"A vital part' of the campus visit program is the Student Ambassador team, says Kim McKee, manager of the UW visitor centre in South Campus Hall. "This fall, our team consists of 28 students from across six faculties," she says. "With great public speaking and interpersonal skills, these amazing students give campus tours to future students and their families, work in the Visitors Centre answering inquiries about admission to UW, and provide everyone with a warm and friendly welcome. Our goal is to make sure that everyone who leaves UW becomes a raving UW fan! Throughout the month of September, the Ambassador team continues to take part in training sessions for customer service, faculties, International Recruitment, CECS, Inquiry Management, and Admissions, as well as learning about other hot spots on campus like Housing, Retail Services and Athletics."

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'Student leadership' workshops coming

A series of 12 workshops on "student leadership" will be available — free — to all UW's students starting next year, and the university's Office of Organizational and Human Development is now looking for students and staff members to train as facilitators for them.

"The intent is to help UW students gain knowledge and develop skills to excel at leadership on campus and within the community," says a flyer from OHD. The office's director, Katrina Di Gravio, says experimental versions of the workshops were offered earlier this year to about 450 students, and a new sequence is being offered this fall, facilitated by OHD staff member Susan Grant. The first sessions were held yesterday, and scheduled sessions are fully booked, Di Gravio said.

The full program will consist of a dozen two-hour workshops. Topics include "Exploring the Principles of Leadership", "Components of a Cohesive Team", "Conflict Management Exploration", "Organizing, Planning and Running and Effective Team Meeting", and "Building Your Credibility as a Student Leader".

Grant is only one person, and organizers expect heavy student demand when the workshops are thrown open next year, so OHD is looking for a few "creative and enthusiastic students and staff" to assist. The idea is to have a student and a staff member leading each session, "with the intent to develop a mentorship program within the facilitation team," an OHD background paper says.

"This is a volunteer opportunity for staff and faculty. Staff, in particular, will have the opportunity to learn facilitation and presentation skills which can be valuable assets in seeking more senior positions on campus. Student facilitators will be financially compensated.

"The facilitation of the Student Leadership Program is a superb opportunity for students, staff and faculty at UW to work with a variety of students from across campus. A flexible time commitment will be required each term."

Details and application forms are available on the OHD web site. The application deadline is October 30, and facilitation training is scheduled for early December.

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Provincial grants for 7 researchers

Seven Waterloo professors, doing research on topics ranging from wireless communications to cryptography and quantum computing, have received almost $1 million in funding announced yesterday by the Ontario government.

John Wilkinson, the minister of research and innovation, came to a Waterloo high-tech company, Dalsa Corp., to announce a total of $3.5 million in grants from the Ontario Research Fund’s research infrastructure program. The money will support 26 projects across the province.

UW's share of the funding totals $933,046 to pay for lab space, equipment and computer software. "These crucial investments at Waterloo will enable our researchers to advance their work and lead to discoveries in communications and quantum computing," says George Dixon, UW's vice-president (university research).

The UW researchers and their projects, as summarized in a UW news release:

• Slim Boumaiza, professor of electrical and computer engineering, develops portable, flexible and cost competitive wireless communications. Provincial Funding: $230,624. Boumaiza seeks to advance wireless communications by developing intelligent, software enabled and cognitive radios. These radio technologies enable global interoperability — the ability to use and exchange information anywhere — and enhanced spectrum utilization or more airway space.

• Kevin Resch, professor of physics and astronomy, heads a lab for optical quantum computation and communication technologies. Provincial Funding: $130,000. Resch studies how to harness the quantum properties of light for such applications as fundamental physics to advanced cryptography devices. His work will result in quantum technology commercialization, including rapid processing to secure transmission of information.

• Dayan Ban, professor of electrical and computer engineering, develops forefront communications products. Provincial Funding: $100,000. Ban explores terahertz frequencies to design and make terahertz devices, leading to new imaging systems and communications products. Terahertz frequencies are between the electromagnetic bands widely used for many applications such as radar, cable television and the cell phone.

• David Nairn, professor of electrical and computer engineering, develops sophisticated converters. Provincial funding: $50,000. Nairn uses a complex low-jitter test-bench to develop high-speed converters that translate between the digital and analog worlds. These devices are essential components of most current and future imaging and communications systems.

• Jonathan Baugh, professor of chemistry and physics, develops faster and more powerful computers. Provincial funding: $119,998. Baugh looks at new laws inside the atom — like the power of spin (a fundamental quantum property of electrons and nuclei) — to encode and manipulate quantum information. His work will result in faster and more powerful computers, while ensuring the information is secure.

• Gregor Weihs, professor of physics and astronomy, develops the perfect security code. Provincial Funding: $157,424. Weihs investigates quantum key distribution, or quantum cryptography, and uses quantum mechanics to guarantee secure communication. The emerging technology will be applicable in fields as diverse as the military and health care.

• Manoj Sachdev, professor of electrical and computer engineering, develops advanced integrated circuits. Provincial funding: $145,000. Sachdev studies nanometric integrated circuits. These circuits contain several hundred millions of components on an area no larger than a fingernail. His work focuses on making them faster, cheaper and more reliable in the long term.

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Other notes as a month begins

Tracey Sinclair of the UW graduate studies office reports that a recruitment tour of selected Canadian universities "has begun for our next admissions cycle. Recruitment and Admissions staff will be representing all UW graduate programs this week at graduate studies fairs hosted by the University of British Columbia, the Memorial University of Newfoundland, and the University of Toronto. Our full recruitment schedule is online. This is part of our efforts to achieve the graduate growth targets outlined in the Sixth Decade plan."

Announcements have gone out for WatITis 2008 — this year’s one-day conference for information technology staff from across the university. It’s scheduled for Tuesday, December 2, the day after fall term classes end. The theme is “Making The Future,” says Lawrence Folland of the Computer Science Computing Facility, co-chair of the conference along with Jim Bell of the Math Faculty CF. “We are also intending to have a bit of a focus on green initiatives — things we can do to be environmentally friendlier.” The sixth annual event “will again bring you and your colleagues from across campus, face-to-face to exchange knowledge and experience,” a widely distributed memo says. “We would like to invite you to actively participate as a speaker, presenter or panelist for one or more of our sessions in the areas of Teaching, Research, Institutional Support, Green initiatives or General Interest. . . . From last year's survey, we heard a strong desire to see presentations about tools and techniques that some of you have developed that may not have had wider campus exposure and may be of use to the rest of us.” Registration for the conference will open in early November, once the program is set. WatITis organizers note that most of the talks given at last year’s conference are now available as podcasts.

The recent announcement of new Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada included not just two UW faculty members, but a former faculty member in kinesiology: Arend Bonen, now in the department of human biology and nutrition sciences at the University of Guelph. • Thanks to a scanner error, Monday’s Daily Bulletin misspelled the name of one of the UW professors who received tenure as of July 1 this year: Arne Storjohann of the school of computer science. • The same Daily Bulletin referred to the Green Party candidate in Kitchener-Waterloo riding as “Kathy MacLellan”; she is Cathy with a C.

So you think Taeyeon Kim can dance? Television viewers across the country will find out tonight, as the UW computer science student tries to make it into the final 20 competitors for CTV television's hot show. "He took part in our Campus Recreation 'Waterloo's Got Talent' dance show this past winter," I'm told, "and he certainly wowed the crowd at that time. The style of dance he performed was called 'popping'." A video from his SYTYCD audition, in Toronto earlier this month, is (inevitably) on YouTube.

And for those who can't dance, but can govern, there's always the CBC television event "Canada's Next Great Prime Minister". Kevin Royal, last year's president of the Federation of Students, was one of the CBC finalists this spring, and sends an update: "In addition to my participation in the 2008 show, a finalist of the 2007 show, Balinder Ahluwalia, has just recently started working towards his MBET degree at Waterloo. Seems like UW has been pretty well represented in the national contest! This year's campus tour is going to be visiting UW today to promote the contest in its current incarnation."

CAR

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