Members of the Canada Day organizing committee, including Laura Smith, left centre with lace

'Fabulous lineup' set for Canada Day

“The fireworks will be bigger than ever before,” Laura Smith promises, and that’s just one of the claims organizers are making for this year’s Canada Day celebrations on the north campus, now just ten days away.

The extravaganza, starting at 2:00 on Sunday afternoon, July 1, includes the things the crowds now expect, from live music to children’s games and an arts-and-crafts fair. There will also be some things that bring a new level of wow to the party: a “mind-boggling magician”, a climbing wall, a petting zoo (“don’t miss the ring-tailed lemurs”), an obstacle course sponsored by Columbia Lake Health Club, and so it goes.

There will even be a horse-drawn wagon that will take two dozen visitors at a time on a guided tour around the south campus. Can’t wait to see what happens when a team of draft horses meets a gaggle of pavement-hogging geese along the ring road.

Smith — a student in the arts legal studies program who’s working this summer as event manager for Canada Day — is nailing down a thousand details in these last few days. Her desk is just down the hall from mine, and I hear the enthusiasm bubble as a steady stream of committee chairs and other volunteers comes in and out. There are traffic and security arrangements to be made with local authorities and the UW police, face-painting to be organized, tools to be rented and sponsors to be welcomed.

Canada Day is a joint effort of UW (through the communications and public affairs office, particularly associate director Nancy Heide) and the Federation of Students. The university and the Feds provide subsidies, with much of the additional funding coming through food concessions and the sale of glowsticks that hyped-up kids will wave at fireworks time (10:00 p.m.).

Organizers are feeling an extra glow this year because the July 1 celebration will serve as the biggest birthday party not just for UW (marking its 50th) but for the city, which dates from 1857. “Support from the city has allowed us to enhance and expand our programming during this anniversary year,” says Smith. “Fireworks will be bigger than ever before, many new children’s activities have been added, as well as a fabulous lineup of Canadian musicians on stage.”

Details, always subject to confirmation, are on the Canada Day web site, which is promising everything from an afternoon set by the Neil Murray Band to a late-night show by Knock Knock Ginger. And while the music plays on the main stage, visitors can check out robotics demonstrations, do crafts with local Girl Guides, tour the Brubacher House museum (or cross the street to UW’s games museum), or toss water balloons under the supervision of Engineering Society volunteers.

The centre of Canada Day celebrations is the north campus fields above Columbia Lake. Columbia Street will be closed that day, and visitors are being advised to approach UW from the University Avenue direction and park in main campus lots, which will be open and free for the day. Activities at the fields are free as well, food and drink will be for sale and a phalanx of portable toilets will be available (as well as first aid and lost-and-found services).

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Two are given associate VP titles

Two executives in UW's office of development and alumni affairs have been given the new titles of associate vice-presidents, UW president David Johnston has announced.

Linda Kieswetter (left) becomes Associate Vice-President (Principal Gifts). She's been working in fund-raising for UW since 1974, and was named director of Campaign Waterloo in 2001. Bob Copeland (right), until now senior director of development and alumni affairs, becomes Associate VP (Annual Giving and Alumni Affairs).

Said Johnston: "Linda and Bob are two extraordinary people who lead in extraordinary ways. We are all so lucky to be part of their team and to grow because of their special leadership qualities."

Their work is in the UW division headed by the Vice-President (University Relations), a role in which Johnston himself is currently filling in. Meg Beckel, chief executive of the Royal Ontario Museum, has been named to join UW as VP (university relations) as of October 1. Recommendations from an External Relations Task Force that's currently at work are expected shortly as background to UW's fundraising plans for the sixth decade.

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Other notes from past and present

I wrote in this space on Tuesday that the campus had "no e-mail" in 1982, but various members of the older-and-wiser contingent have told me that I was wrong. "There was no Internet yet," Roger Sanderson of electrical and computer engineering recalls, "but the big campus computers would call each other via the phone and send email. Email would take a few days to go to faraway places." And Ray Butterworth of math computing reports that "I still have 226 messages in my mailbox from 1982," including, it turns out, one for which I was one of the addressees (at an account on the math faculty's venerable Watbun).

With spring Convocation finished, it's time to talk about students who will be receiving their degrees this October. A memo from the office of the registrar: "The last day to file an Intention to Graduate form is August 1, 2007, for students expecting to graduate at fall convocation, October 20, 2007. Forms are available for undergraduate and graduate students. If you have submitted a form earlier in the year for Fall 2007, do not submit a new form. If you have submitted an Intent for Spring convocation but were unable to fulfill degree requirements, you must submit a new Intention to Graduate Form for Fall 2007 convocation. Convocation information is available online. This web page has been designed as a reference to all matters concerning convocation activities. It should answer all convocation related questions or provide links to the proper source for specific inquiries. Address to which diplomas will be mailed for students who do not attend the ceremony is the homeaddress recorded in Quest. Please note that this is the address to which diplomas will be mailed for students who do not attend the ceremony. Grad Studies mails to the home address after convocation — or mailing address if no home address exists. Ceremony information is also available online.

The Institute for Quantitative Finance and Insurance is expecting a distinguished visitor next week: Raghuram Rajan of the University of Chicago business school will be on campus June 25-29. On Tuesday at 4 p.m., he will lecture on "Has Finance Made the World Riskier?" (Davis Centre room 1302, admission free). At Chicago, Rajan is the Eric J. Gleacher Distinguished Service Professor of Finance. From 2003 to 2006, he was the economic counselor and director of research at the International Monetary Fund. His research considers the role of institutions, especially financial institutions, in fostering economic development and risk management. In 2003, Rajan was awarded the inaugural Fischer Black Prize by the American Finance Association for contributions to finance by an economist under 40. Rajan has been the program director (corporate finance) at the National Bureau of Economic Research since 1998. and serves as a consultant for the Government of India's finance ministry, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Federal Reserve Board, and various other institutions.

UW optometry student Rachel Higgins died in 2005, but is far from forgotten — not only by family and friends, but by the community of Parry Sound. As she battled cancer over the last two years of her life, she and her family created Rally Against Cancer Hardcore, with the initials RACH to match her own full name: Rachel Anne Cecilia Higgins. The organization started a baseball tournament as a fund raiser in her home town of Parry Sound, collecting $34,000 in 2004 and more in the succeeding years for brain cancer research at Toronto's Princess Margaret Hospital. This year's fourth annual RACH slow-pitch tournament will be held this weekend at Parry Sound's Kinsmen Ball Park.

Water main work on the east side of the ring road, which was to start today, is now expected to begin on Monday, the plant operations department says. • The retail services department is in summer mode now, so the bookstore, the UW Shop and TechWorx will not be open on Saturdays until Labour Day. • UW retirees, who are guaranteed an annual cost-of-living adjustment to their pensions, will enjoy a 2.04 per cent increase effective July 1, 2007.

Silvi Treier, who worked in the UW library's serials department from 1971 to her retirement in 1983, died March 28. • Margaret (Rita) Clarke, who was a staff member in the finance department from 1975 to her retirement in 1992, died May 28. • Donald Herd, a staff member in biology from 1967 to his retirement in 1984, died May 30.

A crowd from Columbia Lake Village is off to the Waterloo Golf Academy today for a session of golf in the dark. • The UW Recreation Committee has a "canoeing the Grand" excursion planned for Sunday. • The Student Life 101 open house for students who have been accepted to UW for September, and want to get a head start on learning their way around, is set for Saturday, July 21.

CAR

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