UW checks in with 115,000 readers

“This was a year too dry for much mud,” says the cover story in the fall issue of the UW alumni magazine, “but plenty of dreams are taking on form and substance.”

The words come from Patricia Bow of the Communications and Public Affairs office, in a report on the growth of new graduate programs in fields from theology to public health. In the past five years, she reports, graduate enrolment has risen by 75 per cent.

The UW Magazine, currently published twice a year, goes to some 115,000 alumni and friends of the university, including some parents who are donors. This time round, most readers are getting it along with the 2007 donor report that spotlights givers to Campaign Waterloo and how the university is using their money.

It’s edited by Kelley Teahen, also of C&PA, with support from other staff in C&PA and in the development and alumni affairs office. The fall issue is back to its typical size, 40 pages, after a fat and glossy 50th anniversary souvenir issue published last spring.

Still, it manages to include a roundup of campus news, a feature piece on how UW attracts students (often with the help of alumni who spread the Waterloo word), and a photo spread showing all the winners of the 50th Anniversary Alumni Awards, announced earlier this year. In addition there are alumni news notes (David Jefferies, an architecture graduate in the 1970s, is managing project architect for the EnCana Bow headquarters in Calgary, planned to be the tallest building in western Canada), plus advertisements — some commercial, some promoting UW co-op and continuing education.

The issue also offers a double page of letters from readers, some touching on historical points raised in last spring’s issue, such as the early women’s sports teams that played under the label of Mulettes.

One letter-writer, an arts graduate from the sixties, reports “a great deal of frustration, which slowly boiled to a slow anger”, about the anniversary issue, which he says was “one-sided and slanted toward the sciences, chemistry, bio-technology, computer science, quantum physics . . . I find it reprehensible and irresponsible that the humanities and the social studies departments are completely ignored. . . . The Waterloo I loved and remember is in no way reflected in the 50th edition.

“Waterloo belongs to me as much or more than to some special interest group. Indeed, it belongs to the community as a whole, and the sooner it returns to its original values of inclusiveness, the better off we all shall be.”

Daily Bulletins over the next few days will focus on a few individual articles from the fall issue of the magazine, including Bow’s piece on the growth of graduate studies.

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Poli sci prof's role in cancer research

shortened from an article by Angela Roorda in the Arts Research Update newsletter

Sandra Burt (right) of UW’s department of political science, a longstanding researcher in the area of health policy, is playing a role in the new Cancer Prevention Initiative launched by the National Cancer Institute of Canada. A consortium of researchers and stakeholders will develop recommendations for a nationwide framework for research and funding for cancer prevention, and Burt is a participant along with UW colleague Sharon Campbell of the Centre for Behavioural Research and Policy Evaluation.

The two were invited to participate in a fall 2007 workshop of the Working Group on Knowledge Exchange, Media and Policy, where academic researchers from a range of disciplines joined forces with journalists, politicians, public health officials, and senior bureaucrats. “There was a real sense of energy in that room,” says Burt. “Never before have the areas of research, media and policy been linked together so deliberately and so fruitfully to address the issue of cancer prevention. The combination makes a lot of sense: successful prevention requires research-based policy, but policy is ineffective if not accompanied by media co-operation and effective delivery of the prevention message.”

The Working Group was asked to identify priorities in media and policy research, and make recommendations for capacity building and potential funding mechanisms in media/policy research in cancer prevention, and to evaluate the role of the media in disseminating cancer prevention information.

Participants agreed that both researchers and the media play a key role in shaping public awareness of cancer prevention. However, each of these groups has a limited understanding of the other, a situation that has impeded the effective transmission of evidence-based advice about cancer prevention to policy makers and the public. Scientists work within long time frames and recognize that uncertainty is embedded in the quest for truth. Journalists, on the other hand, tend to work within much tighter timeframes and feel pressure to provide firm answers to a public looking for certainty. More work is needed, workshop attendees concluded, to bridge the gap, and more emphasis must be given to addressing the critical question of effective knowledge translation and transmission.

In the area of culture and the media, workshop participants paid special attention to the challenges of getting cancer prevention messages out to hard-to-reach populations. While some prevention initiatives might succeed with the majority of Canadians, certain groups (such as disadvantaged youth, remote or rural populations, and the homeless) may respond better to different strategies. Attendees at the workshop agreed that the media could potentially play a significant role.

Finally, workshop participants looked at the wide range of decision makers and government departments that would — or could — be involved in any comprehensive new cancer prevention initiative. A good understanding of the interconnection of various levels of government, and a sophisticated understanding of the types of evidence particularly persuasive to these groups, participants agreed, are also crucial.

Along with the other Working Groups (on Modifiable Risk Factors and Conditions, on Population-Level Interventions, and on Clinical Medicine and Basic Biology) the Working Group on Knowledge Exchange, Media and Policy will be presenting its recommendations to a larger forum of the NCIC Cancer Prevention Initiative next year. “I’m very pleased to see that cancer prevention research is getting the attention and funding that it deserves,” says Burt. “Prevention may not be as exciting to people as the search for a cure, but implementation of an effective, evidence-based cancer prevention strategy will most likely save far more lives in the end.”

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'Tis the season for these notices

Somebody's about to get the chance to run a business in the Student Life Centre. Here's the memo: "The University of Waterloo Student Life Management Board invites internal proposals for the commercial/retail utilization of approximately 1250 square feet, with frontage, in the basement level of the Student Life Centre for a minimum of 3 years commencing February 1, 2007. Existing commercial enterprises in the basement level of this retail location are a Bank, Hairstylist, Used Bookstore, Computer Store, Pharmacy, Physiotherapy Clinic and Photography Studio. On the ground floor are two full service Food Outlets, a Student Pub, and a large lounge area. Please forward Business Proposals, including recompense to: Student Life Management Board, c/o Stephen Cook, Procurement & Contract Services (scook@uwaterloo.ca), no later than January 4, 2008." (Sounds like the space vacated by Aussies variety store, soon to be replaced by Federation Express on the upper level of the SLC.)

"Extensive" renovations will be happening over the holidays in the research office on the first floor of Needles Hall. As a result, the vice-president's office says in a memo, "the office will remain closed until January 7, allowing for substantial construction activity." (To clarify: they're open this week, but closed in the earliest days of January.) "Our staff will be working remotely, monitoring voice and email, from January 2 through 4, responding as they are able. The International Programs Office will not be affected, as they are now housed within Waterloo International. Thank you for your patience — and I would request that any time-sensitive material for early January be sent to the Office of Research prior to the Christmas break."

The engineering faculty's e-newsletter reports that Miguel Anjos and Moren Lévesque of the management sciences department have been appointed as editorial board members for two professional publications. Anjos has been named associate editor of Discrete Applied Mathematics, a journal of combinatorial algorithms, informatics and computational sciences. Lévesque recently became a member of the editorial review board for the journal Production and Operations Management, which covers topics in product and process design, operations and supply chain management.

The board of the recently created Arts Endowment Fund has approved its first round of grants. (The money comes from a refundable fee paid by arts students, intended to support and improve the quality of teaching in that faculty.) Brandi Gillett Woods, student life manager in the arts faculty, lists the projects that were approved for fall term grants: "25th annual MacKinnon Dinner; 2nd annual UW Environment & Business Conference; National Communication Association Conference; Waterloo Social Entrepreneurship Mentorship Program and Lecture Series; The Boar magazine." Application forms for funding in future rounds are available online.

Watch for an opening celebration early in the new year, as the Student Life Office has completed its office move and is now all in one place, on the first floor of Needles Hall. • The "build your own snowman" web site, which was a major hit for UW Graphics this time last year, is online again this winter. • The continuing education office is announcing a two-day hands-on course on MS Project, January 7 and 8.

CAR

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