Four teams of Waterloo planning students took part in a competition at the "Making a Sustainable Community Happen" conference in Ajax last week. “Our teams nabbed first, second and third place,” reports Steve Kryzsak of the faculty of environment. “The teams were given a defined neighbourhood within the Seaton community in the City of Pickering and were required to consider multiple aspects of new community development, including the environment, urban design, housing, energy and conservation.” First-place team members were Jeremy Krysgsman, Graeme Ruck, Ryan Felix and Matt Perotto. The full Waterloo contingent posed for a photo along with planning lecturer Karen Hammond, their academic advisor, far left.

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Questions invited for town hall meeting

Invitations are going out to staff and faculty members today for another “town hall meeting” with the university’s top brass.

There’s a bit of a change since the previous town hall meeting in April, when David Johnston was still president. Feridun Hamdullahpur, who was provost then, is in the president’s office now, and Geoff McBoyle is vice-president (academic) and provost. The two of them will be joined at the microphone by Meg Beckel, vice-president (external relations), whose role includes reading submitted questions aloud so the president and provost can answer them.

The town hall meeting will be held Tuesday, November 2, from 3:00 to 4:30 in the Humanities Theatre, Hagey Hall.

According to today’s invitation, the agenda 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”.

That’s a bit of a shift from last spring’s meeting, which was held in the slightly smaller Theatre of the Arts and filled just about every seat. It included some discussion of “student engagement” but was largely focused on issues of salary (the provincial government’s freeze had just been introduced) and budget. At the meeting before that, in October 2009, a crowd in Humanities was introduced to Hamdullahpur, who had just arrived as provost, and major topics included parking and the Sixth Decade plan.

For this meeting, questions on all “campus-related” topics are welcome. As in the past, I’ve been asked to collect, screen and organize the questions, which will be passed along to the top officials without an indication of who asked them. Questions should be submitted by October 27 to the special e-mail address townhall@ uwaterloo.ca. I’d just like to note that the “townhall” mailbox hasn’t been in use since last spring’s meeting, so any leftover questions from April will need to be submitted again.

Time permitting, questions can also be asked right at the meeting on November 2.

Says the invitation memo: “Recognizing the importance of this meeting, we encourage participation from all faculty and staff members. A reception will follow the meeting. We hope to see you there!”

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Hockey coach's 100th win, and more

Men’s hockey coach Brian Bourque (left) picked up his 100th CIS win last weekend as the Warriors faced the Lakehead Thunderwolves in Thunder Bay — “never an easy place to win,” observes Dan Ackerman of the athletics department in reporting the milestone. “The Warriors earned a hard fought victory 5-4 in overtime which gave Waterloo their first victory of the season and Brian his milestone win.” Says athletics director Bob Copeland: “Brian has created a superb student-athlete experience for his players through tireless dedication on and off the ice. In addition to the success the program has achieved in the win-loss column under his leadership, Brian’s players are exemplary ambassadors for the University of Waterloo and represent one of the highest percentages of Academic All-Canadians in the classroom.” Bourque took over as head coach in 2005 and since then has coached in 158 regular season and playoff games, winning 100 of them. The Warriors have consistently been ranked in the top 10 over the last five seasons, making the playoffs each of those years. Bourque will be honoured with his 100th-game-winning puck and game sheet along with the puck from his first victory prior to Waterloo’s home opener tonight against Guelph.

In general it's going to be a busy weekend for Warrior teams. The hockey women will also play their home opener, men's and women's basketball teams host the Naismith Classic tournament, and there are home games for the women's rugby squad on Saturday and both soccer teams on Sunday. Several of the weekend's matchups will be streamed online through SSN Canada. The full schedule:

• Women’s basketball vs. Alberta Friday 3:00, vs. McGill Saturday 3:00, vs. Laurier Sunday 2:00, PAC, part of Naismith Classic tournament.
• Men’s hockey vs. Guelph Friday 7:30, vs. Laurier Saturday 7:30, Icefield.
• Men’s basketball vs. Memorial Friday 8:00, vs. Laval Saturday 8:00, vs. Ryerson Sunday 4:00, PAC, part of Naismith Classic.
• Women’s rugby vs. Brock Saturday 1:00, Columbia fields.
• Women’s soccer at McMaster Saturday; vs. Guelph Sunday 1:00, Columbia fields.
• Women’s hockey vs. Toronto Saturday 2:00, vs. York Sunday 2:00, Icefield.
• Men’s soccer at McMaster Saturday; vs. Guelph Sunday 3:15, Icefield.
• Tennis (men and women) at tournament in London, Friday-Sunday.
• Swimming at OUA invitational in Guelph, Friday; tri-meet at Brock, Saturday.
• Men’s rugby at Queen’s Saturday.
• Field hockey vs. Carleton Saturday, vs. McGill Sunday, both games at Queen’s.
• Cross-country at Queen’s Invitational Saturday.
• Golf at OUA championships, Angus Glen Golf Club, Sunday.

Renison University College is holding an “International Symposium in Chinese-Canadian and Chinese-American Literature in English” today through Sunday, with scholars from universities in China, the USA, and Canada presenting their research papers. The weekend will also feature several public events, starting with a film tonight (7:30 in Renison’s Chapel Lounge). “Iron Road” is a 2009 Canadian/Chinese television miniseries written by Barry Pearson and Raymond Storey and directed by David Wu. Starring Peter O’Toole, Sam Neill, Luke Macfarlane, Charlotte Sullivan, and Sun Li, it chronicles the story of Chinese workers who helped to build the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1880s. Saturday brings a public reading (2:00 to 5:00) with Denise Chong (economist and writer), Jim Wong-Chu (poet and editor), Yan Li (Renison professor and novelist), Ka Nin Chan (U of T professor and composer), Xin Wang (soprano), Alice Ho (pianist), Derwin Mak (science fiction writer), and Eric Choi (engineer and science fiction writer). The conference is sponsored by the Confucius Institute at the University of Waterloo and Renison University College, and has been organized by Yan Li, Eleanor Ty, and Jun Liu.

Beth Bohnert, communications officer in the alumni affairs office, sends word that all Waterloo graduates are being invited to "share their brilliance (along with opinions, photos, and the occasional rant) on social media. Alumni can post photos and updates on Facebook, share what’s happening on Twitter  and expand their professional networks on LinkedIn. These sites are also great sources for campus news, as well as information on alumni events, career development workshops and more." Alumni who join the conversation on any of these platforms by December 31 also become eligible to win a Nikon D-5000 digital camera through the Alumni Challenge.

The Tri-University Graduate Program in History — which draws on the history departments from Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University and Guelph — will be sponsoring a Tri-University Conference this weekend, with the topic "Cold War Encounters" being the theme for the year. The focus on the west-vs.-east era coincides (as do some startling revelations brought forward yesterday by the CBC) with the creation of a new PhD field in Cold War History in the Tri-University Graduate Program. A world-class scholar, Fredrik Logevall of Cornell University, author of a number of important books on the Cold War and one of the most eminent Cold War scholars in the United States, will be the keynote speaker. The conference takes place Saturday in the Arts Lecture Hall.

Daniel Maoz of the Jewish studies program will be among the speakers, representing eight streams of belief, at tomorrow's World Religions Conference in the Humanities Theatre (details are in "Where and when", at right). Thomas Biskup of the baseball Warriors was named to the designated hitter slot on the Ontario University Athletics all-star team as the 2010 season concluded. Computer science student Edgar Bering writes in the MathNews student newsletter that an undergraduate-published Waterloo Mathematics Review, "the mathematical equivalent of a law review", is getting organized.

And . . . a couple of major computer systems will be shut down for upgrades on October 21 and 22, next Thursday and Friday. Quest, the student information system, will be unavailable all day Thursday plus Friday morning; OnBase, the document management system for graduate admissions, will be out of operation both days.

CAR

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