Psychology graduate students and their friends, adding up to two teams of eight, ran last month's Toronto Marathon as a fund-raiser for Princess Margaret Hospital, where colleague Corey Bainerman is being treated for lung cancer. "A strong support network is instrumental in battling a serious illness like cancer," says one of them, Angela Nyhout, "and as students of psychology, we love anything that's backed up by research findings!" Donations by the time of the marathon had passed $16,000, and more is welcome.

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Associate provost (students), but not yet

It’ll be a while yet before the university moves to appoint a new senior administrator in charge of the “student” portfolio, says provost Geoff McBoyle.

In late October he reported to the university senate and the board of governors about plans for the new post of associate provost (students). “This will be on hold for a while,” McBoyle said, “because it is important to have the Office of Student Success up and running and the other sectors included in this position in place before we proceed.”

In the meantime, Bud Walker continues to be interim associate provost (student services), a post he’s held since the retirement of long-time executive Catharine Scott almost a year ago. Walker’s other job is as director of business services for the university, a role that traditionally includes one key student-related area: the residences.

Residences will be part of the new associate provost’s portfolio along with departments that reported to Scott such as athletics, health and counselling, according to a plan that McBoyle presented to senate and board members at their October meetings. That plan was written by a task force led by Roger Mannell, former dean of applied health sciences, and included the recommendation for the new associate provost position. McBoyle said last week that it’s been approved, and will be implemented when the time is right.

“The vision is for student services at the University of Waterloo to foster and support a ‘student-centred environment’ to ensure student success,” the Mannell report said. “There is growing awareness of the need to increase students’ satisfaction with their experience at Waterloo, improve student retention rates, effectively compete with other educational institutions in attracting high quality students and adapt to students’ changing needs. Some restructuring of existing student services will be required and some new services will need to be developed.”

Charts in the report include an extensive array of services and issues: day care, disabilities, WatCards, the Student Life Centre, alcohol management, student technology, and on it goes. There’s also the Student Life Office, which, says the report, “is currently being transformed into a unit that will address student success through a significantly enhanced new-student transition program, service learning, parent programs, engagement initiatives, faculty mentorship programs, leadership training, and other purposeful student engagement activities.”

That was written in June; by this fall, the Student Life Office has been shifted to be part of the new Student Success office, headed by director Sean Van Koughnett. He is reporting to Walker for now, and will answer to the new associate provost when that person is appointed.

He’s currently based in a cubbyhole in Needles Hall, and working on plans for a number of student-related projects, some of which can go ahead soon, others only when there are new people to do the work and new space to put them in. The defeat of a proposed “student services building” fee in a student referendum a year ago is not the end of attempts to find support for a new student-oriented building,  Van Koughnett said last week.

Not everything related to students will be pulled into the “success” office or even under the authority of the new associate provost. Says the Mannell report: “Strategies to ensure effective coordination between units and functions must be developed whether they report to the new APS or are located in Faculty or other central administrative units.”

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From liquid assets to bone marrow

The long-awaited coffee shop in the new accounting wing of Hagey Hall has, without much fanfare, opened for business. I asked Heather Kelly of food services what it's going to be called and what's on the menu: "Liquid Assets Café, known as LA's Café, is located in the new Hagey Hall addition. This earth-friendly café is serving up locally roasted, fair-trade, organic coffee from Waterloo Coffee. LA's also boasts a bagel bar, unique grab'n go sandwiches and salads, fair-trade chocolate bars, Ontario peanuts and trail mix. At lunchtime you can order a fabulous bowl filled with salad, rice or noodles and topped off with a different hot protein, fresh veggies and assorted toppings! Of course we are also serving up lots of pastries from our own UW Village Bakery and muffins especially created for LA's, including lemon cranberry oat and flax, chocolate chip and citrus explosion, and carrot energy booster!"

The recently renamed Centre for Career Action has a couple of events this week aimed at staff members: a talk at 3:00 Wednesday about “the art of powerful conversations”, and an opening reception Thursday. The Wednesday talk by Stuart Knight is co-sponsored by Organizational and Human Development, and promises to help attendees “begin and maintain interesting conversations, and avoid dull ones altogether”. Registration is on the Career Action website. The next day, staff can put their newly-honed networking skills into use at the launch party, with light refreshments from noon to 1:30 on the main floor of the Tatham Centre. While there, staff can view videos in the Centre for Career Action’s “true career crime” series. The Centre will be holding a week-long open house later in the month (November 22-26) aimed at students, including regular stream, co-op, undergraduate and graduate.

Users of Bookit — the “shared calendaring system” used across the university — are being reminded that the Oracle Calendar product which runs Bookit has been discontinued. Says a memo from information systems and technology: “Earlier this year a project team investigated the suitability of Exchange Calendar as a replacement for Bookit, and it was decided that Bookit will be replaced by Exchange Calendar. Bookit data including meetings, tasks and attachments will be transferred into Exchange on the weekend of December 10-12. Please continue using Bookit until Friday, December 10. On Monday, December 13, Exchange will be the official system. Exchange can be accessed via the Outlook Web App or by a desktop client such as Outlook. In preparation, IST is upgrading to a new version of Exchange which provides a much improved web interface, and now supports Firefox on all platforms and Safari on the Mac. Training for Exchange Calendar will be offered. Some information in Bookit will not be transferred: namely permission settings, groups, and university holidays. Please take note of your current resources (rooms and equipment) in Bookit and start thinking about who should have access to book them and to accept or decline meetings on behalf of the resource. It will also be helpful to take a list of your current groups from Bookit so that you can re-create them in Exchange.”

Now a note from nanotechnology engineering student Joshua Rosen: "On Wednesday in the Student Life Centre great hall, various student groups on campus will be hosting a bone marrow donor registration drive in conjunction with the OneMatch stem cell and bone marrow network. Registering is a fast and painless process involving a simple DNA test (cheek swab). The data is entered into an international database that is searched when someone is need of a transplant to cure a disease such as leukemia or lymphoma. This event is part of a Canada-wide competition among universities to see who can register the most new donors to the database. Everyone is encouraged to come out and "Get Swabbed" (please bring government issued ID with you) as we work to try and help the over 800 Canadians currently waiting for a transplant. Remember, you could be the one match to save a life!"

And . . . tomorrow's the day of the semi-annual "town hall meeting" for faculty and staff members with the university's president and provost. The agenda, as outlined on an invitation that was e-mailed across campus, includes “Student Success, Engagement and Retention — Working collaboratively to transform the student experience in and out of the classroom” and “Excellence in Research and Scholarship — Advancing Waterloo’s position nationally and around the world”. A fair number of questions were submitted by e-mail ahead of time to be answered during the session, and (time permitting) questions can also be asked right there in the Humanities Theatre. Tomorrow's meeting will start at 3 p.m.

CAR

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