Preview of life after UW (and more)

With the end of the term barrelling towards us, it's time for several thousand students to think about life after university. That's the reason for GradFest, which will run today and tomorrow in the Davis Centre, organized by the student life office and the alumni affairs office, but mostly by a pair of fourth-year students, Emilie Smith and Karen So. "It will provide a transitional program for graduating students," says Smith, "that will help alleviate any fears or issues that students may have about entering the 'Real World'. The two-day information expo will include booths from departments and services across campus that will be geared towards graduating students. Information sessions will occur in the lecture hall." After soon-to-be grads hear about financial planning, healthy living and alumni services, the event winds up with a wine-and-cheese reception in the Davis lounge, starting at 4:30 Thursday; UW president David Johnston will speak. Also part of GradFest is a "Hong Kong Expo", for grads thinking of turning towards the east; it's sponsored by several campus organizations and the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office.

A reminder: Daylight Saving Time will be starting this Sunday morning, some three weeks earlier than the traditional date, and while it's not exactly the Y2K crisis all over again, it does present a few complications. Computers and BlackBerries typically take their time signals in "universal" or UTC time, convert UTC to local time, and might get things wrong if they don't realize that daylight saving has begun. "A minor inconvenience," says a summary from UW's IST experts, "might be finding that you need to adjust the clock on your computer on March 11. A more serious problem might be a missed meeting because of shifts in your computer calendar entries in the extended DST period. Computer companies have been busy releasing patches to the various systems that they support. Microsoft, Apple and RIM released their patches last week. The patches will correct your computer's DST settings but may also result in 1 hour shifts in scheduled meetings." Details are on the IST web site.

Ontario's deputy minister of education, Benjamin Levin, will give tips at UW tomorrow on how researchers can go about influencing politicians and policy-makers. The public lecture, entitled “Research, Policy and Politics: How Governments Decide”, will be held Thursday at 7 p.m. in PAS building room 1229. It will be presented in conjunction with the arts faculty's interdisciplinary graduate seminar Knowledge Mobilization to Serve Society. Knowledge mobilization involves sharing research findings in the humanities and social sciences with the wider community in order to influence policy, practice and everyday life, says Kathleen Bloom, the professor of psychology who teaches the seminar. "We are thrilled that deputy minister Levin is coming to UW to help us understand how we can make scholarly research matter more to policy makers and politicians.” Bloom, who is also director of the Canadian Centre for Knowledge Mobilisation, says graduate students across five disciplines are in the seminar: "By working with community stakeholders, students learn to make research findings visible through media, Internet, brochures, pamphlets, fact sheets and other plain-language documents." The grads' research interests include health promotion for school children, municipal pesticide spraying by-laws, non-traditional work schedules, media portrayals of female politicians, accuracy of airport baggage screening, the disconnect between religious organizations and affiliates, and reliability of news coverage of today's wars.

Nominations are being accepted, as announced last week, for a number of seats on the UW senate: two representing graduate students, and a total of 16 representing faculty (eight at-large, one from each of the six faculties, one from Conrad Grebel and one from St. Jerome's). Details of the nomination procedure, which has a March 16 deadline, are available on the university secretariat's web site.

UW is hosting a one-day workshop in Ron Eydt Village today for residence admissions and technologies staff from a total of 19 Ontario colleges and universities. • Bev Bald, writer in the development and alumni affairs office, recently marked her 25th anniversary at UW and was commended for producing "about 10,000 wonderfully creative letters, proposals, project descriptions, cases, congratulatory notes, nominations, etc." • Gary Trenholm officially retired March 1 from the staff of UW's central plant, ending 23 years as one of the university's stationary engineers.

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Music and the environment (and more)

Multiple Juno nominee Sarah Harmer is in town for a benefit screening of "Escarpment Blues" — a documentary on her efforts to preserve the Niagara Escarpment, with a question-and-answer period afterwards. (The film is nominated for a Juno this year.) More information is available on the web site of the UW-published Alternatives Journal, which is sponsoring the showing tomorrow night (7 p.m.) at the Princess Cinema in central Waterloo. Tickets, which cost $15 and include a free issue of the journal and a subscription discount, are available from the Alternatives office, room 140 in the Environmental Studies I building, or of course from the Princess. Earlier tomorrow, Harmer will drop in on a "Music and Nature Workshop" being held from 3 to 5 p.m. in the ES building's courtyard. It's part of an undergraduate thesis project for environment and resource studies student Hingman Leung, who's interested in the links between music and environmental thought. "The content," he writes, "comes from the material that I am developing for an upper-year university course aimed at building a basis for the study of music and environment together." Specifics include "the historical convergences of music and environmental thought", "the linkages between landscapes and soundscapes", and "the role of music activism in the environmental movement". That's where Harmer comes in. Reservations for the daytime workshop have already reached capacity, though a waiting list is being formed.

“Since the Fall of 2005,” says a memo from Penny Pudifin of the graduate studies office, “staff in the Graduate Studies Office, Registrar's Office, IST, and the software vendor have been working on upgrades to an Academic Calendar Maintenance System originally designed and implemented to accommodate edits to the Graduate Studies Calendar. The upgrade to the software was driven in part by changes to the software required by the GSO, but also due to the involvement of the Registrar’s Office, who will also be adopting this system for undergraduate calendar editing. As of this week the ACMS editing software is being released to all Graduate Studies Calendar representatives following scheduled training sessions. The new software will enable graduate calendar representatives to update their calendar information on an on-going basis throughout the year to reflect changes as approved by Senate Graduate and Research Council and Senate. In addition to the development of the editing software, the Graduate Studies Calendar now has a new home. The calendar has also been restructured to help make the on-line version more user-friendly. Forward pages have been created to assist those who have established bookmarks linking to the calendar. The forward pages redirect users to the new Graduate Studies Calendar home page only. Faculties and Departments may wish to review their web sites and re-establish links to appropriate pages within the calendar.”

Next, a fragment of an article from the winter issue of Grebel Now, the newsletter for alumni of Conrad Grebel University College: "At every end-of-term banquet, the Student Council presents several Student Life Awards. Winners of this non-monetary (fame only) award are nominated by their peers because they have shown outstanding leadership despite not holding a formal leadership role at the College. It is intended for students who stand out in the crowd – who get involved in the community in an exceptional way. This past fall term, five students were presented with this award. Two recipients introduced together were Rosabeth Koehn and Angela Hostetler, both first year English majors from Goshen, Indiana. In his awarding speech, Student Council President Justus Zimmerly described how these two women enrich the Grebel community simply by their glowing presence. ‘Whether it’s the creation of foreign film night or a lovely hymn sing or just a piece of pie for American Thanksgiving, they always warm our hearts.’” One or both are involved in peace activism, sports, the UW women’s centre, theatre, and much more. “We were good friends in high school,” says Koehn, “but made the decision to come to Grebel separately.”

Jarvis Stanger, who came to UW in 1970 and was manager of hardware maintenance in what was then the "computing services" department by the time he retired in 1989, died January 22. • Victor Nowak, a custodian in plant operations from 1969 to his retirement in 1987, died January 26. • Paul Hetke, chief operating engineer in plant operations from 1966 to his retirement in 1988, died January 18.

A reminder from the university secretariat: "Adel Sedra's term as Dean of Engineering expires on June 30, 2008 and, as required by Policy 45, the process for constituting the Nominating Committee is under way. Nominations are requested for 'one staff member elected by and from the regular staff of the Faculty' (at least three nominators are required in each case). Completed nomination forms should be submitted to the Secretariat, Needles Hall, Room 3060, no later than 3:00 p.m., Friday, March 9, 2007. An election will follow if necessary."

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Preview of life after UW (take two)

Why plan for retirement? “This question,” writes Wanda Speek of human resources, “will be addressed in a six week Retirement Planning workshop entitled Bridging the Gap, held at the Rockway Centre in Kitchener. It is funded by the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care and is supported by the City of Kitchener. The retirement series focuses on the social and emotional transition to retirement — areas that are often overlooked by retirees, but are crucial to their success in retirement. The six weekly sessions include Planning Tomorrow Today, Changing Roles and Relationships, Making the Most of Your Time, Taking Charge of Your Health, Financial and Legal Affairs, and Housing: a Place to Grow. The workshop dates for 2007 are April 17 to May 22, and October 16 to November 20. The two-hour sessions begin at 7:00 p.m. and are held at the Rockway Centre, 1405 King Street East, Kitchener. The cost is $47.70 per person or $79.50 per couple, including GST. If you are interested in attending any or all of these sessions, please contact the Peer Helper Co-ordinator at the Rockway Centre, 519-741-2576.”

The university's 50th anniversary also means the 50th anniversary for what's now called the Department of Physics and Astronomy, since it was teaching the fundamentals of science to Waterloo's students from Day One. Among the celebrations that are planned is an art competition, under the title "Capturing the Beauty of Physics", with prizes that include a BlackBerry Pearl as well as cash awards. Entries are welcome in two categories — photography and fine arts — and will be accepted throughout most of the 50th, with a final deadline of November 1. "Participants from all departments and faculties across campus are welcome to enter," says the web site. "Local high school entries are also welcome."

The local chapter of Engineers Without Borders is looking for computers to help drive the Scala Computer Livelihood Training Program, an award-winning youth employment project in the Philippines. Scala, organizers explain, is an award-winning program that educates underprivileged youth in computer literacy, entrepreneur training and life skills. “To share this opportunity with more Filipino youth,” Ken Chan of the local group writes, “EWB and our Filipino partner have planned training centres for 7 new communities in 2007. Our team will be shipping the donated computers off to these 7 new Scala centres across the Philippines. . . . In previous years, our chapter has sent Junior Fellow Megan Campbell and Ginny Li overseas to aid in the development of the program, in addition to sending numerous computers and financial resources. For the current phase of the program — to aid in the opening of 7 new centres — EWB Waterloo is committed to raising 130 computer donations by the end of March. We are particularly seeking computers with minimum requirements of 450 MHz, 128 MB memory, 2 GB hard drives, preferably network card, as well as peripherals such as monitors, keyboards, mice, etc. EWB is a registered Canadian charity and can provide tax receipts for donations of over $20 in value. Cash donations are acceptable as well.” More information: e-mail wk3chan@engmail.

A reminder about an end-of-term honour: "The Federation of Students Leadership Awards nomination period ends at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 7. Members of the community are welcome to nominate a (or multiple!) current undergraduate UW student they feel has demonstrated leadership within the community. The award recipients will be invited to a reception in their honour on Thursday, March 29. Nominations can be submitted via email to Michelle Zakrison, pres@feds.ca, or to the Federation of Students front desk."

And . . . "Spring must have arrived," a Daily Bulletin reader reported yesterday during a bright cold noon-hour. "In the Davis Centre quad, half a dozen geese are grazing on the few blades of grass that heat from the underground service tunnels has managed to expose. But how did the geese find out about this?" I'm guessing they probably took a gander at somebody's MySpace.

CAR

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