committee chair Mary Bales told the board at its meeting on Tuesday.

Bales, a local real estate agent and "community" member of the board, said the whole 1992 master plan for the campus is coming under the committee's scrutiny as it looks at current projects such as the planned engineering building in part of parking lot B. However, Bales and UW vice-president (administration and finance) Dennis Huber (right) reminded the board that some of what's currently being built was exactly what that plan suggested, particularly the use of parking lots as building sites.

"People are not happy about these things," one of the faculty members on the board — James Skidmore of Germanic and Slavic studies — told Tuesday's meeting. He referred in particular to the planned Quantum/Nano building, between Biology and Math and Computer, and the Accountancy wing that's now under construction north of Hagey Hall. Huber assured the board that on that project, "the size of the excavation isn't the size of the building," as there are currently large holes for sewer installation and other underground work that will be filled in again and return to their green state.

As new buildings go up on the central campus, Huber said, they're creating new quadrangles and other spaces that may not be as "pedestrian-friendly" and well landscaped as they should be, and the university needs to put some money into improving such areas. Consultant Joe Berridge, who largely wrote the 1992 plan, and his firm Urban Strategies have been contracted to map out some campus improvements, update the master plan and write a detailed plan for the area east of the railway tracks (including lot B and East Campus Hall), the board was told.

The discussion of campus planning started when the board was asked to approve the proposed engineering building, which has a tentative cost of $48 million. It's described as "phase I" of an expansion for the engineering faculty, and Huber said it will be designed in such a way that it could be "twinned" as phase III.

Then, Skidmore asked, what is phase II going to involve? He mentioned talk of a possible engineering building on "the hill where the Graduate House is", and Huber agreed that such a proposal is possible.

Other board members asked about the parking that will be lost in B lot — used by hundreds of staff and faculty members — if a new building goes up there with its proposed overhead connection to Engineering III. In the long run, the intent is to replace lost parking spaces "on a one-for-one basis", Huber said, noting that part of the solution might include parking underground or partially underneath the new building.

The board gave its approval for the 150,000-square-foot building and appointed the architectural firm of Shore, Tilbe, Irwin and Partners to design it, working with Urban Strategies on the site plan. The project will require a zoning change, and Huber said it's not clear how long that will take, since Ontario laws on zoning procedures have recently been overhauled.

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More from the board, and other notes

Tuesday's meeting of the board of governors was chaired by long-time board member and alumni volunteer Ian McPhee, the current vice-chair, after board chair Bob Harding came down with the flu. • Dean of arts Ken Coates reported on discussions about a possible Stratford campus, saying UW officials had met as recently as that morning with regional Members of Parliament interested in the proposal. • The board approved a request from the Graduate Student Association to raise the Graduate House fee from $12 a term to $13, starting in May.

A green flyer is out with information about "Successful Supervision" programs to be offered by UW's new office of organizational and human development. And the director of OHD, Katrina Di Gravio (left), quickly noticed a typographical error: one session (one of three choices for "Hallmarks of Supervisory Success") is shown as happening on May 1, but it's really May 15. Also, Di Gravio says, the flyer doesn't indicate times, but all the sessions are mornings only, from 8:30 to 12:30. More information is online (and that's also, the flyer says, where comments and suggestions are being accepted).

"Some cooler heads are prevailing — literally — throughout engineering," the Faculty of Engineering e-newsletter reports. It says a number of faculty and staff members had their heads or facial hair shaved Monday after $21,700 was raised during the two week "Proudly Bald in Support of Cancer Research" fundraiser organized by students Katherine Olsen and Jason Shirtliff. "Engineering headliners, it says, "included electrical and computer engineering faculty members Douglas Harder and Ramadan El-Shatshat. Rick Haldenby, director of the School of Architecture, did his part for the cause by having his beard shaved for the first time in more than 20 years. The last time Haldenby was clean shaven was in 1985 before he got married."

And from the same source: "A graduate student design team from Waterloo's School of Architecture was awarded third prize in the eighth annual Arquine competition for an Infographic Centre and related public spaces at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Mexico. The win by students Farid Noufaily, Gregory Perkins and Pooya Baktash, faculty member Geoffrey Thün and adjunct faculty member Kathy Velikov was announced during the 2007 Ciudad/City Conference held last month in Mexico City."

News from the faculty of mathematics: "The Chair of Pure Math, Frank Zorzitto, has been coordinating the effort to get the Faculty of Mathematics Awards for Distinction in Teaching off the ground. We are pleased to announce that nominations are now being solicited for outstanding teachers in the Faculty of Mathematics. The deadline for nominations is May 11, 2007, and may be sent to fmadt@math. The full poster can be found online."

Today's the second of two "Discovery Days" for high school students being offered this term by the environmental studies faculty. • Open enrolment for spring term courses continues on Quest; class enrolment appointments for fall term courses will begin June 11. • The continuing education office will offer a two-day course on "Juggling Multiple Projects" April 11 and 12, at a cost of $675, with a discount available for UW staff.

And . . . official word from the space information and resource planning office is that the new building planned for 475 Frank Tompa Drive, on the north campus, is to be called the Research Accelerator Centre — RAC, for short. The board of governors gave approval for the $8.4 million project on Tuesday, after some discussion aimed at making sure that it's consistent with the rules under which provincial, regional and municipal governments helped to fund the Research and Technology Park. The building will provide temporary space for research projects — initially including the Institute for Quantum Computing, which is scheduled to move out of its current temporary home, the "B. F. Goodrich" building on Columbia Street, no later than a year from now.

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Good Friday and a long weekend

Tomorrow, April 6, is Good Friday and a holiday, bringing UW a long weekend. University offices and most services will be closed tomorrow, although some key services continue as always:

• UW police: on duty 24 hours, 519-888-4911 (or on campus, ext. 2-2222).
• Student Life Centre: open 24 hours, turnkey desk 519-888-4434.
• Maintenance emergencies: phone ext. 3-3793.
• Report major computer network outages to 519-888-4357.

There's a slight change to library hours because of the holiday. The Davis Library continues with its extended exam-time schedule and is open 24 hours a day, with circulation services on Friday from noon to 4 p.m. The Dana Porter Library is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday, with circulation service from noon to 4. Saturday and Sunday, Porter is open from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. and Davis remains open 24 hours — except Sunday from 2 a.m. to 8 a.m., when it's closed for systems maintenance.

Easter Monday is a normal working day for the university, and in fact the first day of winter term exams.

Quite apart from being a holiday weekend, this season is a solemn and exciting time for practising Christians, commemorating as it does the crucifixion (on Good Friday) and resurrection (on Easter Sunday) of Jesus of Nazareth. Special services will be taking place UW's Renison College (Anglican) and St. Jerome's College (Roman Catholic) as they are at places of worship around the world:

• Today — Maundy Thursday liturgy, Renison, 7:00 p.m. Mass at 8 p.m. at Siegfried Hall, St. Jerome's, followed by Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament until 11:00.
• Friday — Liturgy of Good Friday, 11:00 a.m., Renison; 12:00 and 3:00, St. Jerome's.
• Saturday — Easter Vigil, 8:30 p.m., St. Jerome's. (No service at Renison; local Anglican churches have a joint service at St. Columba's.)
• Easter Sunday — Mass 8:30, 10:00 and 12 noon, St. Jerome's (no evening Mass). Communion 10:30, Renison.

And the congregations will once again hear such texts as the words of Luke (chapter 24, verse 5): "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen."

CAR

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