Details soon on new football field

Plans are moving ahead for a football field on UW’s north campus, which will be home turf for the Warriors starting this fall.

Since the team was created, it has played its home games at what’s now called University Stadium (Knight-Newbrough Field) on Seagram Drive. The stadium is owned by Wilfrid Laurier University, though it was built for UW in 1958, under the name Seagram Stadium. It was sold to the city of Waterloo in 1974, and WLU acquired it in 1991.

“The temporary stadium and field will parallel Columbia Street on the north campus,” says an announcement from UW’s department of athletics and recreational services. The new field is “a turning-point for the football program,” it says, “under the direction of second-year head coach Dennis McPhee, who has spearheaded the campaign.”

Says McPhee: “The new field will be a boost to Warrior football, but its scope is far greater. 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 bi-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.”

“We are in the final stages of firming up all information about the new location and specifics (tickets, parking, seating, etc.) for the 2008 season,” Chris Gilbert of athletics said yesterday. (Pictured: an artist’s impression of the new field, with the Icefield in the background.)

Home field advantage for the Warriors will begin on September 6, when Waterloo will play host to the McMaster Marauders in UW’s annual Gold and Black day during orientation week. Subsequent home games will be played September 27 (the Homecoming game vs. Laurier), October 4 (Guelph), and October 18 (Queen’s). The football Warriors have away games scheduled for September 1 (at Toronto), September 13 (at Western), September 20 (at Ottawa), and October 10 (at Windsor).

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Keystone appeal emphasizes diversity

It’s too soon to track the numbers, but organizers of UW’s Keystone Campaign think the multilingual brochure and personalized letter that was sent to staff and faculty members in mid-June is boosting awareness and encouraging gifts to the university.

The brochure, with full-length pictures of half a dozen students who benefit from Keystone-funded scholarships, was sent across campus in the same week as the annual Keystone picnic event. It carried thanks in the students’ native languages — Russian, Ojibwe, Persian, Korean, Kurdish, and (Canadian) English.

“Obviously the focus was on the diversity of our students,” says Ryan Jacobs of the development and alumni affairs office, “with a very simple thank-you message — for many students, they couldn’t do what they do here without the generosity of donors.”

Keystone is the faculty, staff and retiree unit of Campaign Waterloo, and has brought in $8.6 million since it was launched in the spring of 2000. Some 55 per cent of Keystone donations go to student assistance, Jacobs notes.

“When it comes right down to it, what really matters is the impact our gifts have on the outstanding students who choose to live, research and study at UW,” said the letter that accompanied the brochure. It’s signed by Bob Norman, Pamela Helmes-Hayes and Steve Brown — chairs for the retiree, staff and faculty sections of Keystone.

They say that students “are the next generation of leaders who will leave here, prepared to make the region, the country, and the world a better place to live. We have made some progress in this area over the last seven years, almost tripling the number of scholarships offered to students. However, much more still needs to be done so that UW can attract more and more top students. . . .

“The cumulative impact of all the gifts made to the Keystone Campaign — large and small — will help the university achieve its ambitious goals.”

Jacobs said it’s hard to get up-to-date information from the development office’s ancient database system, which is due to be replaced later this year, but Keystone staff do know that in the first two months of the current fiscal year, May and June, they had received gifts from 733 staff, faculty and retirees, including both new donors and those who carried on with gifts they made in 2007-08.

The total of Keystone givings in May and June was $109,650, which is 12 per cent of the goal for all of 2008-09.

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And the rest of this morning's news

The sculpture that's pictured at left (photo by Ben Wood) hasn't exactly vanished like fairy-gold — it's just been put into storage, as the site between the Math and Computer building and the Biology complex has been fenced off for construction of the Quantum-Nano Centre. The blue squiggle, which forms the letters CS from certain angles, was actually titled "David of Sassoun" by the sculptor, Armand Buzbuzian, and has stood near the centre of campus since 1977. ("Known by most students as the 'CS' statue," says the Armenian Students Association web site, "it is nonetheless an abstraction of the magnificent statue of Armenia's famous folk hero!") Its future is uncertain; its current whereabouts, a warehouse on UW's north campus.

Adrian Lui of the rugby Warriors, who was a first-team Ontario all-star last season, has been playing this month for the Canadian team in the FISU Games — FISU being the International University Sport Federation. “After another stellar season with Waterloo in 2007,” says a report from UW’s athletics department, “Adrian continued his pursuit of a spot on the Canadian University team. He attended a three-day training camp and men’s invitational in San Diego in February. Adrian turned a few heads as an integral part of the Canadian squad, ultimately winning gold at the tournament. Based on his performances, Adrian is one of 12 players selected to the National University Men's 7 team. The FISU World Championships took place in Cordoba, Spain, July 16-19.” It quotes Lui: “I'm very grateful, but I'm also very happy that some of my hard work has paid off. I've worked hard and really improved in each area in my five years at UW.” Throughout his five-year career at Waterloo, Lui “was a leader both on and off the field,” the athletics department says. “In addition to his on field accolades, he was also active in helping the team fundraise, member of the IU council, and was a regular speaker in the athletics department’s Team Up community outreach program. He graduated from Waterloo with a degree in kinesiology.”

A message sent this week to international students who are in PhD programs at UW: "As you may noticed, the International Doctoral Award, which compensates the extra tuition fee that international students pay, terminates after three years. As the average standard time for PhD is four years, termination of the award causes financial problem for the students. In International Graduate Student Issues Committee (IGSIC), we are working on finding some solutions to the problem and make recommendations to GSA to brought up the issue at the university level. To do so, we need some statistical information on the number of the students who are dealing with this problem. Please help us in gathering such information by replying to this e-mail (to psepehrb@engmail) and answering the following questions: Number of terms completed (including current term)? Have you applied for immigration to Canada? If yes, when and where did you apply? How long do you expect your PhD to take? All the information will be held in confidence."

And . . . yesterday's Daily Bulletin announced a pilot program for a new student e-mail service that information systems and technology is hoping to offer. Students are being invited to test the new service, and I wrote that "For more information and signup, IST has a web site ready," but some readers saw a version of the paragraph that didn't actually provide a link to that web site. Here's one now.

CAR

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