Alan Morgan of UW's department of earth sciences is the 2008 winner of the McNeil Medal from the Royal Society of Canada, honouring "outstanding ability to promote and communicate science to students and the public within Canada". Says a citation from the RSC: "Dr. Morgan is a gifted and committed communicator of science who achieved national and international prominence with his production of the highly acclaimed documentary film concerning the volcanic eruption of Eldfell in 1973. He is a superb and inspiring lecturer, remains prominent in the print media as an editor and author and is a leader in the educational use of electronic formats." Morgan is seen speaking at last October's opening of the Geotime Trail on Waterloo's west side — a 4.5-kilometre walk in which every metre represents 1,000,000 years of geological time.

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'Reused' Architecture building on show

UW’s historic Architecture building is among roughly 40 stops on tomorrow’s tour of Waterloo Region sites and buildings, as the annual Doors Open event takes place at cottages, churches, factories and a couple of fire stations.

The UW building in the old stone downtown of Galt, part of Cambridge, is typical of many locations on the Doors Open tour, in that it was built as one thing (a textile mill) and recently reimagined as something quite different.

“Waterloo Region is home to excellent examples of what architects and historians call ‘adaptive reuse’ properties,” says a Doors Open news release. “In the craft industry, this type of reuse is called ‘re-purposing’. In Waterloo Region, it means that we are able to save some heritage structures, involve community volunteers, and think creatively to find new purposes for old buildings. Twenty-one of the forty Doors Open Waterloo Region relate to the theme, Old Buildings, New Ideas.”

Some other examples: a former button factory on Regina Street that is now the Waterloo Community Arts Centre (and still dubbed “The Button Factory”); the Bonnie Stuart shoe factory in Kitchener, now converted into studios for 23 artists; the old Waterloo County Registry Office, now home of the Registry Theatre; a house in New Hamburg that’s now a restaurant.

And then there’s the Architecture building, 7 Melville Street, Cambridge, which opened four years ago after $14 million in renovations. The Riverside Silk Mill, also known as the “Tiger Brand” building, was originally built in 1919, and had stood empty since 2000 when UW took it over with the support of community partners and multiple levels of government. Renovations were designed by Levitt Goodman Architects, Toronto. The three-level, 85,000-square-foot facility now accommodates about 400 architecture students, faculty and staff members.

Says the architecture school’s web site: “Situated along the banks of the Grand River, the former industrial building provides wonderful spaces for design studios, labs, and classrooms. It also includes a superb design library, exhibition galleries, public auditorium, and cafe. As part of the historic downtown core of Galt, set within the larger City of Cambridge, the location is extremely attractive for a School of Architecture. The urban landscape in the surrounding community is one of the most beautiful in Ontario. There is a marvellous stock of heritage buildings nearby and the Grand River is a powerful presence, a designated Heritage River and the principal element in a diverse system of natural spaces within the City of Cambridge. Students are immersed in the urban setting by living in the community surrounding the School.”

Doors Open organizers add that “The last industrial loft built on the Grand River in Galt, Riverside Silk Mill had large open spaces flooded with light. The openness and light, the industrial feeling and the spectacular town and river views were preserved and enhanced in the building’s renovation to house the School of Architecture.”

The building is usually open to visitors anyway, but they’ll get a special welcome tomorrow between 10:00 and 4:00 as part of Doors Open. Admission, there and at the other sites around Waterloo Region, is free. A map and guide to all the sites is available at libraries, museums and tourist offices across the region.

Doors Open Waterloo Region is a part of Doors Open Ontario, a province-wide initiative of the Ontario Heritage Foundation to celebrate community heritage. Doors Open events originated in France in 1984; Toronto held the first Canadian Doors Open event in 2000, and Waterloo Region has been an active participant since 2003. “The aim of Doors Open Waterloo Region,” organizers say, “is to celebrate the community’s architectural and historical past and facilitate understanding and enjoyment of local architecture and built heritage; as well, Doors Open encourages partnerships between building owners, the business community, the cities and townships, the heritage community, and community volunteers.

“The event allows visitors free access to properties that are either not usually open to the public, or would normally charge an entrance fee. The event is free, no tickets are needed and no pre-registration is required. In addition, many places open behind-the-scene areas that are not usually accessible to the public.”

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More profs on sabbatical this fall

Here’s another list of UW faculty members who are on sabbatical leaves that started September 1, 2008. Each professor’s plans for the leave are described as they were listed in the agenda for the university’s board of governors, which has to give approval for all sabbaticals.

Achim Kempf, pure mathematics (six months’ leave): “I am planning to spend two months at the University of Naples, Italy, to work with G. Mangano and G. Bimonte on cosmology and superconductivity, followed by four months at the University of Queensland, Australia, to work with G. Milburn and T. Ralph on relativistic quantum information.”

Ajit Singh, electrical and computer engineering (twelve months): “I plan to be in town for the major part of my proposed leave. I shall focus on widening my area of research to include multimedia group interactions and wide-area-network based learning tools and technologies.”

Arne Storjohann, computer science (twelve months): “Time will be spent on researching new algorithms and techniques for symbolic and exact linear algebra and algorithmic number theory. Some trips will be made to France and western Canada to pursue research collaborations with colleagues at other institutions.”

John Yeow, systems design engineering (six months): “My sabbatical leave will be used to develop international collaborations with universities in India, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. I will also be strengthening research ties with current research partners in Toronto and Vancouver. In addition, I will also make significant changes to my courses SDE 524, MTE 140, and SDE 682.”

One faculty member has a sabbatical starting a month later, on October 1, and running for six months. That’s Grace Chiu of statistics and actuarial science, who will “Start new collaborations with envirometricians and oceanographers on two NSERC projects (Strategic/ Discovery Grants) at Dalhousie University and DFO in Nova Scotia (thee months), and with SFU statisticians (Charmaine Dean and Rick Routledge); continue ongoing collaborations with R. Lockhart at SFU, P. Guttorp at U of Washington and A. Westveld at UNLV (three months combined West Coast and Nevada).”

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Other notes on a sunny Friday

The on-campus United Way campaign will be starting shortly; pledge packages go out at the beginning of October, and just before that comes next Thursday's "volunteer training and appreciation lunch". It's aimed at people from departments across campus who distribute the paperwork, encourage contributions towards UW's $175,000 campaign goal, and in some cases organize special fund-raising events. (Watch for news next week about what the university secretariat, notorious for Wacky Hair Day and other show-stopper events in previous years, is planning this time around.) At the lunch (Thursday at 11:45 in the Laurel Room), says co-op student Joanna Niezen, "speakers from United Way agencies will share the story of how contributions help their work." She notes that there's room for a few more United Way reps from various parts of the campus; anybody who would like to get involved can drop an e-mail note to unitdway@uwaterloo.ca.

A group of faculty members are meeting regularly to talk about the challenges of supervising graduate students, says a note in the fall issue of the Teaching Matters newsletter. “Many of us arrive at Waterloo with no training, little experience, and often ‘imposter’ feelings because it wasn’t so long ago that we were the ones being supervised,” writs Veronica Kitchen of the political science department. “The Faculty Learning Community on Graduate Supervision was established by CTE in Winter 2008 to give faculty the opportunity to reflect on and to clarify this complex new role, as well as to share resources, research, and strategies. The tri-weekly group meetings over coffee turned out to be a great way for members to share their triumphs and frustrations as graduate teachers, advisors, and supervisors – and as educators generally – in an informal, confidential setting. We discovered graduate handbooks, advisor training programs, and pedagogical tools from various universities around the world; we gave each other advice, learned about practices in many disciplines, and quizzed the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies on the state of graduate studies at Waterloo and in the province. . . . The Faculty Learning Community continues to meet, and we welcome new members, whether new or experienced faculty. Contact Trevor Holmes, ext. 33408, for details.”

Deaths of two retired staff members have been reported by the human resources department. George Waddle, who died August 30, was storeskeeper in chemical engineering from 1981 until his retirement July 1, 1996. Margaret Wilding, who died September 6, was a library clerk in the user services department of the Dana Porter Library from 1974 to her retirement December 1, 1985.

And . . . occasionally somebody asks me how many people read the Daily Bulletin. The real answer is "I don't know," partly because they can get to it in various ways: not just on the main web site (bulletin.uwaterloo.ca) but on unofficial mirror sites and also through a couple of Usenet newsgroups, not to mention copies that are printed for posting on bulletin boards. For what it's worth, though, I'll report that I have just seen some web statistics for the early days of September. They're showing between 4,000 and 5,000 visits to the Daily Bulletin site each weekday, and around 2,000 each weekend day — just about the same numbers that were showing up last March, when the winter term was in full swing. A total of 28,853 "unique visitors" have come to the site at least once in the first half of September; in all of March there were 46,907 people (or IP addresses) who read the Daily Bulletin at least once.

CAR

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