Three PhD students — Lakshman Subbaraman, Subha Venkataraman and Sruthi Srinivasan — have come to UW's school of optometry after graduation from the Elite School of Optometry in Chennai (Madras), India, with the help of William C. Ezell Fellowships from the American Optometric Foundation. "More than 200" such fellowships have been awarded since they were created in 1949; for three to be held at the same place at the same time "is a unique achievement", says an announcement from optometry. Among the research work they're carrying on: Srinivasan is investigating "the pathogenesis of dry eye disease in postmenopausal women and in contact lens and non-contact lens wearers, including the correlation of dry eye symptoms with various clinical markers of the disease".

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Zellers will carry UW clothes, gifts

from the UW media relations office

The UW retail services department and the Zellers department store in Conestoga Mall have launched a pilot project, making an exclusive line of UW products available to students and other shoppers off campus.

For the coming year, Zellers will carry a line of UW products — mostly clothing and giftware — not available anywhere else. UW created the line, called UWShop Collection, specifically for Zellers, offering a variation on what's available on the main campus.

"We are very pleased to offer our customers high-quality merchandise University of Waterloo merchandise," says Manjit Mundi, Zellers store manager. "We have received numerous requests from students, parents and other customers for University of Waterloo apparel and products."

The exclusive UW merchandise, featuring a new logo, includes a wide assortment of men's and women's T-shirts and full zip hoodies, as well as coffee mugs, water bottles, pad holders, key tags and lanyards. The products are available at a special display in the store.

"Zellers approached us about carrying UW merchandise because they felt it would be a good fit," says Darrell Kane, general merchandise manager for retail services. Kane adds that the Conestoga Mall location draws many UW students, parents and alumni. "Zellers is buying all the goods in the unique line from us."

"This is new for us," says May Yan, director of UW's retail services, adding that UW will control the quality of the merchandise by placing orders with its network of reliable vendors. The pilot project will be reviewed at the end of the month, but is expected to last for at least a year.

Yan says the reason for creating an exclusive line for Zellers is that it does not duplicate what is currently offered at the UW Shop. "It gives students, parents and alumni another design option if they're shopping at Zellers in the evenings and weekends when UW Shop is closed."

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More profs' plans for sabbatical time

Here’s another list of UW faculty members who went on sabbatical leave as of September 1. Summaries of their sabbatical plans are as submitted to the UW board of governors.

Romy Shioda, combinatorics and optimization (six months): “I will be spending three months of the sabbatical at McGill University at Montreal to further my collaboration with Professor Vedat Verter of the Desautels School of Management. We may also be co-supervising a PhD student together on the topic of Health Care Process Management and Facility Location. The remaining months will be in Waterloo.”

Heather Smyth, English (six months): “During this sabbatical I will be writing two articles on Canadian multiracial texts based on research conducted during the tenure of my SSHRC seed grant (January-September 2007), an article on Shyam Selvadurai representing a solidification of ongoing research into post colonialism and sexuality, and will be revising and submitting for publication my book-length manuscript on Caribbean women’s writing.”

Alan Webb, accountancy (twelve months): “During the leave, I will advance several research projects currently underway and commence work on two new projects. The new projects examine (1) auditors’ use of non-financial performance information and (2) the performance effects of a relative performance evaluation scheme at a local call center. I also plan to develop a performance measurement course for our Master’s of Accounting program.”

Richard Wells, kinesiology (twelve months): “I will be pursuing both ongoing individual and team research projects concerned with occupational injury and in my capacity as Director of the Center of Research Expertise for the Prevention of Musculoskeletal Disorders, I will be visiting other Centers and Institutions with a similar mandate to share approaches and strategies.”

William Wilson, electrical and computer engineering (twelve months): “Our prior successful research work on controlling robots relative to target objects in the work space used feature measurements from an end-effector mounted camera to estimate the relative position and orientation of the target object. This method relied on a known geometric description of the target object. The goal of my sabbatical research work is to remove this requirement and allow control with respect to un-modeled objects in the work environment. This work will be carried out in our research lab here at Waterloo.”

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Notes on writing, parking, voting

A "scholarly writing workshop" aimed at faculty members is being held this morning (9:00 to 11:30) in the Humanities Theatre. The speaker, Larry McEnerney, "is the Director of University Writing Programs at the University of Chicago," says a memo from the graduate studies office, which is organizing matters. "He offers writing courses to students from the University's graduate schools, graduate divisions, post-graduate institutes, and College. His expertise is in demand worldwide as a consultant for writing to universities, academic societies, professional firms, businesses, and governments. He is also a principal in UpFront Publications and is the president of Clarison, Inc., a developer of internet-based programs for writing. This is Larry Enerney's second visit to Waterloo and he was invited back by popular demand." A second workshop will follow next week, this one titled "Exploring Cultural Differences". The speaker: " Over the past five years, Lionel Laroche has provided cross-cultural training, coaching and consulting services to over 3,000 people in seven countries (Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Peru, France, Belgium and China). Lionel specializes in helping technical professionals reap the benefits of cultural differences in their work." His talk is scheduled for Monday, September 17, from 9:00 to noon in Davis Centre room 1302.

Sharon Rumpel, UW's parking manager, yesterday announced a change for parking lot A, on the east side of Seagram Drive just across University Avenue from the main campus entrance. Visitor parking will no longer be available there — it'll be strictly for staff and faculty members, she says. "Visitors and those wishing to purchase daily parking will be directed to the west side of UW Place or X lot." Visitor parking in lot A has been available for less than a year, as the pay-and-display service was introduced there last November. It had previously been offered in part of lot C, on the other side of Seagram Drive, which is now entirely used for student permit parking. Yesterday's announcement doesn't mean any change to lot C. "We will continue to monitor the lots to ensure optimal usage," Rumpel promises.

A crew from McLean Chimney, a company based in Cobourg that travels across Canada doing specialty repairs, is at work this week on UW’s 200-foot (60-metre) central smokestack. “The stack is inspected every two years,” says Allan Swan of the plant operations department. “They look for cracks, loose bolts or faults that could affect the stack during normal operation. The inspection last summer revealed that the to edge of the stack, which is protected by a cast steel top, was in poor condition and had moved out of place. The work taking place now is removing the old steel cap and replacing it with a new stainless steel one. This includes anchoring the new cap in place and re-parging the inside top diameter.” At its top, the stack atop the powerhouse in the General Services Complex is 12 feet (4 metres) across, Swan said.

UW's Midnight Sun IX solar car is scheduled to be at the starting line when the Panasonic World Solar Challenge starts in Darwin, Australia, on October 21. So where is it today? "Our car is right now on the ocean," reports Jessica Whitney, engineering student and a member of the Midnight Sun team. It's scheduled to reach Darwin on October 9, she says. The UW crew will pick it up there and get it ready for the week-long challenge, described by organizers as "one of the world's great overland adventures", 3,051 kilometres across the country to Adelaide. "It has been six years since we have competed in Australia," Whitney notes. The team's previous car, Midnight Sun VIII, finished fifth in the American Solar Challenge in 2005.

Elections Ontario says it will be holding voter registration events on Monday and Tuesday in preparation for next month’s provincial election: “Colleges and universities that have a residence will have registration desks set up on campus for students who permanently reside on campus or off-campus in the electoral district in which the campus is located. Electors can find the dates, times and locations of the registration events on posters distributed on campus or by contacting the local returning office. Students are reminded that all electors will need proper identification that shows proof of identity and proof of where they reside to register to vote.” A news release adds that “To ensure the list of acceptable identification documents is inclusive for all electors, Elections Ontario recently completed a survey that was sent to diverse communities and groups across the province including school and student administrations. We received responses from more than 30 student groups and organizations. We are confident that with the feedback received from these groups, we were able to create a list of acceptable ID that will ensure students do not experience barriers to voting, while maintaining the integrity of the electoral process.”

CAR

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