300 hear Blatchford on a winter night

About 300 people came to the Theatre of the Arts last night to hear journalist and author Christie Blatchford speak about her latest book, Helpless: Caledonia's Nightmare of Fear and Anarchy, and How the Law Failed All of Us. Introduced by dean of arts Ken Coates, she spoke for half an hour, followed by a lively half-hour of questions and answers. Blatchford pointed out that she is "not a scholar" but a "newspaper hack" whose intention is to write about events, taking a specific focus, rather than do the kind of evaluation one would expect in a work of history. After the formal presentation, she signed books (photo by Chelsea Friesen of the bookstore) and spoke with members of the local media. A handful of people identified as being involved with disrupting her previous Waterloo appearance in November were intercepted by security on their arrival and were not in the theatre during Blatchford's talk.

The university senate won't be holding a meeting on December 21, following the frequent custom of cancelling the December meeting and delaying most items of business until January. University secretary Lois Claxton said late on Monday that the Senate Executive Committee had held its usual early-in-the-month meeting and "determined that a December meeting of Senate is not warranted. Acting on the delegated authority of Senate and as provided by its terms of reference, the committee, on behalf of Senate, approved the following new graduate programs: Master of Development Practice in International Development; Diploma in Social Innovation; Master of Digital Innovation. The actions of SEC will be reported more fully at the January meeting of Senate."

The UW-ACE “Instructor User Group” will hold a meeting tomorrow, providing an opportunity for instructors to see examples of innovative ways that other faculty members are using UW-ACE. Faculty presenters for this session are Leanne Ferries (recreation and leisure studies) and Robert Ryan (French studies), and Verna Keller of the Centre for Teaching Excellence says there will also be a live report on progress in finding replacement software for ACE, delivered by Andrea Chappell of information systems and technology. Ferries’s presentation will focus on how she has used Turnitin, a plagiarism detection tool, “as a means to educate students on proper citing and referencing of academic sources” and how to make the software “an educational tool rather than simply a plagiarism detection tool. Ryan will speak about his students' experiences using Wimba Voice, a tool that supports communicative styles of language learning online, as a teaching and learning tool for his French phonetics course. Tomorrow’s workshop starts at 10:30 a.m. in the Flex Lab, Dana Porter Library.

"Earlier this year," says associate provost (information systems and technology) Alan George, "as part of the normal internal audit plan, Deloitte & Touche conducted a security vulnerability assessment, and uncovered some weaknesses in IT security across campus. These included such items as inconsistent and/or faulty password practices, applications that did not have the required patches applied, and outdated operating systems. Subsequently, a follow-on independent review of IT security was conducted by two ex-CIOs (James Cranston of Simon Fraser University, and Gerry Miller, of the University of Manitoba). The review was completed in early November and its recommendations are currently being considered by the University Committee on Information Systems & Technology and the Computer Technology & Services Committee." George says the main themes of the recommendations include "enhanced awareness of the importance of IT security procedures and individual user responsibilities; more clarity in terms of IT policies and responsibilities; improved password management practices; and additional funding for IT security tools, staff, training and equipment."

The School of Accounting and Finance (SAF) has announced this year’s seven winners of the Deloitte Tax Scholarship, recognizing “outstanding, well-rounded students who display the core competencies of a successful tax professional”, namely “strong communication, analytical, creative and time-management skills”. The winners — Min Che, Vithushan Jeyakumaran, Suneethi Viswanathan, George Tsai, Kelly Wong, Domeny  Wu and Mina Huang — “were selected on the basis of a short essay on the importance of problem-solving skills in tax practices, and on a personal interview,” says Stan Laiken, director of the school’s Deloitte Centre for Tax Education and Research. The scholarship is worth $2,500. “Through the scholarship,” the sponsoring firm explains, “Deloitte hopes to foster in students a broad intellectual interest in taxation as a pure subject and as an instrument of public policy.” Says the school’s director, Jim Barnett: “We are proud of these students and commend what they have achieved academically and through their community and extracurricular activities.”

Three Warrior men's hockey players have been selected for a six-day training camp that starts tomorrow in London, Ontario, as Canada puts together its team for the World University Winter Games in Turkey next month. Centre Chris Ray and defencemen Kyle Sonnenburg and Steve Whitely will be in London alongside their Waterloo coach, Brian Bourque, who was announced last year as general manager for the Canadian team when it heads for Erzurum, Turkey, January 23 to February 6. The three Warriors have had an exceptional first half with the Black and Gold, leading their team to a 11-6-0 record, good for third place in the OUA west. Altogether 31 Ontario hockey players will be at the London camp, under the eye of University of Western Ontario coach Clarke Singer, who will announce his selections as soon as the camp winds up. The experience will include an exhibition game in Toronto next Tuesday, pitting the university squad against the Canadian national world junior team.

Now about the "winter night"… the web site for Waterloo's weather station says the temperature on the north campus hit minus-10.5 degrees Celsius last night, though there's been practically no precipitation in the past 24 hours. That's a bit different from the experience 100 kilometres away in London, where snowfall since the weekend is now more than a metre deep and more is arriving. The University of Western Ontario has been closed since midday Monday and won't be reopening until Thursday at earliest, and Western's student newspaper, the Gazette, is publishing "online only". Today's headline? Of course: "Snowmageddon."

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Researchers study ancient globalization

Researchers at Waterloo will celebrate tomorrow as they launch the first institute in North America to conduct interdisciplinary research on a long-ago era of globalization: the Hellenistic Age, when Greek culture and influence spread from Spain in the West to India in the East.

The Waterloo Institute For Hellenistic Studies, which includes University of Waterloo and international researchers, will be officially unveiled at a celebration on Thursday from 7 to 10 p.m. at the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery. (RSVPs from those attending should be directed to bschneeb@ uwaterloo.ca.)

Spanning the period between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE and the death of Cleopatra in 30 BCE, the transformative Hellenistic age dramatically increased interaction between Mediterranean, European and Near Eastern cultures.

Researchers consider the 300-year period a forerunner of today's globalization because, for the first time in western history, political, social and economic changes in one region were felt all over the ancient world. 

"The social, cultural, historical and scientific developments of the Hellenistic Age profoundly influenced later Mediterranean civilizations and have transmitted their influence into the contemporary world," said Riemer Faber, director of the Waterloo Institute For Hellenistic Studies and a professor of classical studies. "The institute will provide a significant multi-disciplinary focal point for national and international scholars to explore and disseminate knowledge on this cosmopolitan era."

Faber said the institute's future scholarly projects include exploring the impact of technological change on society and the socio-economic effects of an increasingly globalized world. These projects would benefit research on the contemporary world as well as on the ancient, he suggested.

So far, some 60 scholars from around the world have joined the institute, forming a network of experts in the history, literature, material culture and philosophy of the Hellenistic period. The institute draws on a wealth of Hellenistic research and teaching expertise in Waterloo’s department of classical studies. 

As part of the launch celebration, the institute will host a three-day workshop to explore new interdisciplinary research opportunities in the history, literature and art of the Hellenistic age. One aim of the workshop, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Waterloo's faculty of arts, is to establish the framework for future international collaboration in this area. 

The titles of presentations for the conference, running through the day Friday and Saturday, refer to such concepts as “popular performance” and “politics and propaganda” as well as poetry and royalty. Time is set aside for conference participants to have an open discussion of “research and pedagogy” in Hellenistic studies.

CAR

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