Daily Bulletin, Wednesday, March 16, 1994

NSERC GRANTS:  Rumours are burning up the cross-Canada wires about an
end to the research grants program of NSERC, the Natural Sciences and
Engineering Research Council, which is the major source of funding for
research in those fields in Canada.  NSERC is completely denying the
rumours.  "Council has no such plans and has not even discussed this,"
the director-general of research grants, Nigel Lloyd, said yesterday.
He called the spreading of rumours "a deliberate attempt to get us to
change direction" and reduce NSERC's emphasis on "strategic" grants and
collaboration with industry.

Here's the text of a statement issued by NSERC:
 
     We regret that misinformation about the status of the Research Grants 
     program is circulating among the university community. Contrary to 
     these rumours, Council has not decided to terminate the program, and 
     has not even discussed the possibility of its termination. Individual 
     research grants remain one of the most important means by which NSERC 
     supports university research.
 
     NSERC has added additional funds to the Research Grants Program every 
     year until the most recent competition. Its budget stands at $200M this 
     year compared to $129M ten years ago. The number of grantees supported 
     by the program has grown every year for the last eight years.
 
     Council's overall funding level has not changed for the last two years. 
     With the continued growth of the university research community, this 
     makes the allocation process a challenging one, both within and among 
     programs. We invite constructive input into this process.

Such issues will probably get an airing when Peter Morand, the president of
NSERC, and senior colleagues visit UW on Friday, March 25.  An open session
with the visitors is to be held that morning.

FORUM ON CO-OP:  "Students Advising Co-op", the student group that meets
regularly with officials in the co-op department, has announced a forum this
afternoon at which students can ask questions about how co-op fees are
spent, how job placements are going and how the co-op system works.  Bruce
Lumsden, interim director of the co-op department, will be among the
panelists along with co-op colleagues and someone from the university's
operations analysis office.  The forum runs from 4:30 to 5:30 in Davis
Centre room 1351.

VERY CYNICAL:  That's the kind of play the drama department is presenting
in "The Country Wife", says its director, Joel Greenberg.  The show is an
eighteenth-century "comedy of manners", but he's set it in the 1950's --
not the fifties of Leave It to Beaver, but the fifties of Vogue high
fashion, effete and thoughtless.  In the Restoration age when William
Wycherley wrote the play, "people adored being witty," says Greenberg, and
he thinks the plot and language of "The Country Wife" transfer well to
an age of "cover girls, slavishness to artifice, the amount of care lavished
on superficial appearance".

After a preview performance last night, the show opens tonight at 8.  "I
don't know how loudly an audience laughs at this kind of material," Greenberg
admitted yesterday.  "It's not situation comedy, because the stakes are 
too high!"  Characters like the horny Horner and the inexperienced Mrs.
Pinchwife move in a social whirl that will throw them away if they stumble
once too often: "You accept that lying is a given."

Wit is at a premium, and "it's a play for the mind," the director says,
while adding that there's visual comedy in "The Country Wife" as well.
Performances are in the Theatre of the Arts at 8 p.m. tonight through
Saturday; tickets are $10 (students and seniors $8) at the box office in
Hagey Hall of the Humanities.

Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
888-4567 ext. 3004      credmond@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca