Be thou my vision, says Ed Jernigan to one of the high school students attending a week of enrichment learning and activities around the "Vision" theme, organized by Waterloo Unlimited. Jernigan, who directs the Unlimited program — based in UW's faculty of environmental studies — was leading an introductory session on perceptual experience, which somehow ended up being called "friendly fruit space".

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Students thinking and talking

A pair of events on tomorrow’s calendar — a noontime meeting and the beginning of a two-day conference — illustrate how the intellectual life of UW students extends well beyond the classroom. Here are the details.

“FIT is starting up again under a new set of leaders,” writes chemical engineering student Rajat Suri, who was a key figure in establishing the Forum for Independent Thought as a student think-tank two years ago.

He writes: “Are you tired of repeating the same boring routine: school, eat and sleep, without ever knowing what's happening in the world outside? Are you an opinionated individual who is always looking for new people to exchange your ideas with? If so, you might be interested in the ‘Think or Shut Up!’ discussion series!” It promises “a pool of independent thinkers to exchange ideas related to current events, politics, philosophy etc. . . . a spectrum of perspectives from people all across the campus, with a variety of political, economic and cultural backgrounds . . . intellectual space for students to freely express their opinion on controversial issues. Future events will include short documentaries, debates and talks as well as discussions!”

Meetings are to be held weekly, and the launch is tomorrow at noon in the multipurpose room of the Student Life Centre. The topic this week is 'Where is the Independent Thought’ . . . a look at how the intellectual, free-thinking atmosphere of universities has been lost and what can be done to regain it.”

Friday evening and all day Saturday, students will address some of the world's toughest issues, from Iraq's reconstruction to the "blood diamond" industry of Sierra Leone, in the annual International Development Student Conference, to be held in Rod Coutts Hall.

The keynote speaker Friday evening will be Paul Samson, director of environmental policy at the Canadian International Development Agency, whose 7:00 remarks will be followed by a reception in the building's foyer.

Saturday brings some 13 individual student papers, as well as panel discussions and a closing keynote address. Among the student papers — many of them based on work done for UW courses — are "Agroforestry as Sustainable Agricultural Development: International and Domestic Partnerships in Kenya" by Tegan Renner (environment and resource studies) and "Canada's Trade with Cuba: Promoting Democracy or Selling Out?" by Rebecca Janzen (history).

Also: "Cultural Isolation in the Acadian Co-operatives" by Brian Gruters (ERS) and "Political Obstacles and Opportunities of Pro-Poor Tourism in Developing Countries: The Gambia" by Candice Gartner (environmental studies tourism). The full agenda is on the IDSC web site.

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Profs away on sabbatical leave

Here’s another list of UW faculty members who are on sabbatical leave at present, and their plans for their sabbatical time as reported to the UW board of governors.

Fedel Saccomanno, civil and environmental engineering (six months that began November 1): “My sabbatical will be used to conduct collaborative research on road and rail safety carried out at Dipartimento di Pianificazione Territoriale, Universita della Calabria, Rende (CS) Italy. I will organize a national conference on highway safety issues in Italy. I will also prepare the draft of a book on transport safety analysis that will serve as a basis for a future graduate course to be offered at the University of Waterloo. Furthermore, I will perform an analysis of Italian road and rail safety data, and complete several papers dealing with intersection signal warrants and grade crossing safety treatment.”

Fraser Easton, English language and literature (six months that began January 1): “During this leave I will pursue research related to my SSHRC grant project on cross-dressing, plebeian life, and eighteenth-century literature. I will complete an article on references to sexual disguise in digital archives, write part of a monograph on the SSHRC topic, and conduct additional research on the recoding in drama and the novel of popular representations of cross-dressing labouring women.”

Richard Holmes, philosophy (twelve months that began January 1): “I shall be working on two projects. One is an analysis of three major critiques of Edmund Husserl’s Sixth Cartesian Meditation and an explication of my response to them. My second project will involve developing some considerations about ethics and, more generally, value theory that follow from my earlier work on epistemology.”

Peter Woolstencroft, political science (twelve months divided into two periods, January-June 2007 and again 2008): “As a consequence of signing the Free Trade Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement, Canada’s increasing dependence upon the American economy raises questions about its long-term ability to run counter to American policies. Without successful strategies to enhance influence in the United States, Canada — as a political entity — will become increasingly irrelevant. On my sabbatical I will write a book that analyzes Canada’s strategic options.”

John L. Wright, mechanical engineering (six months that began January 1): “A demand exists for glazing and shading system models for building performance simulation. Software is being produced under an ASHRAE research contract and work will continue through an NSERC network grant. It is hoped that this time will enable these tasks to be more fruitful. Some ‘blue sky’ research, and a small amount of travel, will be pursued if possible.”

Lynne Taylor, history (six months that began January 1): “I will be writing a monograph on the Displaced Persons Crisis in Germany, 1945-1952, which is under contract with Harvard University Press.”

Joseph Cheriyan, combinatorics and optimization (six months beginning March 1): “My sabbatical will focus on research in the area of network design and approximation algorithms, with colleagues at Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Alberta (Edmonton), and ATT lab. Some of these projects are already in progress.”

Anindya Sen, economics (six months beginning March 1): “I intend to continue my research on the economics of smoking at McMaster University.”

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Pellets of pithy information

Yesterday's Daily Bulletin reported on the noon-hour talk Tuesday by pension consultant Hugh Mackenzie, which drew several hundred people to the Humanities Theatre. I'm told that the event was videotaped, and those who were unable to attend can arrange to view a copy of the tape. The place to go is Engineering II room 1309, which for many long years was the "audio-visual centre". With the recent absorption of A-V into the information systems and technology department, though, it it has a catchy new name: Instructional Technologies and Multimedia Services.

The staff association is sponsoring two "town hall" meetings today to talk about issues affecting staff, and hear "comments, concerns and ideas". Instigator of the events, and moderator when they take place, is Stephen Markan of IST, past president of the association. He's had a fair few things to say in web forums discussing the attempt by the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation to unionize UW's staff, and he also raised his profile with a campus-wide memo to the staff association mailing list the middle of last week. "I think it is time the UWSA members started talking about the UWSA," he wrote, and went on to speak of "the power structure at the university", "improving the compensation program", benefits, grievances, arbitration processes,"transparency of process", "respect and dignity", job security, performance appraisals, UW's financial position, and a good deal more. Today's meetings are scheduled for 12 noon (Rod Coutts Hall room 301) and 4:30 (Physics room 145).

Also of importance to staff: Alfrieda Swainston of human resources, the university's manager of salary administration, sends a reminder that performance appraisals are due by March 16. The annual appraisal is an important factor in calculating staff merit increases that go into effect in May.

Bernard Suits (left), formerly of UW's department of philosophy, died on February 5. Suits joined UW's faculty in 1966, and retired in the fall of 1994. A specialist in moral philosophy, he was especially well known for his book The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia, originally published in 1978, with a new edition as recently as 2005. He received one of UW's Distinguished Teacher Awards in 1982, and retired as a Distinguished Professor Emeritus.

Today's the application deadline for those few students who are thinking of entering UW starting in the spring term. • The

sponsored by the UW Recreation Committee and the UW bookstore has a session today to discuss the edgy novel We Need to Talk About Kevin. • Tim Alamenciak, editor-in-chief of UW's student paper, proudly reported yesterday that "for the first time in five years, Imprint has placed in the Ontario Community Newspaper Association's Better Newspapers Competition".

CAR

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