University of Waterloo

Daily Bulletin

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Monday, December 4, 1995

Important meeting this morning

Department chairs and heads are gathering at 9 this morning (Needles Hall room 3001) at the invitation of UW's president and provost. The meeting is being held, a memo last week said, "in order to discuss the budget situation and the early retirement program".

About the budget situation, we've all heard a lot already: millions of dollars off UW's government grant starting in 1996, tuition fees going up substantially, but still a big gap that has to be filled through spending cuts of some kind, mostly to the payroll. The early retirement plan is seen as the brightest hope for filling the gap.

Provost Jim Kalbfleisch is expected to make the details of the early retirement plan public during this morning's meeting. Several hundred staff and faculty members who are eligible to apply for early retirement under the plan should be getting personal "packages" of information about it, probably also today. And as soon as possible after the meeting, I'll post a description of the plan on UWinfo, at the temporary URL http://watserv2.uwaterloo.ca/~infoipa/early. Or watch for Wednesday's Gazette.

According to the newsgroup rec.humor.funny, downsizing is happening just about everywhere. . . .

As the term draws to a close

Tomorrow's the last day of fall term classes; exams start on Friday. And to quote Steve Astels of the pure mathematics department, as (no doubt reliably) reported in a much-admired campus newsletter:
"Duh" is not good enough for the exam.

Today's a significant deadline for some co-op students who haven't yet found winter term jobs. It affects those who originally signed up for "postings only" placement, meaning that they'd be considered only for jobs that were formally posted by employers. Now, it could be time to expand the search, including referrals to non-posted jobs. ("We must be able to respond quickly to employers with job openings or these jobs will be lost to competing schools," a co-op flyer explains.) To sign on to the referral service, a student should hand in 20 copies of a resume package and "skills and interests" form by today.

Brief look ahead at what's happening in the UW theatres: Thursday, the "Guse Family Christmas Show", sponsored by Travel Ventures; Saturday night, the Holly Cole Trio, presented by the Federation of Students board of entertainment; December 19 and 20, the Ontario Ballet Theatre production of "The Nutcracker", brought to town by city hall's Waterloo Showtime series. Tickets for all performances: 888-4908.

The season of good will

To repeat an announcement I made in the Bulletin last week: I've already heard about several UW departments that are organizing food drives or other charitable activities for the Christmas (Hanukah, Kwanzaa) season. It would be good to have a complete list of what's being done on campus to help those who need help; so if your group or department has a food, clothing, toy or other project going, please would you drop me a note about it? (I've already heard about a good dozen such activities; this campus is a generous place as well as a busy one.)

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

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