Competing for Canada this week is Sophia Hsueh, a third-year health studies student and a member of UW's Taekwondo Club. She has been training with Kitchener-based master Julio Vasquez, and will be in competition starting today in the 25th Universiade (world university games) in Belgrade, Serbia.

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Governments help improve Warrior Field

a news release from the UW media relations office

The University of Waterloo is welcoming donations totalling more than $1.2 million to further develop Warrior Field on the north campus as a recreation facility serving the wider Waterloo community.

The offices of Peter Braid, Member of Parliament for Kitchener-Waterloo, and John Milloy, MPP for Kitchener-Centre, announced that the federal and Ontario governments are each donating $615,941 to expand and redevelop Warrior Field.

“We look forward to sharing Warrior Field with a range of community groups,” says UW president David Johnston.

The funding will help to transform the temporary field created last year near the Columbia Icefield complex, which houses a rink, gyms and sports facilities. Last year Waterloo built its own natural turf football field, including temporary bleachers, after many years of renting space in University Stadium, which is owned by Wilfrid Laurier University.

The funding will support the installation of a synthetic turf playing field, which is more flexible and durable than grass. Lights will expand the field’s hours of use to accommodate Waterloo’s intramural programs and community demands. Warrior Field will include grandstand seating for approximately 1,400, with sloped lawn seating bringing the total to 4,400.

The enhanced field will support more than 30,000 Waterloo students who compete in dozens of varsity or intramural field sports like cricket, field hockey, football, soccer and ultimate frisbee. The number of program hours will increase significantly, allowing students and area residents more field time in an area where playing fields are in short supply.

“We currently have to decline requests to use our facilities and cannot accommodate our current student demand, so this will go a long way in serving both our students and the wider community,” said Bob Copeland, director of athletics and recreational services. “What started as a field of dreams last year helped to galvanize a lot of student pride and community excitement that we look forward to building upon.”

Total cost of the project is estimated at $1,847,822. Work can begin immediately and should be complete over the next year. The grandstand will be built as a first phase and will be completed for the upcoming season.

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Changes among UW's top executives

Some new faces joined UW’s top administration as of July 1, and some familiar faces have new mandates — here’s a rundown.

It starts with the most familiar face of them all, that of Alan George, who has served for 22 of the past 29 years in a series of positions on Executive Council, sometimes with more than one role at once. Among those responsibilities: he’s been associate provost (information systems and technology) since July 2003, and he’s now been reappointed to a further two years in that position.

Provost Amit Chakma issued a memo Tuesday (his own last day at UW) announcing George’s re-appointment to the IST post. “I am personally grateful to Professor Alan George,” Chakma wrote, “for his long standing commitment and dedication to UW and his willingness to continue as Associate Provost, IST for an additional two year term. President Johnston and I are confident that he will have your full cooperation and support.”

Chakma himself left Waterloo as of July 1 to become president of the University of Western Ontario. Serving as interim vice-president (academic) and provost through July and August is Bruce Mitchell, the associate provost (academic and student affairs).

Mitchell had been filling in for the past year as associate vice-president (international). As of July 1, that position goes to Leo Rothenburg, civil engineering professor and for 2008-09 acting dean of the faculty of engineering. The dean, Adel Sedra, returns from his sabbatical leave as of July 1.

Alan George, meanwhile, finishes his two-year stint as interim dean of graduate studies. Arriving July 1 to take that position, but with the new title of associate provost (graduate studies), is Sue Horton, formerly a faculty member and vice-president (academic) at Wilfrid Laurier University.

Also new to the UW administration is Janet Passmore, who has been an insurance executive and an external member of the university’s board of governors. She becomes associate provost (human resources) as of July 1.

Catharine Scott, who has been associate provost (human resources and student services), continues with the student services portfolio, pending her retirement at the end of this year. Interim provost Mitchell said this week that a review is under way of how UW’s student services departments are organized, and there will be a decision at some point about what senior official they will report to in the future.

Elsewhere in the university a number of offices have new occupants: James Rush becomes chair of the department of kinesiology; Joseph Novak becomes interim chair of the department of philosophy; Guy Poirier becomes interim chair of the department of French studies; Ian Goulden becomes chair of the department of combinatorics and optimization; Mavis Fenn becomes acting chair of the department of religious studies; Riley Metzger becomes director of first-year studies in the faculty of mathematics.

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Notes: a building, a deadline, a policy

The engineering faculty’s e-newsletter for June includes a profile of Sue Gooding, operations manager for Waterloo Engineering, and Ron Venter, an external space planning consultant, who are overseeing the construction of Engineering 5 building on part of the parking lot B site. ”Part of their focus,” it says, “recently shifted to detailed planning for ChE 1, the first phase of Engineering 6. On May 29 the federal and provincial governments gave the green light to $36 million in shared funding for new Waterloo Engineering and Math building projects. The five-storey ChE 1 building will house four chemical engineering research groups (bio-chemical and bio-medical, green reaction, polymer science and material science) and about half of the chemical engineering department. This first phase will allow DWE C-Wing to be vacated and then renovated to accommodate the growing needs of civil and environmental engineering. In the future, ChE 2, the second phase of E6, will be built for the rest of chemical engineering. The new buildings are part of the space plan in engineering's Vision 2010 strategic blueprint. Gooding and Venter are putting the final touches on the ChE 1 design/build packages that will be sent by the university to contractors interested in bidding on the building's construction. To meet government funding requirements, ground will be broken for ChE 1 in late August to have the building substantially completed by March 2011.”

From a recent message issued by the president of UW’s faculty association: “On February 6, a memo was circulated from the Director of Finance announcing changes to Accounting deadlines, retroactive to February 1. At the time, FAUW received a number of expressions of concern about these changes. We have raised this matter at Faculty Relations, along with the suggestion that more consultation in advance of the changes might have allowed the changes, if they are needed, to be implemented in ways more conducive to reasonable application. What the administration has asked FAUW to do is to gather from our members descriptions of ways the new regulations are problematic, for instance by not being compatible with the way they conduct their research. We will combine the various problematic features reported to us into a list; there is a commitment from administration to working with us to see what can be done to adapt the regulations to eliminate problems, while still meeting the needs of the Finance office to be able to meet auditing requirements and such. So, if these changes to regulations create unreasonable problems for you, please send a clear, brief summary of how they do so to the FAUW office.”

Some new wording in UW’s Policy 76 (“Faculty Appointments”) was approved by the university senate on June 15, on the provost’s recommendation. One new paragraph deals with faculty members who are working towards tenure and who fall ill: “A continuous period of debilitating illness which prevents the fulfillment of duties . . . may be eligible for an extension to the tenure clock upon application to the Dean.” Another section describes the work of Lecturers, including the optometry school’s clinical lecturers: “Duties are primarily limited to teaching and service, and are normally assigned in all three terms, though Lecturers shall have the option to have at least one term in six be a non-teaching term. Assignment of duties must take into account the distinctive feature of university teaching (i.e., that instruction is provided by scholars who are expected to remain current in their field and maintain their scholarly competence) regardless of whether a separate rating for scholarship is part of the Lecturer's performance review.”

The Tim Hortons outlet in the Modern Languages building closed as of this week and won’t reopen until September; the cafeteria in ML remains open. • Kieran Bonner, sociology professor and former dean of St. Jerome's University, is serving as acting president of the unionized St. Jerome's Academic Staff Association for 2009-10, while founding president David Seljak is on sabbatical. • The engineering faculty’s web site is currently profiling John Boldt, manager of the engineering machine shop, who describes some of the projects under way and insists “I would never leave. We’re always building something new.”

CAR

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