Yesterday's last lecture in Chemistry 120 ended ten minutes early, when a parade of people from the chem department and across the faculty of science marched in to say farewell to Morris Tchir. The well-known professor (in white shirt at centre) was finishing his last teaching assignment before retiring after 40 years on the Waterloo faculty. "The event was a total surprise to Morris and to the class," says colleague Mario Coniglio, who took the photo with his cellphone. "The retirement cake was put under the overhead projector and is seen on the two screens at the front."

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FAUW meeting today, Blatchford tonight

The faculty association will hold its fall general meeting in Math and Computer room 4059 this afternoon, starting at 2:00. "The main business items" will be at the top of the agenda, says association president George Freeman: "We want to ensure you get a chance to hear about the bigger ongoing issues (daycare, governance of centres, merit process changes) and to get your feedback on any concerns." Routine reports will be dealt with quickly at 3:45 p.m., he adds. An item of interest on the agenda for every FAUW meeting is the report from the academic freedom and tenure committee. "The case load has been heavy," writes committee chair Sally Gunz, "but not particularly different from in the past." The AF&T report does include some details, without identifying information, about a recent arbitration case arising out of an incident in 2007 and the grievance that followed. (The committee says the university's response to the case "has been a mixed bag".)

Reservations hit capacity at noontime yesterday for tonight's talk by journalist and author Christie Blatchford, whose appearance on campus last month was cancelled after protesters took over the Humanities Theatre stage. The Globe and Mail columnist will make her return appearance tonight at 7 p.m. in the Theatre of the Arts. Online reservations were required, and May Yan of retail services, who was handling the process, says no more seats are available. (Those who successfully made reservations have to pick up their tickets from the university bookstore by noon today.)

As announced in late November, Blatchford "will deliver the talk that was postponed on Friday, November 12, when she was invited to discuss her new book Helpless: Caledonia's Nightmare of Fear and Anarchy, and How the Law Failed All of Us.” The event is sponsored by the bookstore and the faculty of arts. On Blatchford's first visit, on November 12, she was met by a group of protesters who took exception to what they called the "racist" attitude of her book, which deals with the four-year standoff over native land claims in the village of Caledonia in Ontario's Haldimand County. In her book, she makes a strong case for a failure of government to govern and protect all its citizens equally in the lands claim dispute. About 20 members of the protest group chanted slogans inside the theatre, and three of them chained themselves together by the necks on stage. After some delay it was announced that the talk would be rescheduled. Later the university issued a statement that said in part: "The University of Waterloo was disappointed that a guest invited to share a particular perspective on a topic of importance to Canadians was silenced by protesters. Due to safety issues, the university decided to reschedule the event. The university considers Friday’s events as an attack on its presence as a place where issues are explored, discussed and at times debated. The freedom to speak and to learn is fundamental to the institution.”

In the wake of Friday's announcement of a long-term salary settlement for non-union staff, "the status of the negotiations with CUPE may be of interest," says Neil Murray, the university's director of staff and labour relations. As reported earlier in the fall, Canadian Union of Public Employees local 793, which represents employees in food services and plant operations, has been without a contract since May 1 of this year. "UW and CUPE met in the early spring," says Murray, "but could not reach an agreement. CUPE filed for conciliation and, with the assistance of a Ministry of Labour official, the parties met again in early November but were unsuccessful in reaching an agreement. A second day of conciliation has been scheduled for December 22."

A reminder comes from information systems and technology that "the migration from Bookit to Exchange Calendar" will happen this weekend, December 10-13. "Bookit will be unavailable as of 11 a.m. Friday," says Bob Hicks of IST. "Data will be moved over the weekend and will be accessible in Exchange Calendar starting on Monday, December 13. Please print or otherwise take note of your appointments before Friday, December 10, so that you will know where your meetings are if the migration has issues. On Monday, we anticipate that opening Outlook may take longer than usual, and it may take a few minutes for your calendar folder to fully download from the server. You may see no appointments, or just some of your appointments during this download. Thanks to all those who have participated in the Exchange Calendar project. There have been many people involved from across the campus. Many clients have taken training, and more training sessions are being offered. As with any new system, there will be issues to deal with. Issues can be sent by email to request@ uwaterloo.ca. IST will work on the most critical issues first."

Grand River CarShare will hold a brief and chilly celebration (with "some warm refreshments") at 12:30 today as it puts a new car into operation at a designated parking spot at Conrad Grebel University College. "It's a Blue 2007 Mazda 5," says CarShare coordinator Matthew Piggott. "Did you know that we have 13 parking locations on and around the UW campus? Currently we only have two cars on campus, but we have room to expand and add many more."

The Engineering Society set up a commemorative display in the Davis Centre great hall for two hours yesterday, marking the 21st anniversary of the so-called "Montréal Massacre". On December 6, 1989, 14 women in a classroom at École Polytechnique were killed by a gunman who identified female engineering students as "feminists" and shouted that he "hated" them. The killer committed suicide. The events of that Wednesday afternoon were mourned across Canada; the flag at the main entrance to UW was lowered, and a memorial service was held in Federation Hall. Two decades later, the grief is still felt, and the date is widely observed as a National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

Here's a reminder: from parking to ventilation, from Warrior games to Christmas Eve worship, there are special arrangements at the university during the shutdown that will last from December 24 through January 3. The final Daily Bulletins of 2010, on December 22 and 23, will marshal the details of opening and closing times, events and services — but only with the help of the departments and offices responsible, both on the main campus and in remote locations. Last year's version is still online, like all past Daily Bulletins. I'd appreciate receiving updates as soon as possible so they can be properly organized for publication just before the holidays.

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Faculty on sabbatical: research, writing

Here’s another list of Waterloo faculty members who are currently on sabbatical leave — in this case, for a six-month period that started September 1, 2010. The faculty members’ comments on how they will use the sabbatical time are taken from material submitted to the board of governors, which has to approve all such leaves.

Neil Randall, English language and literature: “I plan to complete two journal articles on the topic of hybrid board-digital games from a rhetorical and semiotic perspective.”

Carolyn Ren, mechanical and mechatronics engineering: “I will conduct droplet-based microfluidics research at Dr. Howard Stone’s laboratory at Princeton University; finish writing several manuscripts about our research and submit them to journals; and closely supervise my students through web meetings, telephone conferences, and emails.”

Russell Thompson, physics and astronomy: “A number of calculations recently undertaken in polymer and soft matter physics have been limited or prevented due to numerical stability issues. Research will be directed into the study of a semi-implicit algorithm for self-consistent field theory. This will require a significant dedicated effort and extended face-to-face consultation through visits with collaborators in Reading, England, and Los Alamos, USA.”

Shahrzad Esmaeili, mechanical and mechatronics engineering: “The main objective of my sabbatical leave is to prepare and submit a set of journal paper manuscripts from the extensive works that I have directed and conducted on aluminum alloys since joining the University of Waterloo. I would also like to use my leave to prepare a manuscript from my collaborative work on cellular/hybrid materials and further expand my collaborative research in cellular materials.”

Gretchen Harris, physics and astronomy: “I will be a visiting professor at the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics of the Australian National University and based mostly at Mt. Stromlo Observatory. I will continue my studies of old stars and star clusters in galaxies. In particular, my colleagues and I will be using SkyMapper, a new survey telescope whose imaging capabilities make it ideal for studying the very wide field of NGC 5128, its star clusters and the stars in between. The wide angular size of this study will allow us, for the first time, to compare directly the innermost and outermost regions of this important galaxy.”

Hamid Jahed, mechanical and mechatronics engineering: “Most of my sabbatical leave (if not all) will be devoted to editing a textbook on ‘Modern Continuum Mechanics’ which will address the current demand on this field. The book will mix the classical approach with the recent applications and will have an emphasis on finite element application using leading commercial software. Preliminary talks with the potential publishers have been initiated.”

Alain-Desiré Nimubona, economics: “During my half-sabbatical, I will spend considerable time working on my SSHRC funded project on environmental regulation of Alberta Oil Sands. Also, I will prepare manuscripts for publication for a number of research projects that I have been working on for the last years.  Finally, I will attend a few conferences and visit my collaborators in Edmonton, Montreal, and elsewhere.”

Sarah Tolmie, English language and literature: “I will be working on my book Langland and the Philosophy of Language, chapters 2 and 3; storyboarding for the digital performance project The Salvation Suit with the Critical Media Lab; and revising my second novel, No Food.

CAR

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