A total of 84 first-year students showed up in time for orientation this past weekend at Waterloo's United Arab Emirates campus in Dubai. "We expect a few more, as some just got their visas," says associate vice-president (international) Leo Rothenburg. He adds: "The front row in the picture are Waterloo co-op teaching assistants and staff from the main campus and second year volunteers." Fall term classes at the Dubai campus begin today.

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Time warp again: it's another fall term

Orientation is under way across the main campus — it’s not hard to tell, what with the chants, the songs and the boombox music. Thousands of new students arrived Sunday or yesterday, unloaded their gear with the help of T-shirted volunteers, and met dons and roommates. Today they're getting to know the campus and its environs with icebreakers and introductory events: arts students at “Welcome to the West” in the arts quad, math students with an outing to Waterloo Park, and so on.

Environment students have academic briefings this morning; engineering students will have lunch shortly in their respective departments, then “earn” their hard hats at a series of locations on the east side of the campus. For most students, tonight is “Variety Night” across campus. “Activities,” orientation organizers explain, “include sports, lessons, haunted house, a hypnotist, live music, and more.”

Over the next three days there will be nine performances of “Single and Sexy”, the most famous feature of UW orientation (and one that’s been adopted at other institutions as well). S&S lasts about an hour, and will hit the Humanities Theatre stage today at 10:00, 1:00 and 4:00; Wednesday at 9:30, 1:00 and 4:00; and Thursday at 9:30, 12:30 and 4:00. Specific groups of new students will be heading for the theatre at each of those times, but I understand it’s possible for others to sidle in as well and see what the play has to say about sex (wanted and unwanted), drugs, plagiarism, friendship, Bombshelter lineups and other issues of student life.

Lots more is happening during orientation week — details are on the orientation web site, as well as in printed material available through the orientation program. Social and academic events are balanced all week with exposure to campus places and services. Central registration for orientation week takes place in the Student Life Centre multi-purpose room, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily for the rest of the week. First-year students will need their WatCard to register.

Parts of the SLC will be closed to general use on Wednesday evening for a multi-faculty “Glow in the Dark” event, though the great hall remains open. Thursday evening, it’s the traditional Monte Carlo Night, which will result in closing all of the SLC apart from the turnkey desk, the prayer room and Tim Hortons. Both closings run from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.

With the arrival of thousands of new students, and the return of thousands who aren’t new, campus services are back in full swing, or soon will be. Hours for a few key operations:

Retail services —  Bookstore, Waterloo Store, E-Smart, Write Stuff and Campus Tech open 9 to 5 through Friday; all stores except Campus Tech also open Saturday 12 noon to 4 p.m. There will be extended bookstore hours September 12-15.

Libraries — 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. this week, noon to 5 on Saturday and Sunday; full schedules begin next Monday, the first day of fall term classes.

Athletics — PAC and Columbia Icefield open Monday-Friday 7 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 9 to 11:30 (but the PAC will close at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday because of Monte Carlo Night).

Food services — Residence cafeterias are now open daily. A few outlets, including Festival Fare (South Campus Hall), are still closed this week, but most main campus outlets will open for limited hours this week and full hours beginning September 12. Tim Hortons in the Student Life Centre is open 7:30 a.m. to midnight until Friday, limited hours this weekend; as of next week it’s 24-hour service from Monday 7:30 a.m. to Friday 9 p.m. plus 11:00 to 9:00 each Saturday and Sunday. Food services details are online.

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Student success office settles in at SCH

It was moving day on Friday for some of the people who will make up the new Student Success Office, and it should be open for business this morning in its new space on the upper level of South Campus Hall, above the bookstore. (The previous occupants of that space, staff in development and alumni affairs, vamoosed during the summer, mostly to temporary quarters in Research Advancement Centre 1 on the north campus.)

As of today, “SSO staff should be settled into the new space and ready to welcome all students,” says the new department’s director of communications, Virginia Young. “Over the course of the term, the office will continue to grow with the hiring of new staff and development of new programs.”

She notes that several “established student service areas” that already existed on campus will now be a part of the new Student Success Office. Here’s where to find them:

• The International Student Office, formerly a unit of Waterloo International and housed in Needles Hall, has made the jump to South Campus Hall, “and will continue to operate business as usual,” Young says. “The International Student Office services undergraduate and graduate international students, post-docs, visiting scholars and their dependents with one-on-one advising, English language conversation classes, the Shadow program, and an International Student Orientation program.”

• The Student Life Office, which was based in a cubbyhole on the first floor of Needles Hall, is now the First Year Experience office and part of the SSO establishment in SCH. Staff of that office “just completed a successful series of revamped Student Life 101 sessions and is now very busy getting ready to welcome over 5,000 new first-year students to campus during Orientation week,” Young said on Friday. “Business will continue as usual for the First Year Experience team — however, unpacking their offices won’t be a high priority for the coming week.”

• Staff of the Writing Centre and English Language Proficiency Program, part of the SSO’s new Learning Services unit, have been in their new offices since the middle of August. They administer the English Language Proficiency Exam to thousands of students every year during orientation week (first-year students in math and engineering will be taking it this week). In addition, Young noted, the Writing Centre will continue to offer one-on-one tutoring and writing workshops for students starting September 26.

• VeloCity will continue to operate out of the Minota Hagey Residence, but “will also have a space in the Student Success Office,” she said, “for interested students to connect with a member of the Student Innovation  team about either living in VeloCity or pursuing their interests in entrepreneurship. Staff will combine their time in the Student Success Office with time spent working in downtown Kitchener at the Communitech Hub.”

Most existing staff members will have the same phone numbers as they settle into their new offices, Young said. A grand opening to celebrate the new office with the campus community is being planned for Friday, October 28 – “a culmination of a week-long event, Success Week, focused on student success during the last week of October.”

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Stratford executive will start October 1

Ginny Dybenko (left) will be acting executive director of the university's Stratford campus, effective October 1, says an announcement issued Friday by Tim Jackson, the vice-president (university relations), and Douglas Peers, the dean of arts.

"Ginny’s background is well suited for this position," says their memo, "and we believe she has the ideal skill set to help lead Stratford though this transition period. Ginny is well known to our community as she was most recently the Dean of the School of Business at Wilfrid Laurier University. She previously held senior positions with Syndesis and Bell Canada, both of which have application to our Stratford initiative. Ginny currently serves on the board of the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Chartered Accountants of Ontario governing council as well as several community organizations. In 2008 she was recognized as 'one of Canada’s 100 most powerful women'. We are excited to have Ginny join the team to lead our Stratford project."

Today's a big day at the Stratford campus, as its first-ever students begin their program. "We welcome our first class of Master of Digital Experience Innovation students," said an e-mail newsletter issued Friday. "Seventeen students start the Intensive Workshop on September 6, and regular classes start September 12. We have a digital media lab set up and ready to go, and the staff has moved into our expanded office to make room for the students and faculty. The students have been using social media to arrange housing, carpooling and just get to know each other before classes start."

Stratford, not having any undergraduate students yet, isn't involved in this week's orientation program. Neither is the Kitchener campus, where pharmacy students begin their academic year in January rather than September. Architecture students based at the Cambridge campus will have some orientation events there (including lunch with the city's mayor tomorrow, but will also make several bus trips to Waterloo in the course of the week to join in engineering and university-wide orientation activities.

CAR

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