Federal finance minister Jim Flaherty visited the university Friday, stopping for a tour and briefing from Institute for Quantum Computing director Ray Laflamme. Provost Feridun Hamdullahpur listens in, as did local MPs Peter Braid (Kitchener-Waterloo) and Stephen Woodworth (Kitchener Centre). IQC has benefited from about $75 million in federal government funding, both for facilities and for various research chairs. Laflamme described the institute's work and its quest to unravel the world of quantum information. All three federal representatives were invited to come back for another visit, and were urged to bring the prime minister — especially for the anticipated official opening next summer of the Mike and Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre.

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City delivers its message to students

Students living around Waterloo’s two universities can expect to find someone on their doorsteps this week bearing a door-knock handout that contains lots of information about this community.

The annual door-knock campaign will run Wednesday and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., says a city of Waterloo news release. Police officers, firefighters, bylaw enforcement personnel, students and campus police will knock on 1,500 doors and distribute information on some of Waterloo’s bylaws, as well as tips on being a good neighbour and useful phone numbers.

“For some students, this is their first time living away from home. We want them to be prepared, to feel at home and to have respect for this community, which is why we do this as part of our annual It’s Your Waterloo campaign. The handouts are small, but they contain a lot of information,” said Kaye Crawford, the city’s manager of community relations.

Handouts will be left for students living near the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University who are not home when the representatives arrive at their door.

The city has also recently updated the “student” section of its website, the news release notes. “Our website is filled with the things that people need to know about living in Waterloo. We’ve provided a great cross-section of information on everything from bylaws and volunteer opportunities to useful phone numbers and fire safety,” Crawford said.

In a separate release, the city “extends a warm welcome to all the post-secondary students who are making their way back into this community for the start of the new school year.”

It quotes mayor Brenda Halloran: “Students play a dynamic role in our community, and we hope they enjoy their time here – whether it’s just during their school years or later if they decide to settle here. There’s so much to see and do in Waterloo. Between the parks, trails and recreational facilities, and the retail and entertainment opportunities, the city has so much to offer.”

The release quotes Brad Moggach, president of t Federation of Students: “Each September, our incoming class of first years arrives and our students return to begin another fantastic year in this vibrant community. Waterloo is blessed to have such a fantastic mixture of students, families and young professionals. This city has so much to offer and all students should take every opportunity to enjoy it!”

And Saad Aslam, his counterpart at Wilfrid Laurier University, adds that WLU students “are known for their immense contributions to the Kitchener-Waterloo community. Whether it is donating to charities or volunteering at various community initiatives, our students pride themselves on the positive impact they have in the local community and we look forward to working with them this year as they continue to be dynamic, engaged and socially responsible members of society.”

In the past, says the news release, “the actions of a small number of students have impacted negatively upon the broader student community. The city recognizes that challenges will arise throughout the course of the year, and staff will be on hand to deal with them.”

“We want all students to know that this is their community too, and we hope that they treat it that way,” says Crawford.

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Other notes as the term gets rolling

Fall term classes begin today, and some students began their university careers with an 8:30 a.m. dose of something like Chemistry 120. (You can easily recognize first-year students as they to classes this morning: they're the ones tightly clutching maps of the campus.) Services across UW are back to regular operating hours — the Dana Porter Library, for instance, is now open to 11 p.m. every night of the week, and the Davis Centre library until midnight. Detailed hours are on the appropriate web sites for the library, food services, athletic facilities, and retail stores (including the bookstore, which will be open until 7 p.m. for the next four days to help with the beginning-of-term textbook rush).

About food services, by the way, people have been asking when the Modern Languages coffee shop, which has been undergoing a facelift, is going to reopen. "Aren't we all just wondering!" writes Heather Kelly, marketing manager in food services. "I visited the construction site for a sneak peak yesterday, and it is looking pretty amazing — it still has that diner feel, but far more open and bright. The new Tims is quite different from the cute corner stand: more centred, bigger and brighter too." She says the café and Tims should be open sometime this week or at the beginning of next week.

The UW-WLU Jewish Students Association is being reborn as Hillel Waterloo, and — on this first day of term, nestled between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur — the new name and affiliation are being celebrated with a barbecue, featuring the band Automatic Toys. Festivities start at 7:00 tonight at the association's building, now to be called Hillel Latner House, 148 Albert Street. Says the website of the association formerly known as JSA: "Waterloo joins the international community of campus Hillels, committed to providing diverse, engaging, and pluralistic Jewish campus life. Hillel Waterloo will continue the strong JSA tradition of student leadership and engagement, and will continue to work to represent Jewish students in Waterloo." Hillel, "the foundation for Jewish campus life", is represented at more than 500 campuses across North America.

Friday's Daily Bulletin mentioned that the university's non-union staff are currently working under "a two-year salary settlement" that took effect last May 1 — a statement that wasn't, strictly speaking, correct. In fact, I'm reminded, the agreement between the university and the staff association is just a one-year pact, for 2010-11. It was announced last spring with an "understanding that, in the spirit of the provincial government’s budget statement of March 25, there will be a two-year freeze on range adjustments", but the actual agreement doesn't make any provision for a second year.

Canadian economist Paul Jenkins, a former senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, has been named a Distinguished Fellow at the Waterloo-based Centre for International Governance Innovation. • Tim Jackson, chief executive of the Accelerator Centre and associate vice-president (commercialization) of the university, and David Rudolph, scientific director of the university's Water Institute, will be among the speakers this Friday at the annual Grand River Watershed Forum. • Guy Poirier, a faculty member since 2003 and specialist in literature ranging from the Renaissance to British Columbia, is the new chair of the department of French studies, effective September 1.

There are some changes to the schedule of Greyhound buses to campus, says a note from the Student Life Centre, where bus tickets are sold. And effective today, "all Greyhound stops have been consolidated to the Matthews Hall location. All buses will only depart from BMH and all arrivals will be there. There will no longer be any service offered at the Davis Centre or South Campus Hall." The Waterloo campus is at the extreme end of a route that touches Wilfrid Laurier University, downtown Kitchener and the Greyhound depot at Sportsworld before taking to the highway en route to Toronto.

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Conference studies international adoption

International adoption experts and advocates will attend a “summit” later this month, sponsored by the University of Waterloo and held in nearby Stratford, to discuss the current and future status of intercountry adoptions, a global phenomenon involving more than 38,000 adoptions — and billions of dollars — every year. The Intercountry Adoption Summit: State of Intercountry Adoption will be held September 23-26 at the Arden Park Hotel.

The Summit is essentially two distinct, but connected, international gatherings, says summit co-chair Robert Ballard, a Waterloo speech communications professor who was himself born in Vietnam and adopted in the United States at the end of the US-Vietnam War. “The Summit brings a global and interdisciplinary perspective to the conversation about intercountry adoption,” Ballard says.

The first gathering brings influential countries involved in intercountry adoption together to discuss the current and future state of intercountry adoption. This first gathering is by invitation only, but the public is invited to their closing session on September 24, where recommendations for the future of intercountry adoption will be presented.

The second gathering brings researchers and scholars from around the world together to showcase their research in intercountry adoption. That event is open to the general public, and scholars from 14 major disciplines involved in intercountry adoption research will be attending.

"Even though inter-country adoptions around the world has decreased in the past few years, interest and awareness are on the rise," says Ballard. "At the summit we will discuss the current and future state of intercountry adoption and offer some new recommendations. Public discourse surrounding intercountry adoption centres on the need to reduce corruption and human trafficking while maximizing the best interests of children who are abandoned or relinquished."

To address those growing concerns, Waterloo's faculty of arts and its Communication, Leadership and Social Innovation unit organized the non-governmental summit to bring together the influential countries of origin and receiving countries involved in intercountry adoption to share research, practices and experiences, he explains. It also will allow representatives from non-governmental organizations to participate in an invitation-only discussion. Many of these representatives hold governments accountable or work directly with the children involved in adoption.

The Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Inter-Country Adoption established standards for international adoption practices in 1993. Since then 84 countries, including Canada, have signed it. The agreement calls on participating countries to ensure that the best interests of children are considered with each intercountry adoption and to prevent the abduction, exploitation, sale or trafficking of children.

But the convention is voluntary, meaning that countries agree to sign up and enforce the standards surrounding intercountry adoption. Therefore, says Ballard, the summit will examine intercountry adoption from a global perspective that does not distinguish between those countries that have signed the Hague Convention and those that have not, and will examine cross-sector and interdisciplinary ways to address intercountry adoption going into the future.

The event will produce a volume of proceedings with an up-to-date overview of the literature in the disciplinary areas conducting research on intercountry adoption and presenting at the summit.

Registration for the public part of the summit costs $380 (students $150). “This is a not-to-be missed conference,” says Ballard, “for anyone — professionals, practitioners, researchers, policymakers — who is involved in intercountry and international adoption!”

CAR

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