Friday, January 28, 1994 UW IS CLOSED today because of the overnight ice storm that has also closed Kitchener-Waterloo schools and just about everything else. "Closed" means that classes are not being held today, and offices and most services are not open. The libraries are not open (as of 9:15) but a few people were trickling in, and associate librarian Bruce Macneil said the libraries would open later if possible. The cafeterias in Village 1 and 2 are open, of course. "We are trying to keep Pastry Plus in South Campus Hall and the Davis Centre open as long as we have staff," says Mark Murdoch, director of food services. Otherwise, food outlets will be closed. Among the day's cancellations is an afternoon meeting of the senate finance and long-range planning committees. That meeting was to continue its discussion of how UW plans for a difficult future with shrinking revenues. UW'S POLICY is to close on any storm day when the Waterloo County Board of Education closes all its schools, and that's what was done this morning. University president James Downey -- who did make it to campus himself, driving gingerly along the ice of King Street -- says he's interested in reviewing the policy, based on today's experience, but is persuaded that closing today was the right thing to do. He was expecting a visit today from Lyn McLeod, leader of the Liberal Party in Ontario, who's coming to town for a weekend conference hosted by the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, which includes student federations at UW and Wilfrid Laurier University. It's not clear whether McLeod will make it to town, since Toronto is also shut down by the storm. Already in Waterloo is Jim O'Sullivan, vice-president of the University of New Brunswick. He's heading the four-person committee to review UW's top administration; it held its first meeting yesterday. CO-OP DEPARTMENT: A few staff are on hand in the department of co-op education and career services -- they acquired the last pot of coffee from the Pastry Plus outlet in Needles Hall before it closed down. Hopes are that interviews for spring term jobs can start smoothly on Monday. COMPUTER ADVISORY: Here's the word from Roger Watt of computing services about what people should do if they have machine trouble today: "Follow the standard procedure for reporting any outage of a facility maintained by DCS ... call the DCS HelpDesk (x4839) and leave a voicemail message with all relevant details. Because of the unscheduled closing of the university, you should expect that things are unstaffed, so the problem will get tended to on a 'best effort' basis in accordance with its overall impact on the university community. Because of the situation, of course, we are unable to guarantee 'by when'." LATER INFORMATION about services on campus will be posted to uw.general and uw.campus-news and will appear on the FLASH facility of UWinfo. Departments with emergency information to convey should send e-mail to credmond@watserv1 or leave voice-mail at ext. 3004. Chris Redmond Information and Public Affairs credmond@watserv1 ext. 3004