Black and gold in Dubai: First-year students at UW's United Arab Emirates campus pose before their first day of classes on Tuesday. Things went well, associate vice-president Leo Rothenburg reports from the Dubai outpost. "All our instructors liked their students," he says, "and the feeling seems mutual. Students are a pleasure to teach, very attentive and eager to learn. Textbooks from Canada generated a genuine excitement. I think they still can't quite believe that they are studying in a Canadian school." • Tuesday's Daily Bulletin referred to Peter Douglas, the new director of the UAE campus, as a professor of "civil" engineering; in fact he's a member of the chemical engineering department.

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Why not a business school at Waterloo?

"There are 52 institutions in Canada where you can get an MBA. There is no point in us simply becoming the 53rd: we would not stand out," says Geoff McBoyle, associate vice-president (academic). "Our 'X + Business' students are equivalent to business undergrad students in other universities. But as usual, what we do is different from what's being done elsewhere."

McBoyle makes those comments in the cover story of the latest issue of the Waterloo Magazine, distributed to UW alumni. Dated “spring”, it’s been out for a while now, but hasn’t yet been noted in the Daily Bulletin, and some of its contents do deserve an end-of-summer look.

Says the cover story, written by Patricia Bow of the communications and public affairs office: “The Waterloo way combines a grounding in a discipline — biology, political science, mathematics, or one of a host of others — with business skills such as statistics, accounting, management, marketing, and business law. Programs are, naturally, interdisciplinary.

“A prime example is management sciences, Canada's only engineering-based management sciences department, which integrates mathematics, economics, and social sciences. Another distinctive example is recreation and business, based in applied health sciences, which encompasses the world's largest service sector, recreation, and the Canadian mixed economy, commercial, government, and not-for-profit.

“The grads of Waterloo's business-related programs have many options. Their degrees are a springboard to MBA programs. They might also go on to other graduate programs, start a business, or join an organization at the business end or the discipline end.”

Says McBoyle: "You can get a general business degree elsewhere, but if you want to do two things, and business is one of those things, Waterloo is the place to go."

In fact, the article goes on, Waterloo is “a business education hotbed”, with more than 3,000 students enrolled in business-related programs — and that's not counting those in other programs who have added a business option or specialization. “Among prospective students, however, the full extent of business at Waterloo is one of the university's best-kept secrets. Dispersed across the faculties, these programs have not been promoted in any co-ordinated way.”

The article goes on to talk about business programs in the faculties of environment, math and science, the school of accounting and finance, the special advantages of co-op, and the Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology program.

“Perhaps it should come as no surprise,” the text goes on, “that people are beginning to know about business at Waterloo. According to a recent Ipsos Reid survey, members of the general public report that Waterloo is best known for engineering, then business programs, with mathematics third.

“Despite these findings, administrators find that the average Grade 11 student does not think of Waterloo when he or she thinks of business. McBoyle's group plans to change that.” Beyond marketing strategies — a web portal, a brochure, outreach to high schools — the group is discussing ways to stabilize the funding for a defined set of core business courses.

“The Waterloo way of learning business has a lot to offer,” McBoyle says. It quotes him: “Everybody wants to do a degree where they have a reasonable expectation of getting a job. The X + Business programs do that by giving you two opportunities — your discipline and the business side.”

The full article, “Business . . . not as usual”, is available on the alumni affairs web site. Also in the spring issue of the Waterloo Magazine:

• A report on Vision 2010, the planning framework for the UW faculty of engineering, and the building projects that have resulted.

• An article on “clubbing at Waterloo” — nothing to do with music and mating, but rather a review of the 90 “culture”, religious, hobby and activist clubs recognized by the Federation of Students.

• Alumni news notes, short features on graduates (including Derrick Chua, president of the Toronto Fringe Festival), and an invitation to Homecoming 2009, scheduled for September 26.

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Notes at the tail end of summer

Gordon Stubley (right) of UW’s department of mechanical and mechatronics engineering is one of six winners this year of a top Ontario honour for university teaching. The annual Teaching Awards were announced Tuesday by the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations. “OCUFA has been celebrating outstanding achievement in teaching and academic librarianship at Ontario universities since 1973,” a news release notes. “The awards committee selects up to six teaching award recipients and one academic librarianship award recipient each year.” Recognition for his teaching is not something new for Stubley, a specialist in fluid mechanics, who was a 2007 recipient of the Ontario government’s Leadership in Faculty Teaching (LIFT) Award. Said a citation then: “Stubley’s leadership in promoting excellence in learning through innovation and sound methods sets him apart. He has developed structured activities aimed at elevating the standard of teaching through monthly discussion forums and analysis of graduating student exit surveys.”

A memo sent to members of the UW staff association this week notes that the current term of office for three members of the UWSA Executive “is coming to an end (as of the next Annual General Meeting, October 29, 2009). Please take a look at the official Call For Nominations and Nomination Form. Paper copies of the Call for Nominations will be available at the UWSA office, Davis Centre 3603. Please consider becoming a candidate for one of the vacant Executive positions. The past year has been a time of consolidation for the Staff Association. We now have some experience with the new organizational structure, as defined by our new Constitution, and the new Executive Manager is focused on providing assistance to staff through the Members’ Advisory Committee. The new Directors can have major influence on the upcoming salary and compensation negotiations. You can make a difference, but you have to take the first step.”

The investments in UW’s pension fund are managed by five investment management firms, all supervised by the university’s own pension and benefits committee. The managers lately have been TD Asset Management (passive investments), Highstreet Asset Management Inc., McLean Budden Ltd., Trilogy Global Advisors, and AllianceBernstein Inc. But a memo from the P&B committee announces a change: “At its meeting on June 2, 2009, the Board of Governors approved a recommendation from the Pension & Benefits Committee (endorsed by the Board of Governors Finance & Investment Committee) to terminate UW’s relationship with AllianceBernstein Inc., and to appoint Walter Scott and Partners. Members had concerns with AllianceBernstein’s performance (poor relative to the index, the committee’s benchmark and its peers), and with recent management action and direction. In choosing Walter Scott, members were impressed with Walter Scott’s absolute and relative performance (particularly its downside protection), its investment philosophy and style, and its view on emerging markets and currency hedging. In recommending the selection of Walter Scott, the committee notes that it is taking a long term view to manager selection with the goal of generating long term gains while minimizing downside risk. If the selection objective were simply to maximize short term gains, another manager may be more appropriate; however, this is not believed to be in the best long term interests of the university.”

A note from the engineering faculty’s e-newsletter: “Alan Plumtree, distinguished professor emeritus of mechanical and mechatronics engineering, was recently presented with the 2009 Rio Tinto Alcan Award by the Metallurgical Society of CIM at the Conference of Metallurgists. The honour recognizes Plumtree’s contributions in teaching and research resulting in a significant breakthrough in metallurgical development. Plumtree (left) is a founding member of the materials science and engineering group at the University of Waterloo. One of his many achievements includes co-designing and constructing the Waterloo Pump that today supplies clean water to millions of people in developing countries.”

I was in the Student Life Centre yesterday, and took note of a “wash station” — it’s hard to miss, thanks to the simulated puddles across the floor — at the end of Tim Hortons, just inside one of the main doors of the SLC. It’s intended mostly as a place to rinse out reusable mugs and refill water bottles. “That sink’s been there all along,” one of my companions chortled, but nobody much noticed it until it was redecorated.

Finally . . . the Labour Day long weekend will be with us shortly, and that means the arrival of thousands of new first-year students in time for next week’s orientation program. A survey of orientation plans was issued as a news release yesterday by UW’s media relations office. Tomorrow morning’s Daily Bulletin will have more about orientation, as well as residence move-in plans and the services offered by a number of UW departments over the long weekend. Key information for now: central registration for orientation is in the Physical Activities Complex, from 10 to 4 on Sunday and from 8:30 to 5 on Monday, and an “Ask-Me” booth for first-year students will operate in the Student Life Centre from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Saturday.

CAR

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