New grads already giving back to Waterloo

This spring’s graduating students have pledged more than half a million dollars to UW, and the amount is still going up, with the grand total to be announced at October’s convocation ceremonies.

“By June convocation, the Grad Class Challenge had raised $535,586,” says Ryan Jacobs, communications officer for the development and alumni affairs office. He adds that 46 per cent of this spring’s grads made gifts through campaigns in their respective faculties and schools — the Plummer’s Pledge in engineering, the Pink Tie Pledge in mathematics, and so on.

“Many of the grad class chairs or co-chairs presented cheques to their respective deans and directors at convocation,” Jacobs notes. Among them, and pictured at right, was Anu Sharma, who graduated in science and helped collect more than $23,000 for science’s Better Beaker Pledge.

“The students decide what projects the money will support, emphasizing the kinds of things they are passionate about,” says Jacobs, pointing to funding for solar panels, an environmental fund in the arts faculty, the mathematics tutorial centre, and the cancer Well-Fit program in applied health sciences.

The challenge invites graduates to make a three-year giving pledge, a web site explains. “In 1989, the Grad Class Challenge began in the Faculty of Engineering. Since then, grads from all UW faculties and colleges have participated in this annual tradition. These grads wanted to make a difference by giving back to the university with a donation, to ensure that future students would benefit from their generosity. Grad Class generosity also helps maintain the quality and value of a UW degree.”

At least one segment of the challenge set a giving record this year, as the Plummer’s Pledge collected more than twice last year’s figure, according to one of its co-chairs, Bahman Hadji. He writes: “Following the valedictory address at the engineering convocation ceremony on June 14, the co-chairs of the 2008 Graduation Committee got on stage to make a presentation to the dean of engineering, Adel Sedra. They were carrying a giant symbolic cheque made out to the Faculty worth $221,517.

“In the afternoon ceremony, Software Engineering presented an additional giant cheque from their class pledging $40,000, to the delight of the dean.

Hadji boasts that engineering givings “also beat the faculty of math’s Pink Tie Pledge from their graduates. In talking about the friendly rivalry between the deans of math and engineering every year in seeing which faculty's graduates can pledge the most money, President David Johnston mentioned that Tom Coleman, dean of math, had emailed Sedra after their convocation ceremony on Friday, telling him that they got about $187,000. ‘Sorry to spoil your weekend,’ the dean of engineering apparently responded.”

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IQC offers quantum talk and more

UW's Institute for Quantum Computing will be welcoming the public to an open house and lecture on Monday, August 11, starting at 5 p.m. Visitors can tour the labs — including the Solid-State Magnetic Resonance Lab, the Quantum Optics Lab, the Photonic Entanglement Lab, and the Integrated Quantum Optoelectronics Lab — and get an overview of the research being done there.

Following the open house, Michele Mosca (right), IQC's deputy director and co-founder, will deliver a lecture from 7 to 8 p.m. entitled "Cryptography in a Quantum World." Mosca is a UW and St. Jerome's math professor, member of the Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research, and holder of the Canada Research Chair in Quantum Computation.

Here is some of what Mosca's talk is about, according to the abstract: "Cryptography is nowadays considered to be one of the strongest links in the information security infrastructure. Historically, this has not always been the case, and it is conceivable that fundamental cryptographic tools in use today could quickly become one of the weakest links. ... We have small quantum computers, and building large-scale quantum computers is one of the biggest challenges scientists are facing today. ... It is important to prepare a suite of cryptographic tools that will be secure against large-scale quantum computers many years before such computers are actually built. Quantum cryptography offers such new tools which can be part of a new generation of cryptographic techniques."

The event takes place at the Research Advancement Centre, 475 Wes Graham Way in the Research and Technology Park. It's free, but seating is limited. (As of this morning, there were 54 spaces left). For more information and to reserve a place, visit www.iqc.ca and click on 'open house.'

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Faculty retirements 2007-08, part two

For the record, here are notes on more of the UW faculty members who have retired in the past year. Information comes from the human resources department as well as other sources. Some of these professors will still be seen on campus in contract or adjunct faculty roles.

W. Robert Needham (left), department of economics, retired September 1, 2007, after a UW career that began in September 1965. He served for a time as president of the faculty association, and as director of the Canadian studies program, based at St. Paul’s United College.

David Jackson, department of combinatorics and optimization, retired September 1, 2007, 36 years after joining UW’s faculty in September 1971.

Stephanie Guildford, department of biology, retired September 1, 2007. She came to UW in 1996 as a postdoctoral fellow, and became a research assistant professor in February 2000.

Robert Hecky, department of biology, retired September 1, 2007, after six years at Waterloo — he joined the faculty in November 1999.

David Wilton, department of economics, retired September 1, 2007. He came to UW in July 1982 and specialized in macroeconomics and labour economics.

Wayne Hawthorn (right), department of biology, came to UW in September 1972, and retired September 1, 2007.

Robert Karpiak, department of Germanic and Slavic studies, was a faculty member from July 1977 until his retirement September 1, 2007.

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Virtual environments study wants you

note from Colin Ellard, associate chair (undergraduate), psychology

The Research Laboratory for Immersive Virtual Environments (RELIVE) in the Department of Psychology is currently recruiting participants for a study of how we explore and form preferences for different styles of houses.

If you choose to participate, you will have a chance to walk around inside some virtual house interiors while wearing a head-mounted display. Several non-invasive sensors will be used to measure your heart rate and your emotional responses to what you see. You will also be asked to complete some questionnaires describing your experiences in the virtual homes. We will also ask you some questions about your background (age, occupation, education, and cultural background).

The study takes approximately 60 minutes and you will be reimbursed in the amount of $15 for your time, and will also receive a $25 travel allowance if you are visiting from off-campus.

For further details, please contact us at housepreferencestudy@gmail.com.  This study has been reviewed by, and received ethics clearance through, the Office of Research Ethics, University of Waterloo.

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