Daily Bulletin, Wednesday, March 15, 1995

THE IDES OF MARCH are come.  Ay, but not gone.  (Every month has an
Ides: in March, July, October, May, the Ides are on the fifteenth day.
But we chiefly know about the Ides of March because of the assassination
of Julius Caesar on that date, 2,038 years ago today.)

No assassinations are scheduled at UW today, so far as I know.  And while
Caesar died on the steps of the senate house, UW's senate is not scheduled
to meet until next Monday.  On the agenda for that meeting (Needles Hall
3001, 7:30 p.m.) is an announcement of this year's Distinguished Teacher
Awards, as well as a "state of the faculty" presentation from the dean of
engineering.

POLYMER CHAIR:  Dr. Scott Collins, a faculty member in UW's chemistry 
department, will be the holder of the new Novacor/NSERC Industrial Research 
Chair in Polyolefin and Catalyst Technology, officially announced yesterday.
Novacor Chemicals Ltd. is a Calgary-based plastics firm, a subsidiary
of Nova Corporation; NSERC is the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research 
Council. Both agencies will be supporting Collins as part of the NSERC 
"industrial chairs" program.  The goal: the study of polymer chemistry and 
catalysis, and particularly the field of "single-site catalysts", considered 
the hot new activity in the plastics industry.

Creation of the chair was announced at a news conference in the Davis Centre. 
But readers of fine print might have known about it two weeks ago, as it's 
listed in the 1995-96 undergraduate calendar, which was available just in 
time for preregistration.

Novacor is putting $200,000 a year for five years into the "chair".  NSERC
will provide the same amount, and UW itself has committed $150,000 a year
to provide the salary for two "junior chair-holders" to work with Collins,
as well as other research expenses.

KARAOKE rules at Federation Hall tonight.  It'll be the finals of a karaoke
competition sponsored by the Chinese Students Association, Chinese
Students and Scholars Association, Hong Kong Students Association, and
Wilfrid Laurier University Chinese Student Association.  The four groups,
representing different strains of the "Chinese" community at UW and WLU,
are getting together for the first time for the event.  Each group held
a preliminary event to pick tonight's competitors, who are trying for
prizes of as much as $200.  The singing starts at 7:30 and a dance follows
at 9 p.m.

TICKETS are on sale now for "Vital Signs", the annual concert by the dance
department.  Performances are Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30;
tickets, at $8 and $6, are available at the Humanities box office.

LIBRARY BOOKS that were borrowed on "term loan" will be due soon: the
winter term due date is April 12.  Whether you're returning your books or
renewing them, the library advises getting it done before the last minute,
when there are bound to be lineups.  (Term loan books can't be renewed
by telephone.)

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