UW honours 25-year employees

Thirty-four people who came to work at UW in 1983 will be honoured tonight for their 25 years of service. Among them: the university photographer, a faculty member who’s about to become an acting dean, the director of finance, the head of central stores, and people whose day-to-day work keeps the university going in departments from the library to civil engineering.

When they arrived, Doug Wright was UW’s president, the long-serving Bruce Gellatly was in his last year as vice-president (finance and operations), Bill Lennox was dean of engineering, and J. S. Minas was “university computing officer”, in an environment where e-mail was a rarely used means of communication and there was no such thing as a web site.

There was also no such thing as the Davis Centre (Bill Davis was serving as Ontario’s premier). There was no Federation Hall, no Columbia Lake Village. The Columbia Icefield was new that year (left), and Waterloo’s big project for the computerization of the Oxford English Dictionary was starting.

In the wider world, Pierre Trudeau was prime minister, Ronald Reagan was president of the United States, Marjorie Carroll was mayor of Waterloo. The year also brought “Thriller”, “Flashdance”, the launch of Microsoft Word, and a Nobel Prize for Lech Walesa.

And that was the year Dave Thomas joined UW’s co-op education and career services department, Michael Holmes came to work for the university library, and Fathy Ismail began his career as a faculty member in mechanical engineering. Also during that twelve-month period Efrim Boritz joined the “accounting group”, still attached to the department of economics and far from being a “school” with its own title and reputation.

Patrick Cameron came to work in the central plant that year, Tina Roberts came to the registrar’s office (there wasn’t yet an office of “marketing and undergraduate recruitment”), and Gordon Cormack jointed the “department” of computer science. Here’s the full list of 1983 arrivals who are to be honoured tonight:

Also on tonight’s VIP list are a smaller group of people who joined the UW faculty and staff ten years before that, in 1973, and so are marking their 35th anniversary in 2008. It seems incredible that my own name appears on the 35-year list:

The annual 25-Year Club reception starts at 6:00 tonight at the Physical Activities Complex, and will see the 25-year and 35-year employees presented with souvenir gifts. Previous years’ 25-year employees, dating back to the 1957 arrivals who were the first members of the 25-Year Club in 1982, have been invited to attend. The event will provide a chance for old-timers to greet the 1983 newcomers and each other, marvelling at how the time flies and how much UW has changed — or how little. Arrangements for the 25-Year Club party are made by the human resources department (last-minute information, phone ext. 32078).

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Chair to study 'green' finance

a release from the UW media relations office

UW and Export Development Canada have announced the creation of a new research chair, funded by EDC, to identify financial tools and practices that will help companies adopt better business practices, such as socially responsible investing and a triple bottom-line performance. The EDC Chair in Environmental Finance, based in Waterloo's Centre for Environment and Business, will explore financial tools such as carbon financing and clean energy funds.

"There has been an explosion of 'green' in the marketplace. The EDC Chair will build on that demand and identify tools companies can use to address environmental issues such as climate change and environmental sustainability in emerging markets, while expanding their own business opportunities," says Deep Saini, dean of the faculty of environmental studies.

The new EDC chair will be reserved for an expert who has made a strong contribution to studies in environment, business and finance. UW will also hire an additional professor in a related field to further expand its centre for environment and business.

"This initiative strengthens EDC's commitment to facilitating environmental leadership by Canadian firms," says Eric Siegel, EDC president and chief executive officer. "We are proud to be associated with the University of Waterloo in meeting a growing need of Canadian companies to integrate environmental and business issues." EDC is a leader among the world's export credit agencies in assessing the environmental impacts of its business and in its corporate social responsibility policies.

"The EDC Chair in Environmental Finance expands our university's contribution to one of today's most pressing issues," says UW president David Johnston. "This contribution by EDC will expand UW's Centre for Environment and Business, which is educating the next generation of corporate leaders who can ensure a more sustainable environment for the future." The centre is home to Canada's only undergraduate program to integrate environmental and business knowledge with 20 months of co-op work experience.

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Faculty members list sabbatical plans

Here’s the latest list of UW faculty members who are on sabbatical leave. Each of these sabbaticals began May 1, 2008. The note provided about the researcher’s plans is what was submitted for information to the UW board of governors, which has to give approval for all sabbaticals.

Susan Tighe, civil and environmental engineering (on sabbatical for twelve months): “Since joining the University of Waterloo, my primary research area has been into the material selection, design, construction and maintenance of roads and pavements. During the research sabbatical, new materials and pavement design, specifically sustainable designs that accommodate for climate change, will be researched. It is expected that some time will be spent at other research institutions in Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand.”

Cathy Gebotys, electrical and computer engineering (six months): “Although security is increasingly widespread in many embedded devices, it is often the case that the implementation is subject to attack through side channels or other means. This proposed sabbatical will conduct state of art research into secure embedded systems design. For example, the research will develop countermeasures to attacks as well as research security in highly constrained embedded systems such as satellites, RFIDs, etc. New collaborations and sources of funding, research publications, and a book will be among the many expected outcomes.”

Michael Mayer, mechanical and mechatronics engineering (six months): “Planned activities include research, graduate students supervision, intensified publishing, and research collaboration visits. Research based on our in situ microsensor technology will focus on the automatic microjoint high temperature reliability. Improved reliability microjoints are needed in the fields of automotive electronics and rugged environmental sensors, e.g., used for oil drilling. Research will be published, e.g., in J. App. Phys. A. and presented at IMAPS and ECTC Conferences.”

Alejandro Lopez-Ortiz, computer science (twelve months): “I will continue my research in the development of more accurate models and novel algorithms for online paging and caching at Freiburg University; the development of a new model and algorithms for multicore processors which are fast becoming the predominant architecture for computer systems at Max Planck Institute; the study and design of indexing algorithms for search engines at Yahoo Research Spain.”

Michael Collins, mechanical and mechatronics engineering (six months): “The sabbatical leave will be spent at the University of Waterloo. The Solar Thermal Research Lab will be relocating from Engineering III to the new Centre for Advanced Photovoltaic Devices and Systems building in the spring. The sabbatical will be used to move equipment and develop the new facilities, and to initiate new research projects enabled by the addition of this new lab space.”

CAR

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