President, provost speak at town hall

UW’s economic prospects and the recent “postponement” of hiring and discretionary spending are expected to get most of the attention as president David Johnston and provost Amit Chakma answer questions from the campus community at a “town hall meeting” this afternoon.

The event, aimed at staff and faculty members, is scheduled to start at 3:00 p.m. in the Humanities Theatre, Hagey Hall, and to run until about 4:30.

Meg Beckel, vice-president (external relations), will be the moderator. She'll begin the event with words of welcome and quick answers to a number of the simpler questions that have been raised about hiring and spending in this fiscal year. Then she’ll introduce Johnston, who will give a few comments about UW’s situation (“we believe that we are in rather good shape,” he told the university senate on October 20) and on proposals for building up the university’s income, such as recruitment of more international students.

Then the president and the provost, UW’s second-ranking official, will answer questions as Beckel poses them. The questions will be based on queries suggested by staff and faculty members following an invitation in this Daily Bulletin two weeks ago. About 30 people responded to the invitation, each sending one or several questions that today’s speakers will try to deal with. Key issues: How safe is the pension fund? Is there the possibility of an early retirement program to reduce UW’s staff costs? How will the pause in faculty hiring affect new academic programs? Will workloads get worse?

Some questions were answered by a memo that was sent to departments Monday by the human resources department. It offered administrative clarifications of the hiring rules: employment of co-op students can go ahead in the normal way, maternity leave benefits are not affected, salary reclassifications can go ahead as usual.

If time allows at today’s meeting, the president and provost will also take questions from the floor.

Department heads are being asked to allow staff to get to the event if at all possible, and the period is to be treated as paid work time for those who do choose to attend. The Computer Help and Information Place and possibly other units across campus will be closed so that staff can attend the town hall meeting.

Parking for staff and faculty from UW's satellite campuses will be available in lot H across from the theatre.

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Barack Obama campaigns at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Photo courtesy of the Mason Gazette.

College angle on Obama's 'Yes we can'

I, for one, was up late last night watching Barack Obama get elected president of the United States, and I understand there was a goodly crowd at the Graduate House doing the same thing. Despite a couple of states where the count remains too close to call, the outcome was decisive: a Democratic president will take office January 20 to succeed the Republican George W. Bush, and he’ll have a Democratic-controlled Congress to work with.

The economy was the number one issue in this election, with national security and health following somewhere well behind. Education — especially higher education — was hardly mentioned in the campaign and isn’t expected to be much on the new president’s radar. A partial exception, though, is education’s price. As Obama’s speeches addressed his audience’s economic worries, he regularly listed four concerns: jobs, houses, pensions, and “sending your children and grandchildren to college”. (Explanation, in case it’s needed: “college” is American for “university”.)

Issues of the quality and relevance of post-secondary education barely surfaced, although the moderator in the final presidential debate did raise a question about whether American students’ low achievements in math and science pose a national security risk. The Chronicle of Higher Education says it couldn’t get either Obama or his rival, John McCain of the Republicans, to answer substantive questions about higher education.

“The underlying reality is that US presidents have little influence over higher education policy,” says Times Higher Education, explaining the American situation to a non-American (mostly British) audience. “Public universities are run by states, and private universities are largely autonomous.”

Another explanation, in case it’s needed: while nearly all Canadian universities (and colleges of applied arts and technology) are heavily tax-supported and government-regulated, only half of American institutions (with about three-quarters of all the students) are like that. Known as “public” colleges and universities, they range from the University of Michigan and the State University of New York to local, largely vocational community colleges. The rest of the sector is made up of “private” institutions, which again vary widely, from Harvard and Stanford to Buffalo’s D’Youville College.

One thing they nearly all have in common is tuition fees that have risen sharply in recent years — hence the presence of education as an economic concern. As the Times explains it, Obama and McCain “both say it should be easier for students and their families to get financial aid and tax credits to help pay for tuition. . . . The Republicans want a presidential commission convened to simplify the process; Mr. Obama would let families apply for tuition help by ticking a box on their tax forms,” and proposes a tax credit for families with university-age children that would give them about $4,000 a year towards tuition.

Federal aid of that kind is “seen as a relatively popular and relatively uncontroversial way to provide middle-class Americans with money or tax breaks to pay for college,” says one expert, Christopher Loss of Vanderbilt University. “The problem with that is, it has no impact on those who don’t pay taxes, who are too poor.”

The Chronicle calls it “surprising” that Obama has not been more engaged with education issues, “given how he has particularly tied his success to colleges. Professors, college officials, and other educators have donated eight times as much to Obama’s campaign as they have to McCain’s.” The Obama movement (“Change we can believe in”) has also relied on an army of student volunteers and included a massive get-out-the-vote effort on American campuses.

One way of measuring the importance of colleges and universities to Obama’s election will be to look at the county-by-county results of yesterday’s voting. Even in the deepest-dyed red (Republican) states, as in 2004, there will be a county or two showing up in Democratic blue. Look, in particular, for Travis County, Texas, home of the University of Texas at Austin, and Douglas County, Kansas, where the University of Kansas is based.

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Seeking the next University Professors

The provost has issued an invitation for department chairs and "the University community generally" to suggest who should receive the high honour of University Professor in 2009.

To date, a memo from provost Amit Chakma notes, UW “has awarded this distinction” to 13 faculty members: Garry Rempel, Mary Thompson and Mark Zanna in 2004; Terry McMahon, Cam Stewart and Robert Jan van Pelt in 2005; Phelim Boyle and Ian Munro in 2006; Ken Davidson, Keith Hipel and Jake Sivak in 2007; Roy Cameron and Flora Ng in 2008.

He summarizes the purpose of the award and the nomination process: "The University of Waterloo owes much of its reputation and stature to the quality of its eminent professors. UW recognizes exceptional scholarly achievement and international pre-eminence through the designation 'University Professor'. Once appointed, a faculty member retains the designation for life.

"Not counting retirees, it is anticipated there will be 14 University Professorships at steady state, with at most two appointments each year. Such appointments are reported to Senate and to the Board of Governors . . . and are recognized at Convocation."

Nominations are invited each fall. "A nominee shall have demonstrated exceptional scholarly achievement and international pre-eminence in a particular field or fields of knowledge. The individual who nominates a colleague is responsible for gathering the documentation and submitting it to the Vice-President, Academic & Provost. The University Tenure and Promotion Committee will act as the selection committee; its decisions are final.

"A nomination must be supported by at least six signatures from at least two UW departments and must be accompanied by a curriculum vitae and a short non-technical description of the nominee's contributions. A nomination must also be accompanied by letters from the nominee's Dean," and also comments from "scholars of international standing in the nominee's field" — the memo gives the details. The provost adds that the selection committee keeps the dossiers of unsuccessful nominees on hand for two more years, to be considered again with updated information.

Nominations for this year's awards should be "in my hands before Christmas", Chakma writes.

CAR

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