Professional planners as well as UW planning faculty and students, and high school visitors, all took part in the World Town Planning Day charrette that was held November 10. The four-hour intensive session was focused on possible ways of improving the Victoria Street corridor in Kitchener. Dan Currie, director of policy planning for the City of Cambridge (far right), sat in on this subgroup's discussions.

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Senate votes yes to Emirates campus

Senate, the university’s academic governing body, last night voted to “endorse in principle” the plan for a UW campus in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, “as it has been described to Senate to date”.

Some ten senators voted No on the motion, but perhaps three times that many voted Yes, including some who had raised pointed questions about the plan — the logistics, the finances, the morality — in the discussion that led up to the vote.

It was the longest debate Senate has held about anything in this century, running from 5:00, when provost Amit Chakma began a background briefing about the UAE project, until 7:30, well past the normal adjournment time for a monthly senate meeting.

The effort to create a UAE campus has been talked about for years, but last night’s formal vote was a milestone, and a number of senators said it should have come much sooner. “Approval from senate hasn’t been explicit and it hasn’t been timely,” said David DeVidi, philosophy professor and president of the faculty association.

This month’s discussion was an outgrowth of briefer talk about the UAE project at the October senate meeting, when president David Johnston invited questions that he said would be answered this month.

The result — distributed with the agenda for yesterday’s meeting and in several last-minute handouts — included half a dozen individual letters, a three-page statement signed by 11 student senators, and an array of 29 questions posed from across campus after an invitation by the faculty association.

Addressing the points made in most of them was a five-page “UW in the UAE” handout, concluding with a statement that “the UW administration welcomes further opportunities for education and dialogue with faculty, staff and students about this initiative.” Chakma told the senate that the document was largely put together by Erin Windibank of the university secretariat.

Among the handouts was a memo with word of a motion passed by the council of the School of Computer Science, expressing “dismay at not being consulted in a timely manner about UW’s plans for Dubai”. The dean of mathematics responded that the whole thing has been talked about openly in the math faculty for two years or more, and CS professors had plenty of opportunity to express opinions if they wanted to.

“It feels like when we ask the questions, we’re given a response that has not been very thoughtful,” complained Justin Williams, president of the Federation of Students. He said it hadn’t even been easy to get a motion onto senate’s agenda so that a yes-or-no vote about the UAE campus could be taken.

Chakma gave the senate “an undertaking” that the UW administration will try to avoid such situations in future, particularly by bringing any megaprojects forward for early discussion by the faculty relations committee. He also promised senate to come back at the next meeting with a proposal for oversight of issues affecting the UAE campus, either through existing committees or with some new body.

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'It is not the same,' provost agrees

Summarizing the UAE plans at the beginning of the discussion, the provost reminded senate that the idea is to operate “two-plus-two” programs in which students take their first two years of study at a site in Dubai, then come to Waterloo for the last two years. The initial programs are to be chemical and civil engineering (starting in 2009) and information technology management and finance and risk management (starting in 2010).

Tuition fees from students in those programs, totalling $22 million a year if enrolment targets are met, would provide 32 new faculty positions in the engineering and math faculties, the provost said. The fees would also cover other costs of operating the Dubai programs, and leave a $3 million to $5 million annual surplus that’s earmarked for capital projects on the main campus: the Engineering VI building and new space for the math faculty.

“If we can execute it well,” said the provost, “it will improve UW’s academic quality.” He added that “future opportunities” in the UAE might include programs in public health, international affairs, digital media, planning, environment and business, and science and business.

“We also believe that this is good for Canada,” said Chakma, calling the Waterloo plan “Canada’s first major overseas campus”.

Much of the discussion, both on the floor of senate and in the written questions and answers, dealt with human rights issues, and the legal and cultural differences between Canada and the United Arab Emirates. A key issue is the Emirates’ laws against homosexual behaviour.

“This is a wonderful opportunity,” said Craig Sloss, president of the Graduate Student Association, adding that he has major reservations because of the risk that gay students, faculty or staff would face, and doubts that UW is determined to protect their rights. “If I could be persuaded that if one of our students were prosecuted for consensual sodomy, our university would pack up and leave, I would be more inclined to support it.”

A graduate student in management sciences, invited to speak about her own experiences, told senate that she graduated from the UAE University (“the girls’ campus”) and has now experienced academic life in both the United States and Canada, exploding many of her own stereotypes along the way. North Americans shouldn’t accept stereotypes either, she said, insisting that life in the modern UAE is much different from life in, say, Saudi Arabia, where women are seriously repressed.

And Chakma made much the same point, declaring that “there are places that I wouldn’t go,” though he declined to name them: “any country where we have to compromise our academic freedom within the confines of our own campus, any place where there’ll be a requirement for us to teach in a segregated way, where human rights violations or safety are such that if you run foul of local authority, they have draconian rules.”

Said the provost: “I know human rights violations because I have lived through it. I am the strongest defender of human rights that you’ll ever find on the planet.” He recalled that more than a decade ago he had a job offer from the Emirates and spent several days checking out the country, coming home impressed with the quality of living, the openness of academic life — with female students as well as male — and, in particular, public safety.

“Having said that,” the provost observed, “it is not the same: it is not Canada, it is not Waterloo.”

As Waterloo becomes a global university, said dean of environment Deep Saini, inevitably “we will be doing business in places that are not like this place. Myself, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I want to go to places that are different! We have a responsibility to dare to be in those places.”

Environment professors Bruce Mitchell (the associate provost, academic and student affairs) and Susan Wismer spoke about their many years of research work in Indonesia. When that activity started, the country was a military dictatorship, Mitchell recalled, and some Canadian academics thought the moral course was to stay away. But others said that Canadians could serve as “a small agent of change in an incremental way”, and that turned out to be true, especially in the opening minds of Indonesian students who came to Canada, saw what its culture was like and took western ideas home with them.

“I am a strong supporter of the university taking various forms of prudent risk,” said Wismer as last night’s debate neared its close.

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Flakes in an early-season flurry

I was away for a few days on some personal travel, got back into town on Sunday, and by mid-evening was wondering whether we'd end up invoking the winter storm closing policy on Monday morning. Such a thing has never happened in November, and of course it turned out that the snow was manageable and we even saw some blue sky by midday on Monday. Here's a reminder, though, that when full-scale winter does hit, the university will close for the day if — and only if — the Waterloo Region District School Board closes all its schools. You can decide for yourself whether to hope that happens, or hope it doesn't, any time soon.

So that was my welcome back to Waterloo: that, plus the opportunity to read up on what happened while I was away, such as the release of this year's Maclean's magazine university rankings, and public lectures by the likes of Mark Kielburger and Ralph Nader. I also have a note from Ryan Jacobs of the development office, letting me know that "UW donors and Arts alumni, faculty, staff, and retirees came out on Wednesday, November 12, for a special performance of the drama department's Julius Caesar. The Modern Languages foyer was adorned with regal royal and ivory draping and beautiful ficus plants to set the ambience for the guests. After opening remarks from Meg Beckel and Gerd Hauck, the drama department put on another extremely successful show. Guests had the chance to mingle with the talented cast and crew after the performance over a delightful dessert reception."

E-mail is also at hand from Tom Carey, founder of the Centre for Learning and Teaching Through Technology (now part of UW's Centre for Teaching Excellence) and for several years associate vice-president (learning resources and innovation). Carey is still a faculty member in the department of management sciences, but notes that he is "on leave from UW for the next two years to work on multi-institution collaborative projects to enhance teaching and learning. The Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario recently announced the new research program I am leading for them. The other half of my time involves leadership for similar projects in the U.S., including one national project and two within the state of California. We are gradually building links between the Ontario and U.S. based projects, e.g., four Ontario universities are collaborating to build a set of digital case stories on exemplary faculty practice in Academic Integrity, using the approaches we have been developing in the national project sponsored by the U.S. Dept of Education."

Here's a reminder that tomorrow will be GIS Day, where the initials stand for Geographic Information Systems. "All students, faculty and staff are invited to participate," writes Eva Dodsworth of the University Map Library, which is hosting the fifth annual event along with the Faculty of Environment. Things will run from 11:30 to 2:30 in the Environment I courtyard, she says: "Come out to talk to students, faculty and staff and learn how GIS technology is making a difference in their research and studies. Events will include GPS, and Google Earth session, cake and draw prizes." More information on this event and how to sign up for the GPS and Google Earth sessions is available online.

Kate Jessop of the marketing and undergraduate recruitment office is on a two-week trip to Kuwait, Jordan, and (yes) the United Arab Emirates to draw attention to UW programs. • Leaders of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance were at Queen's Park yesterday lobbying members of the Ontario legislature about possible improvements to student aid and the financing of universities. • The UW bookstore's fall book sale runs today through Thursday in the South Campus Hall concourse.

CAR

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