Interim ENV dean 'no lame duck'

“I’ve got to keep things moving forward,” says Mark Seasons, though he doesn’t know how long he’ll be in his current leadership position as dean of the Faculty of Environment.

He was named “interim dean” as of July 1, when Deep Saini cut his five-year deanship short to move to a senior position at the University of Toronto. Seasons, who had previously been associate dean (undergraduate studies), will be in the dean’s office until a search for a longer-term dean is completed.

“I’m really enjoying it, for some reason,” he said in a conversation last week in his office in Environment 1 — a short walk down the hall from the project that dominates the dean’s attention these days, the half-finished Environment 3 building.

“We have to be on time,” Seasons (right) says about the construction project, which is powered by federal stimulus funding that disappears, pumpkin-like, if projects aren’t finished by March 31.

“I have no question it will be done,” he quickly adds, moving to the point about EV3 that he finds really important: its anticipated “platinum” rating from the Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design certification system. The building will feature solar power, energy conservation (including insulation), “grey water” and rainwater recycling systems, and high-efficiency lighting.

All these things come at a price, but one that Seasons says is worth paying, for long-term savings and also for what the building will say about Waterloo and the Environment faculty to future students, potential faculty members and the rest of the university. “We are leading by example,” he declares.

He jokes that ENV, which used to be the smallest faculty in the university, has grown to the point that it’s now the fifth largest. (There are six faculties; applied health sciences is now in sixth place.) And he says it has much to offer to the rest of the university, as its central concerns, such as water and energy, “are hot geopolitical topics” these days.

Yes, researchers and students in other fields may touch on relevant subject matter (the university has “environmental science” and “environmental engineering” programs based in other faculties). But it’s specifically the Faculty of Environment that connects the technical knowledge to action — “behavioural change and policy change, the ‘now what’ and ‘so what’,” he says.  “No other faculty on the campus does quite that, I think. You’ve got to make a compelling business case for the environment, or people won’t change behaviour. It’s not just tree-hugging — it’s far more pragmatic.”

That leads to some of the new programs that ENV has introduced, largely under Saini’s leadership, including environment-and-business, already the biggest program in the faculty. (The first class of students in the e-and-b master’s program, taught largely online, has just had its first two-week “block course” on campus, an experience Seasons says was a big success.) It’s run by the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development, created “to pull together things that were complementary, but that were drifting” or didn’t have a clear academic home.

In all the academic programs, “we’re trying to create a pragmatic idealist,” says the dean. He mentions a curriculum review that would involve putting together a package of core courses to make sure students from all programs are exposed to environmental ethics, decision-making skills and other overarching skills.

“My position,” he says as the fall term gets going, “is to move the agenda forward that Deep had — but I’m also here with some ideas of my own.” Some of those ideas come from his background as a professional planner, whose last job before he came to Waterloo in 1988 was with the National Capital Commission in Ottawa.

In Waterloo, he’s had some involvement in advising governments at the municipal and regional levels, on issues such as downtown revitalization and the “desperate” condition of car-dependent suburbs. Experience in government agencies gives him a certain view of administration, he says, observing that the job of a dean “is a manager’s job, it’s not an academic job”.

Within the faculty, he’s pleased to find “a really really good administrative team” and “a basic culture that’s intact across the building”, so that faculty members feel “really useful — not rent by ideology at all. This is a really interdisciplinary crowd here; that makes it fun.”

But the interim deanship is “a serious position to be in, and one that I don’t take lightly at all” even though the appointment is for only a few months, he says. “I can’t be a lame-duck interim — I’ve got to keep things moving forward.”

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Orientation and a few other notes

Orientation for new first-year students continues today with a checkerboard of events aimed at the various faculties — an aerial photo for arts students, what sounds like a scavenger hunt for science, and “Bomber Breakfast” for environment students (oddly being held not at the Bombshelter pub in the Student Life Centre, but on the green at  St. Paul’s College). Engineering and math students will find time for the English Language Proficiency Exam, and various groups will drop in at “Single and Sexy” performances in the Humanities Theatre at 9:30, 1:00 and 4:00.

Tonight, three of the six faculties are headed for “Boars, Tools and Ties” in the Student Life Centre. As a result, the SLC will be closed to general use from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. “The Turnkey Desk along with ticketing for GO Transit and Greyhound will remain open throughout the event,” says Scott Pearson, assistant manager of the SLC. “Access to the Turnkey Desk or the Prayer Room can be made through the SLC entrance on the PAC side of the building. Tim Hortons will remain open throughout the event with access through the Ring Road entrance of the SLC.” Thursday night the SLC will be shut down in the same way for the six-faculty, semiformal Monte Carlo Night.

Architecture students are dividing their time this week between the Cambridge campus, where their classes are, and Waterloo. Today they're at the Melville Street building in the historic Galt district for academic briefings, lunch with the city's mayor, and an "Adventure Around Galt", then will get a bus to Waterloo for tonight's party in the SLC. They'll be in Waterloo again tomorrow, but Friday is largely occupied with the vital business of studio setups in the Architecture building.

The weather was good yesterday and orientation seemed to be off to a lively start. As one observer wrote on Twitter, there are “6000 frosh overall; it only seems like they're all in the Arts Quad.” Thanks to Jeff Henry, of the mathematics undergraduate office, for the photo at left, showing first-year math students meeting one version of their mascot the Pink Tie. The giant tie that usually hangs from the Math and Computer building suffered major wind damage on Saturday and is down for repairs; orientation leaders are saying that the Tie must have somehow known about the recent death of Ralph Stanton, founder of the math faculty, whose garish taste in neckwear accounts for the pink symbol.

Brad Moggach, president of the Federation of Students, noted yesterday that he's "spending as much time as possible with these energetic first years! We have an incredible group of incoming students!" And he added praise for the "commitment and engagement" of hundreds of orientation leaders.

I invited other orientation observations through Twitter, and got a few: “Making buttons and brochures for tomorrow and Friday's At Your Service event!” • “Waterloo Men’s Hockey is working hard this week at training camp. Building a home with Habitat for Humanity this weekend.” • “ENV has the loudest speakers on campus. You can hear them half way into ring road! Day is going great!” • “Having so much fun with math first years at Waterloo Park. Events (like capture the leader) and free pizza!” • “Single and Sexy shows will be at capacity in most cases (most o-week leaders will have to wait outside) — always a tight squeeze.”

In other news . . . international recruitment efforts for the 2010-11 year are underway, starting in Brazil, says Mirjana Radaulovic of the marketing and undergraduate recruitment office: “This year’s Mission to Brazil Initiative will focus on high school visits, public fairs, and networking receptions in São Paulo, Campinas, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, and Brasilia from September 8-18.” She and Andrea Brandt of Renison University College will be attending International Education Fairs this weekend in São Paulo and subsequently in three other cities.

The CIBC bank branch in the Student Life Centre will be open late this week (to 5 p.m. today, 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday) to deal with beginning-of-term business. • Offices at the university's new temporary Stratford campus now have UW phone extension numbers, and staff there report that they feel "a bit more connected to main campus again". • There's a vacancy on the board of directors of the Waterloo Public Interest Research Group (details online).

And . . . there will be a special celebration this afternoon, 2 to 5 p.m., in the REVelation cafeteria in Ron Eydt Village. The guest of honour is Heidi Bishop (right), who's marking 45 years on the job in food services. That would mean she started in 1965, four years before REV was even built (it was the year Village I opened). "Friends and colleagues are invited to share this milestone and reminisce with Heidi," writes Heather Kelly, marketing coordinator for food services.

CAR

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