UW president James Downey was saying Friday that he felt a trifle more encouraged after the latest meetings between university leaders and various ministers and deputy ministers. Downey chairs the "government relations committee" of the Council of Ontario Universities, which released a study on Friday about the effect that major cuts would have on the whole provincial economy and especially the cities where there are universities. COU says a cut of the magnitude that's being rumoured, around 15 per cent, would take $1 billion a year out of the Ontario economy.
The Kitchener-Waterloo Record headlined the story Saturday, saying this area alone stands to lose $200 million a year. That's including the "multiplier effect" of money spent in local businesses by faculty, staff and students. Just in the grants themselves, UW alone would lose $18 million a year, if the 15 per cent figure holds. Interesting coincidence: that's the same amount that economists say Oktoberfest brings into K-W each year.
Government officials may be beginning to listen to economic arguments of that kind, though they're still committed to big reductions in government spending. As discussions continue, the cabinet's "policy and priorities" committee is to meet today to hear a presentation from the ministry of education and training.
Downey's recent letter to the UW community, still available on UWinfo, will be printed in this week's Gazette.
Kalbfleisch says he showed the committee a number of options last week, both about who would be eligible for early retirement and about what financial offer they would receive. The idea most often suggested has been that faculty and staff would be eligible for early retirement, on some terms or other, if they've reached age 55 and ten years of UW service. But other formulas are possible. (Kalbfleisch told last week's staff association forum that if the 55-and-10 rule is used, there would be about 250 faculty and 250 staff members eligible to apply.)
Rose Dyson of Canadians Concerned about Violence in Entertainment will speak at St. Paul's College tonight (6 p.m., MacKirdy Hall) on the topic "Mind Abuse in an Information Age".
The first students to find out about their winter term co-op jobs get the word at 3 p.m. today: results of chartered accounting job matches will be posted. Other students continue with employer interviews through, at least, next Tuesday.
The faculty and librarians' strike at the University of Manitoba continues. Things are also uneasy at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, where the faculty association and management are deadlocked in contract negotiations. An "unfair labour practice" complaint by the union was to be heard by the provincial Labour Relations Board last Thursday.
And finally, birthday salutations to my colleague Janet Rohrbach, who's been working in internal communications at this university even longer than I have!
Chris Redmond
Information
and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
(519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
credmond@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca