Renison University College residence don Hin Cheung says he benefits every day from a gift to Renison from entrepreneur Lincoln Wong. As a memorial to his late wife, librarian Lusi Wong, Lincoln Wong gave the college funds to help create what's now called the Lusi Wong Library, stocked with material on social work and East Asian studies, two of Renison's specialties. The donor and the library are featured in "We're Making the Future", the just-published report on supporters of UW and how their gifts are used.

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Extra funds help hire co-op students

New funding is being announced today to help UW departments hire co-op students for the winter term. “The ongoing difficult economic conditions have prompted the provost to once again provide funding to assist in the creation of jobs for co-op students, especially for those in their first work term,” says a memo from the co-op and career services department. “You are urged to seriously consider hiring students to help with your work, project, or research.”

UW is already the single biggest employer of co-op students; as the CECS memo says, “Students can help ease your workload, take on specific projects, or complete research. This is a perfect opportunity for both faculty members and academic support units to easily apply for extra funding.

“In order to simplify and streamline the administration of these funds we are combining the application process for Incremental Funding and the Undergraduate Research Internship Program.”

Here’s how it works, according to the memo: “Students must receive a total minimum pay of $6,000 or more for the term. You (as the employer) will receive funding support towards the student’s pay.

“Applications for funding will be accepted beginning December 7, 2009. Funds are limited; requests will be processed on a first-come, first-served basis. The Incremental Funding is temporary – limited to the January-April term — and applies to new positions from December 7 forward.

“You can use any source for your portion of the funding(e.g., other grant arrangements, programs, etc.).” The program provides a UW subsidy of $2,500 for hiring a first work term co-op student (“you provide a minimum of $3,500”) or $1,500 for any other student, co-op or regular (“you provide a minimum of $4,500”).

CECS just can’t say enough about the benefits of hiring co-op students: “Students are a great way to manage ongoing projects. Some areas of the university (such as the School of Computer Science) have been employing co-op students for over 30 years and have hired more than 400 students. Recently others have been involved with co-op as well.

“Your investment in hiring a junior student for your research project pays off in the long term. Many students hired to assist with research projects return in a future term.

“Students help manage your workload strategically. Many faculty and staff say that without co-op students they wouldn't get so much done. Now is a good time to hire students. There are a number of financial incentives available to make employing our students a good investment."

How to get started? “Prepare a job description, complete the application form, then contact Judi Whitfield at jwhit@ uwaterloo.ca or call ext. 36062.”

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'Amazing' to spend work term on campus

by Karina Graf, co-op education and career services

As the outreach and events co-ordinator for the Faculty of Science, 2B science-and-business student Leah Kocsis has seen a lot of stars. Not Angelina and Brad, mind you, but Polaris, Dubhe, and all the others visible in the night’s sky.

Kocsis has spent her fall 2009 work term organizing public outreach events, such as the November 17 stargazing event to celebrate the Leonid meteor shower. The event attracted community members, Waterloo faculty, staff, and students, as well as members of the Royal Astronomy Society of Canada.

Other highlights of her term included organizing Darwin Day and a lecture explaining the science behind H1N1. “I get to learn a lot about different areas of science that I haven’t studied in school,” she says, explaining why she loves the job. “I also get to work with a lot of different people, like profs, students, and young kids. Every day is different.”

This is her second work term on campus. Following a rewarding experience with the International Genetically Engineered Machines team, she says she focused on UW job postings for her second work term.“I had fun working for UW the first term,” she says, “so I was really interested in jobs on campus when I was looking for my next job.

“It’s amazing to be on campus. You don’t realize as a student how much else there is going on outside of classes when you’re just here for school.”

The winter term will mark Jenna Dawson’s eighth consecutive term on the Waterloo campus – nearly three straight years without reprieve. In addition to her school terms, the 3B psychology co-op student has also spent three work terms on campus, employed as a research intern for the Waterloo Centre for the Advancement of Co-operative Education.

WatCACE develops and researches improvements and advances in co-op; Dawson’s current project focuses on possible enhancements to student work reports. So far, she’s identified inconsistencies between program report requirements and noticed useful innovations in other programs.

She finds her work with WatCACE rewarding: “I like the fact that I’m looking into something new that no one else has researched yet. Since I’m in the co-op program, it’s good to know what’s going on within the co-op department and that I can make improvements to something I’m currently in. Similarly, I’m working for the university and I’m also paying tuition, so it’s nice to have an idea of what’s going on behind the scenes, see where my money is going, and have the chance to investigate and hopefully implement positive changes.”

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In the gap between classes and exams

The end of fall term classes also means the end of snacks and drinks at some food services outlets on campus. Friday was the last day, until the new year, for — let's see — Pastry Plus in Matthews Hall, the PAS building lounge, Tim Hortons in Modern Languages, and Festival Fare in South Campus Hall. Other outlets will continue their regular hours until December 18 or, in a few cases, December 23, the last working day of 2009 for most people on campus. And for the sake of those writing exams and studying on weekends over the next little while, there will even be some food service on Saturdays and Sundays: at Tim Hortons in the Student Life Centre (24 hours a day from today through December 17), Subway in the SLC (11:30 to 6:30 on Saturdays and Sundays), and Browsers in the Dana Porter Library (11:30 to 8 on Saturdays, 11:30 to 5 on Sundays). Cafeterias in the residences are also a seven-day-a-week operation, of course, and while Mudie's in Village I will extend its hours somewhat during exam season, REVelation in Ron Eydt Village is going all the way: 24 hours a day, today through the 17th.

Some 385 Waterloo Region high school students will participate in Canada's only Federal-Provincial Government Conference Simulation in UW’s arts buildings today and tomorrow. Organized by UW's political science department and the local association of history department heads, the simulation has been an annual event at UW for more than 30 years. This year, delegations from 17 schools will take part, and a highlight will be a video greeting sent to them by Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty. "The conference is an excellent opportunity for students to become interested and engaged in politics while in high school," says John Jaworsky, professor of political science. The role of Canada's prime minister will be handled by Steacy McIlwham of Sir John A. Macdonald Secondary School in northwest Waterloo. Other students from SJAM will serve as federal ministers. Students from other schools will represent provinces and territories, holding first ministers’ conferences and sessions on finance, justice, health, the environment, agriculture and economic affairs, immigration and aboriginal affairs. Working sessions take place in several rooms in the Arts Lecture Hall, Hagey Hall and the Modern Languages building; the concluding plenary session will be held in the Theatre of the Arts tomorrow starting at 1:45.

The team responsible for UW's web redesign project — ultimately affecting several hundred thousand web pages on servers across the university — announced on Friday that they've picked a firm called White Whale Web Services as the consultant to assist with the job. “The selection,” a blog posting says, “was based on a number of criteria including qualifications, approach, experience, and pricing. White Whale scored the highest overall and was deemed to be the best fit to meet Waterloo's goal to have an innovative, unconventional and engaging website, all while ensuring the overall usability and accessibility of our site. . . . White Whale will be working very closely with a number of team members on campus including graphics, Communications and Public Affairs, and a number of other key stakeholders.”

I don’t suppose Guinness keeps a record in this category, so I’m going to declare it unilaterally: today is the biggest day in UW history for the production of Doctors of Philosophy. By tradition, the day a student becomes “doctor” is the day he or she passes the oral thesis examination, and today there are no fewer than seven PhD orals scheduled. They’ve been announced in this Daily Bulletin over recent days, of course, and include three in mathematics (one computer science, one combinatorics and optimization, one applied math), two in engineering (one electrical and computer, one management sciences) and two in science (one optometry, one physics and astronomy). UW gave a total of 214 PhDs last year and presumably will surpass that figure slightly in 2009.

CAR

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