Snow, Christmas crafts, and wireless

Whether you see it as a revoltin' development or a welcome harbinger of ski season, there is no doubt that it's snowing out there. Snow! Not enough to shut down the community and campus — but, on top of the overnight ice pellets, more than enough to snarl traffic and make the footing insecure for pedestrians. UW's safety office has just issued its annual poster with advice on how to avoid winter slips and falls; I'll give it some space in the Daily Bulletin one day next week. Also due for Daily Bulletin attention in the near future is a rundown on the university's storm closing policy, since weather that extreme is not unknown during fall term exams. For now, here's a reminder of the key point: the university closes when the Waterloo Region District School Board closes all its schools (not just buses as happened this morning). If the schools are closed, you can assume that so is UW — and if they're not closed, then UW remains open too.

Next, a correction to something that appeared in yesterday's Daily Bulletin, and which was wrong because I misunderstood a piece of a report that came to UW's senate earlier in the week. It has to do with the graduate program in tourism policy and planning, which I said was now going to be offered jointly by the two academic units where such matters are taught and researched: the faculty of environmental studies and the department of recreation and leisure studies (which is in the faculty of applied health sciences). In fact, the program has been offered jointly for many years. What's actually new is that the ES half of the program is going to be based specifically in the department of geography — not, as in the past, in the local economic development program which is also part of ES. I did get the other part of the change right: the tourism program will now lead to a Master of Environmental Studies degree rather than the present Master of Applied Environmental Studies.

If the arrival of winter turns people's thoughts to pinecone wreaths, snowmen and candles, that has to be good news for the vendors at the Staff Association's 14th annual craft sale, being held today and tomorrow in the Davis Centre "fishbowl" lounge. All the sellers are current or retired staff, and all have agreed to give 10 per cent of the sale's proceeds to student award funds (through the senate scholarship fund and the association's own bursary). "Why not come out and purchase a few Christmas gifts?" organizers ask, citing knitted and wooden work, cookie mixes, pottery, handmade cards, chocolates and stained glass. There's also a raffle, with prizes that include a BlackBerry (donated by Research In Motion) and a $500 gift certificate from Thomas Cook Marlin Travel. The sale runs from 10:00 to 5:00 today, 9:00 to 3:00 tomorrow.

A major event takes place this afternoon in engineering: this year's O'Donovan Distinguished Visitor Public Lecture, under the title "The History of Wireless". "The focus of the event," explains Alain Francq of electrical and computer engineering, "is about upholding and celebrating the values of the O'Donovan Research Chair in Engineering by connecting with the public and students to engage in debate and discussion about society and technology. We're inviting the general public and interested departments and students as well as the Faculty of Arts, since this is about the 'historical' foundations of wireless. We're also inviting key industry people. RIM is bringing a large contingent. We expect a lively discussion. We've booked the big, 389-seat lecture theatre in Rod Coutts Hall (RCH 101)." The lecture starts at 4:00 today, and admission is free. Oh, the speaker? He's Tapan Sarkar, author of History of Wireless and a faculty member at Syracuse University. "Often," Sarkar observes, "the invention of radio is delegated to one or two persons, the names of whom vary from country to country, depending on the country of origin of the authors. The aim of this presentation is to illustrate that simultaneous development was going on all over the world and that each invention provided a solution to the portion of the puzzle. We will only highlight some of the crucial events from 1831 up to 1920."

Betty Bax of Waterloo Unlimited, UW's program for high-powered high school students, sends word that 34 grade 12 students (18 local and 16 from out-of-town, some from as far away as Halifax) will be on campus today through Saturday. "Based on the theme Roadmap to Research," she says, "students will participate in sessions with researchers (professors and students: graduate, undergraduate) from disciplines across campus. They will have an introduction to the how of reading academic papers, opportunity to explore recently published papers with the professors who wrote them, and time to talk and ask questions of undergraduate and graduate student researchers — including a panel of Unlimited alumni that are now enrolled at Waterloo." On-campus sessions start today, although some out-of-town students were checking in for the residential component last night.

And . . . the proud folks pictured below are the winners of last night's Genius Bowl competition, "a fierce engineering trivia contest". All from 4A mechatronics, they're Nick Dyment, Greg Fitzgerald, Pierre Dinnissen, Jeff Loveless, Sebastian Peleato, and Alex Thomson. "We were featured in the Bulletin the last time we won," Dinnissen recalls. "We actually tied with the 3B Civil class, but we correctly answered an impromptu tiebreaking question for rights to the trophy for the night."

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Team presents 325 historical sites

from the UW media relations office

A student research team is planning a workshop next month to share expertise on how municipal governments can better protect historic places in order to preserve Canada's rich past.

Over the last year, the students have helped nominate 325 key historical sites in southwestern Ontario. They are members of a local historic places initiative, set up by the Heritage Resources Centre at UW in collaboration with the Ontario ministry of culture. The project assists municipalities to nominate heritage sites in the Grand River watershed and surrounding area to a national register. The nominations, once approved, are listed on the Canadian Register of Historic Places and available online. The register is an information tool that places no additional legal constraints on property owners.

Next month, the students will host a heritage conservation workshop for local municipal staff and officials. The all-day event, which covers research methods and case studies, will be held December 4 at the historically restored Huether Hotel in Uptown Waterloo (information ext. 36921).

Already, two heritage sites researched by the UW students are listed on the national register. The Freeport Bridge in Kitchener (right) is one of four multiple-span concrete bowstring arch bridges spanning the Grand River, which were erected in the same time period and are similar in style. The listing features pictures, a Google map and related links. The other UW-researched site is St. Peter's Seminary in London, Ontario.

"Our heritage enriches us, inspires us, enlightens us and guides us in our growth and development," says Emily Elliott, one of the seven student researchers. "We want to build the capacity of local planners and heritage committee members in order to maintain the momentum of the historic places initiative."

Robert Shipley, director of the Heritage Resources Centre, says that steady progress has been made in the effort to standardize the methods for recognizing historic places across the country. "Through these efforts a national registry has been created and new programs for heritage conservation have been introduced," says Shipley, a planning professor who has conducted research on the enhanced value of historically designated properties.

"A major element in each nomination," he says, "is to draft a statement of significance, outlining in a few paragraphs the historical, architectural or contextual value of a heritage site. Students learn to write clearly and succinctly."

Specifically, the historic places initiative has five goals: to greatly increase the number of sites in Ontario nominated for inclusion on the Canadian Register of Historic Places; to train and provide experience to the skilled heritage workers of the future; to improve the ability of local planners, heritage committee members and others to complete the historic places initiative documentation processes; to encourage local councils to plan and budget for the completion, ongoing maintenance and upgrading of their heritage property registers; to increase local interest in and knowledge of the historic places initiative.

Shipley says that all the provinces and territories in Canada have joined the program and various projects are underway to achieve the goal of promoting a better understanding of Canada's historic places.

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Artist's true north includes the junk

Speaking of winter weather . . . “Cold Storage”, an artist’s look at the Canadian north, continues through December 8 at Render, the UW art gallery in East Campus Hall. A release from the gallery explains what visitors will see, including the mixed-media-on-mylar work pictured at left:

“With Cold Storage, Patrick Mahon explores ideas of the Canadian north through a combination of complex drawings and a collection-based installation that extends his ongoing engagement with graphic forms and museum culture. Reflecting an informed and personal connection to the north that dates back to the 1980s, Cold Storage destabilizes popular ideas of a pristine Arctic (as represented in the works of Group of Seven painter Lawren Harris and traditional Inuit prints and carvings, for example) by focusing on the detritus of contemporary existence in northern settlements.

“Mahon’s Vitrine series frame chaotic scenes of waste mixed with snow and ice — mechanical parts, oil tanks and building debris pushed aside and piled high to form disturbing hybrid snowbanks. With their complex web of line, limited colour range and layering of elements, these drawings are strongly reminiscent of Canadian currency and are a reminder of the roots of Mahon’s work in print culture.

“Central to the exhibition is a gallery within the gallery, a constructed room housing delicate glass forms derived from the artist’s collection of bones (a more traditional form of northern waste). This room, a manifestation of the structures described in the Cold Storage drawing series, offers an elegant display that combines museological and commercial models of inventory and presentation. With its facade of waste styrofoam packaging and insulation, this space, and its contents, appears to play on conflicting connections to the north. Is Canada’s north a place to be valued and preserved (environmentally and culturally) or a new terrain of industrial expansion and trade?”

Patrick Mahon's work as an artist, the statement goes on, “includes print-based projects that engage with historical and contemporary aspects of print culture and involves responding to gallery and museum collections through artistic and curatorial gestures. Mahon also works as a writer and curator, focusing on issues relating to print culture, post-colonialism, and aesthetics.”

Mahon is a professor of visual arts at the University of Western Ontario. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada is the sponsor of the collaboration “Art and Cold Cash”, a three-year project involving artists from Baker Lake, Nunavut, and southern Canada, was launched last year at MOCCA in Toronto and at Pearson International Airport; it will visit the Winnipeg Art Gallery in 2009. Mahon is represented by Leo Kamen Gallery, Toronto.

Cold Storage was commissioned by Render and received the support of the Ontario Arts Council. A publication, including an essay by Laura Millard, is forthcoming, the gallery says.

CAR

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