Warriors play at last on home turf

by Chris Gilbert, Athletics

For the first time in Waterloo history, Warrior Football will play their home games on the existing UW campus. Since 1957, football at UW has been played at Seagram (now University) Stadium in Waterloo, about a 15-minute walk off campus. Seagram Stadium was originally the property of UW when construction began in the spring of 1957.

The temporary stadium and field (pictured above, with grandstand in background) will parallel Columbia Street on the north campus. Warrior Field is another turning point for the program, under the direction of second-year head coach Dennis McPhee, who has spearheaded the campaign.

“The Warrior Field will be a boost to Warrior Football, but its scope is far greater,” commented McPhee. “This is a chance to marry a traditional varsity program to an outstanding student body here at UW. This is an opportunity to engage all our students through an athletic contest which is a by-product to social interaction and student life.

"Our alumni are very encouraged that Waterloo Football will be played on UW soil. It is our hope that we are more accessible to both the current students and to our alumni. We want to make them proud.”

Home field advantage for the Warriors will begin on Saturday, September 6, at 1 p.m., when Waterloo will play host to the McMaster Marauders in UW’s annual Gold and Black day during Orientation Week.

[The new Warriors Field logo is on the right. Information about the new field is online — including capacity: 5,100 people — directions, parking, ticket prices and where to buy them, and a guide to how not to behave as a spectator. Free admission to end zone standing room and grass hillside seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Grandstand seats are $10, but free to students with valid WatCards. Future home games, all at 1 p.m., are September 27, with Laurier; October 4, with Guelph; October 18, with Queen’s.]

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From illuminated manuscript to e-book

Christine McWebb's research focus moves easily from late medieval French literature — she is an expert on the 14th-century French scholar, Christine de Pisan — to the relationship between iconography and text, and between science and literature. She is one of two principal researchers at MARGOT (Moyen Age et Renaissance: Group de recherche – Ordinateurs et Textes), a Waterloo-based group dedicated to taking French texts from the Middle Ages and Early Modern period and making them available to students and scholars as online searchable editions.

Now McWebb has created a searchable online guide to the medieval allegory, the Roman de la rose. The project, one of several recently funded through the Learning Initiative Fund of the UW Centre of Teaching Excellence, includes both excerpts and illustrations from the illuminated manuscript (like the image below, from the excerpt, False Seeming's Speech Addressing the God of Love's Army). All the excerpts can be analyzed linguistically using TAPoR (Text Analysis Portal for Research) tools, by clicking on a link above each excerpt.

Here is the LIF abstract of McWebb’s project, Development of a Multimedia Teaching Tool for Teaching Cultural Studies – Phase 2:

“Conveying information to students in a classroom setting can take on multiple forms and, in today’s classroom, the instructor has the opportunity to benefit from the implementation of various kinds of media. The present generation of students has grown up with the internet and is accustomed to a learning style that is varied and multifaceted. It is therefore more important than ever to use a variety of teaching techniques in order to reach every type of learner, be it the visual, the auditive or the text-based learner.

“I will develop a complete digital multimedia and multifaceted teaching product which can be implemented specifically in a course on medieval literature and culture but which is ultimately exportable into other areas of teaching cultural studies. The medieval manuscript more often than not encompassed written text and iconographic image (miniature), as well as illustrations and illuminations as textual markers. I will create a digital imitation of a medieval manuscript layout (two columns, insertions of miniatures) and transcribe, translate and comment on specific passages of probably the most well-known text of the High French Middle Ages, the Romance of the Rose (XIIIth century) by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun.

“This innovative model of what will essentially be an e-book will allow me to effectively provide the teacher and the learner with expandable information, explanations, interpretations and contextualizations. As a product, therefore, it not only imitates (as closely as possible) the medium that is taught (the medieval manuscript), but will also satisfy, as a teaching tool, the needs of students for a multifaceted and varied teaching style.

“The final version of this project can be viewed at http://margot.uwaterloo.ca/ROMAN/excerptlist.html.”

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Haunting images; SEW course registration

Images by Cora Cluett, an assistant professor in fine arts, are on view at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery until September 7, part of a display entitled “Apertura.” From the KWAG website: “Cluett’s series of photographs titled In the Offing document the Nova Scotian and Scottish landscapes through the remnants of the WW II pillboxes and bunkers which line their coasts. Coastlines are sites of transition, traffic, and militarization. The title of this series refers to an old nautical term which describes the outermost visible edge of the sea, as well as the familiar phrase describing the not-too-distant future – away from you and coming towards you at once. Cluett uses the pillbox lookout to frame and isolate sections of the landscape, inviting the viewer to consider a multitude of dualities beyond the obvious here and there positioning.” The image seen here is number 8 in the series.

New SEW course registration now available

Information Systems and Technology (IST) and Organizational and Human Development (OHD) have announced the Skills for the Electronic Workplace (SEW) courses for September and October. In addition to SEW’s popular core programming for electronic workplace applications, such as Excel, Vista, and Dreamweaver, highlights of the brochure include courses on website administration and web writing and editing, as well as new technology.

What's new is that the registration brochure for SEW courses is now being provided in an electronic format. The electronic brochure is a PDF that can be filled out and submitted for registration by email, or it can be printed off and submitted through the interoffice mail to Mark Lisetto-Smit of OHD, in Hagey Hall 161D.

If you would rather download the brochure directly from the OHD website, go here and choose “Technology / SEW” from the left-hand navigation menu.

Hard copies of the brochure have been mailed out to staff who do not have access to email. As well, hard copies are available upon request. Visit the IST staff training web page for more information about IST and its SEW course offerings.

New director of the school of planning is Clarence Woudsma (left), whose research touches on such topics as the way climate change affects transportation. He’s a past president of the Canadian Transportation Research Forum. Woudsma took over the director’s office as of July 1, succeeding Murray Haight.

CPA staff

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