Canadian music icon Bruce Cockburn played to a sold-out house Thursday night as part of a "Festival of Friends." Conrad Grebel University College alumni, friends and community members attended the concert, held as one of Grebel's 50 events celebrating the college's 50th anniversary.

"Cockburn's music has always been popular with students and alumni at Grebel," writes Jennifer Konkle. "His humanitarian work and his voice for social justice in places like Mozambique, Nepal, Central America and more recently in Iraq, have always struck a chord."

Photograph by Jennifer Konkle.

 

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The latest silver linings from the email cloud

a message from Information Systems & Technology (IST).

A continuation of the investigation into cloud-supported email services had Information Systems & Technology (IST) and the Student Success Office (SSO) collaborate to host a student consultation group to receive student feedback.

IST has been evaluating the potential use of cloud e-mail services for students. Currently, students are offered the choice of using their existing personal e-mail account for University correspondence, or the University provided e-mail service, called mailservices. Student preferences and trends in higher education suggest it is time to re-evaluate maintaining an in-house e-mail system for students.

Results from a survey conducted in June 2013 revealed a clear desire from students to retain a uWaterloo affiliated email address on a cloud hosted system. Students expect a richer communications collaboration tool than the University currently provides, and the comments received from the student consultation group were in line with the initial assumptions and results from this survey.

The student consultation group also revealed the majority of students use Gmail and Hotmail as their primary accounts to communicate with the university. Clean designs and user friendly interfaces were the main reasons cited for forwarding email. One of the other main complaints about the current mailservices system is the lack of responsive design for students to view email on their smartphones.

Many students felt that switching to a cloud email service would be a win-win situation, providing an easier and faster system for students, and a more cost-effective solution for the university. IST will continue investigating and consulting with the campus community, and hopes to bring a recommendation to UCIST this summer.

 

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Arts Computer Experience shutting down

A message from the Arts Computer Experience (ACE).

After many successful years of operation, the Arts Computer Experience (ACE) Camp and the Leaders-In-Motion (LIM) program in the Faculty of Arts have been discontinued, effective this summer.

There are insurmountable logistical and space-related challenges that have driven the decision to terminate the camp. With construction and renovation plans for summer 2014 that directly impact spaces relied upon for the ACE camp, we do not have suitable alternatives to accommodate the summer camp.

As well, Marsha Wendell, the long-serving Program Co-ordinator for ACE and LIM, will retire this year. We would like to take this opportunity to wish Marsha the very best for a happy retirement after many distinguished years of service at the University.

It has been our privilege to provide a meaningful camp experience to so many children over the years, and we extend our thanks to ACE campers, parents, and supporters.

Anyone with questions should contact Wendy Philpott.

 

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Women's Day Dinner set for March 7

Tickets are on sale for the International Women's Day Dinner, which will be held at the University Club on Friday, March 7 from 5:40 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

The dinner is being hosted jointly by Women's Studies, the Office of the President, University Relations and the Federation of Students' Women's Centre.

Ticket and registration details are available online.

 

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Laflamme to address Canadian Club of Ottawa

Professor Raymond Laflamme, executive director of the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo, is speaking at the Canadian Club of Ottawa today.

In his address entitled "The Quest for the Quantum 'Holy Grail,'" Professor Laflamme will tell Ottawa's business, government and academic leaders how the quantum world behaves, and share the latest breakthroughs and some of the biggest challenges ahead in the quest to build technologies based on quantum properties.

He will share how researchers at the forefront of science are navigating and controlling the very building blocks of nature to develop new technologies that will change the ways we work, communicate, and live.

The address will take place in the Chateau Laurier at noon.

 

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Feds election results and other notes

The results are in, and undergraduate students have elected their leaders for 2014-2015. 

"This election was the first to feature ranked ballots, which allowed students to rank the candidates running for each position from their top choice to their last," writes Jacqueline Martinz. "The candidate with the least number of votes on the first ballot was eliminated, and then the candidate with the least number of votes on the second ballot was eliminated leaving the elected representative."

The results for the four executive positions are as follows:

President

Elected: Danielle Burt

Ranked 2nd: Jesse McGinnis
Ranked 3rd: Moe Bdeir

Vice-President Operations and Finance

Elected: Ben Balfour

Ranked 2nd: Elizabeth McFaul
Ranked 3rd: Raghda Sabry

Vice-President Internal

Elected: Maaz Yasin

Ranked 2nd: Anjali Gopal
Ranked 3rd: Saleem Khan

Vice-President Education

Elected: Stephane Hamade

Ranked 2nd: Luke McIntosh
Ranked 3rd: Renishaki Kamalanathan

This was a near-sweep for the "Team Spark" slate, with three of four Spark candidates winning a seat. Vice-President, Education-elect Stephane Hamade was a member of Team Green.

For undergraduate seats on Senate, Alanna Benson was elected as arts representative, and Christos Lolas was elected to fill the at-large position.

For Students' Council, the following students were elected to fill the Science seats:

• Adam Assaad
  
• Carly McCready
• Mohammad Nasif
• Kianna Wan

The following students were elected to sit as Math councillors:

• Jack Li
• Elizabeth Liu
• Christos Lolas
• Febrian Sidharta
• Jazbel Wang

The following students were elected to the Arts seats:

• Doug Turner,
• Shaf Khan
• Dayna Nelson
• Khadija Hamidzai
• Guile Domingo
  

And, as it turns out, those who like their Grand River Transit Universal Bus Pass Program like it a lot. The referendum asking students if they wanted to keep their passes for an increased price passed, 7986 to 462. According to Imprint, voter turnout in the referendum was 28 per cent. Unless I'm mistaken, that's the highest voter turnout for a student referendum in quite some time.

From February 18 to February 21, repairs will be made to the east and west main entrances of the Davis Centre. Work will begin with the east Ring Road-facing entrance and proceed from there. The entrances under repair will be closed until repairs are completed, but the rest of the entrances will be open.

This just in from Mathematics: "Applications for the annual Think About Math workshop are now being accepted online. This is an exciting opportunity for Grade 9 girls to explore the career possibilities and interesting applications of mathematics. The deadline for applications is Monday, March 3 at 4:00 p.m.  Good luck to all applicants!"

 

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