More than 100 people took part in a charrette held by UW's school of planning on Friday to mark World Town Planning Day. The group included a dozen professional planners, about 60 high school students, and some of UW's own students, says faculty member Karen Hammond, who explains that "a charrette is an exciting, intensive brainstorming session focused on solving a design issue." The focus this time was on Waterloo's Weber Street. "Currently lined with fast-food restaurants and strip plazas," Hammond notes, Weber "may look dramatically different" within a few years — "a greener, more vital and attractive street, integrated into a denser urban fabric" — if it's chosen as the route for the planned rapid transit system.

Back to top

Staff association president reports

Creating opportunities for staff members to be promoted is among the priority issues for UW’s staff association, says a memo from the association president that was made public yesterday.

“We are involved with senior admin on succession planning,” wrote Jesse Rodgers, who works in information systems and technology and heads the association for 2007-08. “A very large number of staff members retire in the next 5-10 years. How can opportunities be created so current staff are qualified to move into those positions? How can we retain staff so they are interested in such positions? My hope is that this problem of retention and succession will force positive changes for staff in terms of the overall work environment.”

Rodgers notes that there are some accomplishments to report since he and his executive took over following an upheaval in the association’s leadership earlier this year. In particular, “the recently revised Policy 36 (was ‘grievance’, now ‘dispute resolution’ policy) is all but on its way to the President for signing.

“The Staff Relations Committee is working out a transition plan from the old policy to the new one given the pool of tribunal members needs to be identified and trained. This process will be outlined along with the official announcement of the policy change. Expect to see that in the next few weeks.”

The executive is also working on revising the association’s constitution, he said. “The goal has been to identify the core services the UWSA currently provides and identify the services the UWSA should provide. . . . The time line for a draft to go to the membership was set for the end of October. This was probably a bit ambitious given how September is such a crazy time for staff. However, we have entered a draft phase in the re-write and hope to have it out to the membership shortly.”

And more: “With the Provost’s Advisory Committee on Staff Compensation, we have been working on a way for staff to feel that their job descriptions accurately reflect their jobs. Current small changes to Policy 5 force managers to revisit job descriptions if it has been more than three years. More may need to be done but for now we will need to see if the current changes have a positive effect. Next up is to focus on staff salary increases for the next few years.

“We have been working with faculty, staff from the colleges, and staff in CUPE on a way to work together on a number of issues. This committee of common interest is a valuable tool: together we are much stronger than individually. Our first target is to enhance benefits. I firmly believe that together we can see improvements.

“Members’ advisory and the services that we can provide to staff is also wrapped up in current planning activities. As a staff member considers entering a dispute resolution process or simply just wants help navigating UW’s policies, the UWSA needs the expertise in place to effectively assist its members.”

In a separate message, Rodgers told association members that the group’s long-time office secretary, Barb Yantha, has moved to a new job elsewhere on campus. “The executive is going to pick up as much of the load as possible until a new person is hired,” he wrote. “Our priority will be members' advisory cases. We hope to have a new staff role defined very soon. We will now focus on hiring someone that can fill the role of staff advocate: someone that can, under the new Policy 36, assist staff members through the entire dispute resolution process as both a representative and a support person.”

He promised that “some time before the holidays the executive will host a town hall to introduce a draft new constitution, discuss Policy 36, and introduce a plan for staffing and services. Early in the new year there will be a General Meeting at which the membership can vote on the proposed changes to the constitution and organizational change.”

Back to top

Students at skills competition in Japan

Two UW engineering students hope to score big for Team Canada this weekend, the engineering faculty’s e-newsletter reports.

But instead of using hockey sticks and pucks, Chris Rintjema and Jason Voll will rely on their robotics and IT/software skills to rack up points for the country at the 39th World Skills Competition in Shizuoka, Japan. The two engineering students are part of a team of 29 Canadians under the age of 22 that Skills Canada has sent to represent the country in Japan.

More from the newsletter: “Voll, a first-year software engineering student, and Rintjema, a second-year computer engineering student, will compete against the world's best in different categories — Voll as the only Canadian in the IT/software applications category and Rintjema as one of a team of two in the robotics category.”

A Grimsby native, Rintjema joined his high school's robotics club launched by teachers to prepare students for the Skills Ontario robotics competition. "It sounded like fun so I joined the club." He and his partner won the national skills competition in Halifax and qualified for the World Skills Competition. He says an example of a challenge he may undertake in Japan is programming a robot to autonomously search a court for hockey pucks and bring them over to a corner.

Voll became involved in the competition in 2006 while attending St. Mary's High School in Kitchener. He was excelling in an IT application course and was encouraged by his business teacher to enter the Waterloo regional skills competition. "I went for it and worked my way up to a second-place finish at the national skills competition in Halifax in May 2006. Since I found out I had a place on the national team for the competition in Japan I have been doing my best to train and keep up with school."

Voll says a few of his professors have volunteered to help him catch up with school work when he returns, and he'll write a midterm in Japan that will be proctored by some of the Skills Canada staff. Voll adds that his classmates can expect to see his girlfriend in a few classes taking notes for him.

Currently on his second co-op term with Tangam Gaming in Waterloo's Research and Technology Park, Rintjema had an easier time getting away for the competition. "My employer didn't have a problem with me missing time at work and wished me luck." He says he has spent months working with his partner to prepare: "What I'm looking forward to the most is putting all my training to use. We are definitely going for gold."

Back to top

Other notes on the edge of winter

Pictured are some of the roughly 35 students who took part in last Saturday's "thank-you-a-thon" event in the Tatham Centre. "They performed calls, wrote cards, and painted banners to thank donors both on campus and at large," says John Heckbert of UW's development and alumni affairs office. "It was a great success, and we had a few high-ranking officials show up to encourage the students. We reached about 300 donors by phone. Ivan Surnin, one of our student volunteers, won the BlackBerry, our grand prize." Backing the event was the recently organized Graditude Society, "a group of students who came together to raise awareness of how charitable giving has helped secure UW's place as a top-tier institution . . . the gifts from our staff, faculty, alumni and business partners help to ensure that a UW degree is the best possible investment a student can make."

The inaugural Waterloo Conference on Social Entrepreneurship kicks off today in the Centre for Environmental and Information Technology, with registration beginning at 4:00 and opening remarks at 6:00. The conference, which aims "to unite a passion for social change with a business-minded discipline", is hosted jointly by UW and Wilfrid Laurier University, and will focus on the advancement of social entrepreneurship both internationally and here at home, with the three key themes of community leadership, international development, and sustainable environmental change. Highlights include opening remarks from Waterloo mayor Brenda Halloran, and keynote addresses by George Roter, co-founder of Engineers Without Borders, Paul Born, founder of Tamarack, Bob Willard, a leading expert on the business value of corporate sustainability strategies, and Ashoka fellow Aaron Pereira, as well as a wide variety of lectures, panel discussions, and workshops.

Some of Canada’s top high school students were recently honoured for their innovations around Zero-Waste Technology at the 10th annual RBC/Shad Entrepreneurship Cup awards, a news release announces. The awards celebrate innovation by students who attended Shad Valley summer learning experiences at campuses across Canada in July. Teams from Shad sessions at 12 campuses across Canada were involved in this year’s national competition, showcasing innovation around the theme of Zero-Waste Technology. In addition to being financially viable enterprises, the innovations must emphasize social responsibility and environmental sustainability. The Shad team from UW was honoured with the Best Prototype award, which rewards the best engineering and design. Their innovation, Evoco System, reduces conventional plastic produce bag use in grocery stores. The Best Prototype award is sponsored by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. “Shad Valley students are some of the best and brightest in the country and will soon take their place as contributors to our nation’s growing reputation as a global innovation leader,” says Shad president Barry Bisson.

One-day first aid training (including CPR) aimed at staff and faculty members is being offered several times this month and next, and registration is through the safety office web site. • The staff association is inviting applications for one vacant position on the staff relations committee, which brings staff representatives together with senior administration. • Two Warrior football players — wide receiver Sean Cowie and defensive end Adam Kania — have been named to the Ontario University Athletics all-star team as the season winds up with national semifinals tomorrow and the Vanier Cup on November 23.

Electrical power and ventilation will be turned off in the PAS (Psychology) building from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. tomorrow. • The parking office has a new e-mail address, evntpark@uwaterloo.ca, for departments to use in making special requests or parking arrangements for events being held on campus. • The UW library (with its partners at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Guelph) has given warning that the Trellis online system will be out of operation December 12 through 18.

And . . . the plant operations department says CN Rail has reported "a problem" on the railway tracks it operates along the east side of the main campus. Details aren't clear, but to fix what's out of whack, CN will be blocking off the road and pedestrian crossing from the main campus into parking lot B just north of the Davis Centre today.

CAR

Back to top