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Tuesday, August 1, 1995

Gossip on the first of August

Confidential to somebody who parked a bicycle in front of the Dana Porter Library early this morning: a squirrel has been exploring your saddle-bags.

Jake Sivak of the school of optometry, who's frequently in the news for his research about the eyes of animals, is there again. He's quoted on the front page of this morning's Star, commenting on an American study of rhesus monkeys and how astonishingly well their eyes "grow to clarity" despite distorting lenses put in their way.

Of less local interest: this first day of August is the birthday of author Herman Melville, and the national day of Switzerland and Benin.

Neuropsychologist comes to lecture

This year's Hagey Lecturer will be Patricia Smith Churchland, a neuropsychologist and philosopher of science based at the University of California at San Diego.

She will be at UW October 18 and 19, the Hagey Lecture committee announced yesterday. Canadian-born, Churchland has been on the committee's target list for half a dozen years, said Vera Golini, chair of the committee, and finally has been able to set a date to visit. She'll give the general Hagey Lecture under the title "Can Neurobiology Teach Us Anything About Consciousness?" and a separate undergraduate lecture, "Feeling Reasons: What Happens to Free Will if the Brain Is a Causal Mechanism?"

Perfect timing: Churchland is quoted in the cover story of this week's Time magazine, a long article about the brain and consciousness. "What's so exciting," she says, "is that the philosophical questions raised by the ancient Greeks are coming within the province of science."

Phone centre is coming

The new Bell Canada Phonecentre on the ground floor of the Student Life Centre, originally targeted to open today, is now expected to open at the beginning of next week, says Student Life Centre interim manager Daniel Shipp. "We had hoped for the earlier date, but construction and installation delays have bumped the opening back a week," he said.

The opening of the new phonecentre, between the bank and variety store in the SLC, will render the Bell Canada trailer near the Davis Centre redundant, says Joan Wiley of UW telephone services. The trailer, which had offered phone rental and hook-up services, will be closed and moved.

PhD oral examinations set

From the faculty of arts graduate office come these two notices of PhD theses that will be defended later in August:

Worship in the summer

During August, four various bodies will be holding Christian worship services on Sundays on campus:

Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
(519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
credmond@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca

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