Research In Motion tycoon Jim Balsillie, left, ponders an answer as writer Malcolm Gladwell prepares for the next question. Their on-stage interview was a highlight of Monday's "leaders" session at the "2017: The Workplace" conference, hosted by UW as a feature of the 50th anniversary year. The three-day conference was extensively reported by media ranging from local television, which devoted much of the Monday evening CTV newscast to issues of employment and the economy, to the Globe and Mail, which quoted Balsillie at length yesterday. Photo by Chris Hughes, UW Graphics.

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Injury rate above education average

UW continues to have a higher rate of on-the-job injuries than other educational institutions, according to a report for 2006 released this month by the safety office.

The “lost time injury frequency rate” for UW was 0.51 during 2006, compared to 0.43 for other employers in the same group. Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board calculates the rate to represent the number of injuries during the year per 100 full-time-equivalent employees. (The WSIB says the university had 6,334 FTE employees, including faculty, union and non-union staff, casual workers, and graduate students being paid for assistantships.)

UW actually had 32 lost-time injuries last year, up from 28 in 2005. There were 78 other injuries (down from 95 in 2005) that required medical aid but didn’t lead to somebody needing time off work. The year brought a total of 310 “injuries/incidents” of all kinds, many of them too minor to require medical aid.

The frequency rate of 0.51 was up from 0.47 in 2005, but lower than the rates in 2002 (when it hit 0.76) through 2004. It’s been consistently higher than the rate at other employers in the education sector.

“Slips and trips were the predominant type of injury,” making up about a quarter of the total incidents, says the 2006 Annual Injury Report. “Most injuries by month were recorded in January, and the fewest in July and September.”

As usual, the injuries were concentrated in two departments, plant operations and food services. The custodial section of plant ops accounted for 7 of the lost-time injuries and 5 medical-aid injuries. Other parts of plant ops had 8 lost-time injuries and 14 medical-aid injuries. Food services had 6 lost-time injuries and 9 medical-aid injuries.

But no part of the university seems to be immune from on-the-job injuries, as accidents were reported during 2006 from such units as co-op education and career services, finance, graphics, optometry and psychology.

Employees lost a total of 384 days of work because of injury last year, up slightly from 349 days in 2005. The “lost days severity rate”, another WSIB calculation, was 46 (per hundred employees) for UW, twice the rate for educational institutions as a whole.

The safety report adds that there were 55 reported injuries to students and visitors during 2006. That number, which depends on voluntary reporting since it’s not monitored by the WSIB, has been dropping steadily since 2002.

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A walk through 4.5 billion years

A “GeoTime Trail” will be officially opened this Sunday on the Westside Trail system operated by the city of Waterloo. UW earth sciences professor Alan Morgan, who has been the main creator of the GeoTime installation, explains what visitors will see:

“The Geotime Trail is designed to be a 4.567-kilometre-long trail that will eventually make its way from the start (and end) as a loop trail very close to Columbia Street West in Waterloo. The distance of the Trail corresponds to the current estimates of the age of the Earth at 4.567 billion years. Every 1 metre on the trail will, therefore, represent one million years of geological time, and each one millimetre represents 1,000 years.

“The Trail will be a closed loop covering a distance that can be walked in 1 to 1.5 hours (a reasonable distance for a healthy workout). Participants can walk either way along the Trail, although it would be sensible to walk from the origin of Earth toward the present to see the gradual evolution of the planet. However, at this time only the last part of the trail is sign-posted. The Trail will be completed over the next few years.

“Another of the principal objectives is to provide a learning tool for students of all ages to try to relate to the immensity of geological time: where geological periods start and end, when different biological organisms appeared on Earth and when major catastrophic events took place. Perhaps students can more easily relate to the place of humanity on Earth. For example, all of human history in terms of agriculture and urban settlement takes place in the last 10 centimetres of a trail that is almost 4.6 km long! The relationship of dinosaurs to humans can also be clearly seen when dinosaurs vanished 65 metres from the end of the Trail.

“A precursor to the Trail saw the development of two ‘talking’ (audio) signs, the first to be located in Waterloo Region. These were installed and opened in October 2002. The second stage (and Phase 1 of the GeoTime Trail) was to design 10 signs (left) to cover the last 1.3 billion years of geologic time. This time frame represents the oldest rocks below the Waterloo Region. Unfortunately rocks are not exposed in Waterloo because the area is covered in a thick sequence of glacial sediments and there are multiple time breaks in the stratigraphy of the region.

“The ten signs that illustrate the geological story are based either on local rocks that can be seen nearby, for example at the Elora Gorge or on the Niagara Escarpment, and time frames that show features of interest.

“Initial funding for Phase 1 was provided by the Canadian Geological Foundation and the City of Waterloo. The Waterloo GeoTime Trail is the first of this type in Canada and is one of the projects outlined in the Canadian contributions to the Unesco-sponsored International Year of Planet Earth that will take place in 2008. Expressions of interest in adopting the concept have been informally received from Edmonton and Halifax. Ultimately it is hoped that GeoTime Trails with as many as 40 or more signs will be established in many parts of Canada and perhaps elsewhere in the world.

“The GeoTime Trail opening coincides with the City of Waterloo's 150th Anniversary, the University of Waterloo's 50th Anniversary, the 150th kilometre of trails in the City of Waterloo and the opening of a gnomon at the unveiling site.”

The celebration of the trail’s opening is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. Sunday on Munich Circle (off Columbia Street via Salzburg Drive), with Waterloo’s mayor and other prominent guests.

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Internationalization grants, and more

The Centre for Teaching Excellence is taking applications for this year’s Course Internationalization Grants, jointly sponsored by CTE and the new Waterloo International. “The purpose of the grants,” says a memo, “is to encourage faculty members to bring international perspectives into existing courses and to incorporate international components in their teaching and learning activities. Grant recipients are asked to use the internationalization strategies that are best suited for their courses. Examples of possible strategies include inviting guest speakers with international experience for in-class presentations; purchasing instructional materials with an international focus; developing course-related international case studies or simulations; designing intercultural group work activities and inviting students with international experiences from Student-Speakers Roster program maintained by Waterloo International.” Details are online, and grant applications are due by October 29. Up to eight grants of $1,500 each will be awarded this year, CTE says. Questions: call ext. 37110.

The nomination deadline for this year’s President’s Circle Awards for Volunteerism and Leadership had been set for last Friday, but it’s been extended until October 29, the student life office announces. The awards exist “to recognize the significant volunteer contributions made by students to UW and the local community”, and carry an honorarium of $250 for each winner. The Awards for Volunteerism have been around for a decade, but the Awards for Leadership are new this year to recognize “students who have left a lasting impression on the UW campus through encouraging student participation, acting as a role model, enabling others to become leaders, or taking initiative to lead by example to make the university community better”. Nominations can come from students, staff, or faculty, or even members of the community at large. Self-nominations are also accepted for the Volunteerism awards, but not the Leadership awards. Details are online.

Ian Campbell, who was principal of Renison College 1977 to 1992, and subsequently professor emeritus, died yesterday at his home in Waterloo. Visitation is scheduled for Thursday (2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m.) at the Erb & Good funeral home on King Street South, and the funeral service will be held there Friday at 3 p.m., the college announced last night. Campbell was a heraldry enthusiast and introduced some old-world customs to Renison, as well as developing its campus and its academic programs.

A researcher in UW’s geography department had a major role in the landmark reports released this year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a few days ago along with politician and media star Al Gore. Linda Mortsch, who earned a master’s degree in environmental studies in 2001 and is based at UW but employed as a Senior Impacts and Adaptation Researcher for Environment Canada was the Canadian Coordinating Lead Author of the North America chapter of the "Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability" report released by the IPCC in April. Other UW contributors to the report include geography professors Jean Andrey and Daniel Scott, and Don Burn of civil engineering. The report was one of three major IPCC reports released this year that raised global awareness of climate change and stated that climate change is mostly likely caused by humans. The IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Gore for “efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change".

And . . . count on it: next February 18, and the third Monday in February in subsequent years, will be a paid holiday for UW staff and faculty. "It is a statutory holiday and a matter of law," says associate provost Catharine Scott. Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty announced the creation of "Family Day" for that date as soon as the election results were in last week. His announcement was worded a bit tentatively — "Adding Family Day to the calendar would give Ontario workers and families a total of nine statutory holidays per year" — presumably because a formal amendment to the Employment Standards Act is still needed. But the change seems to be a done deal. UW registrar Ken Lavigne notes that it won't affect students much, since the third Monday in February, in 2008 and probably every year, falls during reading week when there are no classes anyway.

CAR

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