They met the dragon: At a recent 40th anniversary celebration for the business-oriented group Junior Achievement, a group of students from the Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology program (along with program director Howard Armitage) dared to get close to Robert Herjavec. He's the fierce figure well known to would-be entrepreneurs from the venture-capitalist TV series "Dragon's Den" in Canada and "Shark's Tank" in the United States. No blood was shed.

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Municipal election is two weeks away

Half a dozen present or past staff and faculty members are running for public office in the October 25 municipal elections — which will also fill three of the seats on the university’s board of governors.

By law, the mayors of Waterloo and Kitchener and the chair of the Regional Municipality of Waterloo are automatically members of the 36-member board. The incumbents in those positions — Brenda Halloran of Waterloo, Carl Zehr of Kitchener and Ken Seiling of the Region — are all running for re-election as voters across Ontario go to the polls.

It’s the first election to be held under the “Good Government Act”, passed last year by the Ontario legislature, which moved polling day from November to the fourth Monday in October. Municipal officials will be chosen not just in Kitchener and Waterloo but in Cambridge, the surrounding townships, Stratford, and in fact all parts of the province.

Advance polls opened last weekend and will be open again this Thursday and Friday, and October 15 and 16.

A range of positions will be on the ballot in K-W and the surrounding area because of the two-level system of government, in which some powers are assigned to the city or township and some to the Region. Depending on where they live and how their taxes are assigned, voters will be asked to fill these positions:

• The regional chair and representatives to regional council (four from Kitchener, two from Waterloo).
• A mayor for Waterloo and one for Kitchener.
• Members of city council, representing seven wards in Waterloo and ten in Kitchener.
• Representatives on four school boards (public, Catholic, French public and French Catholic).

In addition, all K-W voters will be asked a yes-or-no question about possible amalgamation of the Twin Cities: “Do you support the members of Kitchener and Waterloo councils engaging in discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of merging the cities of Kitchener and Waterloo?”

Voters in Waterloo (and a small portion of Kitchener where water is provided from Waterloo and thus is currently fluoridated) will also be asked: “Should the Region of Waterloo fluoridate your municipal water?”

Here’s a list — complete as far as I know — of people at the university who are seeking election on October 25:

• Tom Galloway (plant operations department), seeking re-election as one of the four regional councillors from Kitchener.
• Graham Yeates (secretariat), trying for a seat as Kitchener city councillor for Ward 9.
• Jeff Henry (faculty of mathematics), running for the Ward 6 seat on Waterloo city council.
• Peter Woolstencroft (political science, retired), running for the Ward 7 seat in Waterloo.
• Margaret Johnston (dean of engineering office), running for a Kitchener seat on the Waterloo Region District School Board.
• Mark Morton (Centre for Teaching Excellence), also aiming for one of the four Kitchener seats on the WRDSB.

And Roger Watt, retired from information systems and technology, is running for a council seat in Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh Township in Huron County, where he has his summer home.

There will be a polling place in the Student Life Centre on October 25 for students living in on-campus residences who consider that they live in Waterloo and should vote here. Off-campus students will vote at schools, churches and other locations across the community, like other residents.

Here's a note from the university's human resources department about employees needing time off to vote: "Province-wide municipal elections will be held on October 25, 2010, and voting hours will run from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Under the Municipal Elections Act, 1996, all employees who are eligible to vote in the election are entitled to three consecutive hours during voting hours on election day to cast their vote. To be eligible to vote, an employee must be a Canadian citizen, be at least 18 years of age, and meet certain residency or property ownership or tenancy conditions.

"Where an employee’s hours of work prevent him or her from having the three consecutive voting hours required by the statute, the employee 'is entitled to be absent from work for as long as is necessary to allow that amount of time'. The time off is paid. Where an employee has three consecutive hours that fall within voting hours and fall outside of his or her work hours, there is no obligation to provide paid time off from work."

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VeloCity at the Hub; HR unveils career tool

The local high-tech community will be out in force tonight for the grand opening of the “Communitech Hub” — a concentration of labs and businesses in the digital media field, based at the recycled Tannery buildings on Charles Street in downtown Kitchener (right). Space at the actual event, which runs from 5 to 7 p.m., is sold out, Communitech says, but the proceedings will be livestreamed.

Among the facilities at the Hub, it was announced this week, will be a “workspace” for the university’s student incubator program, VeloCity. Eligible for space at the Tannery, and the use of Accelerator Centre services and guidance, are present and former Waterloo students with “an early-stage product or service idea considered to fit in the broader ‘digital media or mobile technology’ industry”. The privilege of tables and chairs, Internet, and “working around a great network of people” will be assigned four months at a time. “The goal of the VeloCity workspace is to help you get to a point where you have revenue that will enable you to either become self-sufficient or a strong candidate for a position in the Accelerator Centre.”

HR unveils new career tool: myCareer@UWaterloo

A new online recruitment and job search system for union and non-union staff will be available for use starting October 20, announces Tracey White, director of organizational change and leadership in human resources. An email to all staff and administrators describes the new system, myCareer@UWaterloo, as “a key part of the university’s commitment to support all employees to manage and develop rewarding careers at Waterloo. It puts the tools you need to search and apply for jobs directly in your hands.

“Job applicants can create a personal profile and customize it to suit an available job. You can also track your activities and the progress of your application. Our goal is to make the job application process more efficient and transparent. The system is completely confidential. Personal profiles are password-protected and only accessible to an individual user.”

myCareer@UWaterloo is described as “part of a growing suite of career management services at Waterloo that also includes training and development opportunities through OHD and the Centre for Career Action.”

To learn more, take an “online tour” on October 18 at mycareer.uwaterloo.ca. Demonstration sessions will also be held October 19 - 22. An email will follow shortly with details. If you have questions, email human resources.

Links for more information: about the full range of HR services; career opportunities and job postings; organizational and human development (OHD); Centre for Career Action.

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Notes on a fine Thursday

An agency called Science Watch compiles statistics on “citations” — how often scientific papers are referred to by subsequent researchers — and, among other things, looks at a “special topic” each month. For September, the topic was oil spills, presumably because of the Gulf of Mexico disaster that has dominated the news over the past few months. Papers relevant to spills “deal with a variety of different topics”, Science Watch reports, “but they boil down to effects of petroleum contamination, methods for petroleum analysis, potential remediation methods, and studies of oil biodegradation."

And the paper from the past 10 years that’s been referred to by the largest number of scientists (193 of them)? It’s a piece called “Recent Advances in Petroleum Microbiology” written by Waterloo PhD graduate Jonathan VanHamme (now at Thompson Rivers University), adjunct faculty member Ajay Singh, and biology professor Owen Ward. The paper appeared in Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews in 2003.

Faculty salary increases are on their way. Following the recent announcement of the agreement between the University and FAUW, human resources has been busy preparing the faculty salary increases. New salaries will be reflected in the October pay and the retroactive payment will be included in the November pay. Any questions regarding the increases should be directed to Ljiljana Skobo (ext. 37580) or Alfrieda Swainston (ext. 32950.

Do you know an amazing teacher at the high school, elementary, or preschool level? The 2010 Prime Minister’s Awards for Teaching Excellence and the PMA for Excellence in Early Childhood Education recognize exemplary teaching at pre-university levels. New this year is a special award for “exceptional innovative and creative teaching in the areas of space sciences, technology, engineering, and/or mathematics.” Nominations are accepted until November 30.

There is a Waterloo connection to the awards through Ron Champion, of Renison’s English Language Institute. “I was a vice-president at Shad International (which operates the Shad Valley program at Waterloo) in 1989 when Shad established the program at the request of the Prime Minister and Industry Canada,” he says. He has been a volunteer selection committee member since then. With other volunteers, his role is to evaluate nominations for evidence of excellence in such things as “use of information and communications technology in the classroom, innovative and exemplary teaching practices,” and student skills, interest, and achievement.

CAR

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