Daily Bulletin

University of Waterloo -- Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

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Tuesday, December 3, 1996

The last day of classes

That's right: a day of mingled relief (no more classes to attend or, from the faculty point of view, no more classes to teach) and terror (exams start on Friday). There's just time, first, for a few celebrations, such as the party for chemistry students, faculty and staff that starts at 5:00 this afternoon in the Chemistry II third-floor lounge.

Replacing UW's telephones

Pretty much everybody on campus will get a new telephone between now and 1998, says an announcement from Jay Black, the associate provost (information systems and technology). UW is taking "the first steps in a multi-year project to renew our telephone services infrastructure", said his announcement:

The project will be financed from the current Telephone Services budget, including a cash reserve accumulated over the last two years. The motivation for the project is to reduce telephone maintenance costs by upgrading to new hardware and to replace our telephone switch and handsets so that we may take advantage of current and future changes in telephony. . . .
The first phase, beginning immediately, will involve an upgrade of our central telephone switch to current hardware and software levels. (As with most computer "upgrades", this is essentially a replacement of a twelve year old computer with a new one running current software.) This simultaneously permits us to upgrade the connection between our switch (or PBX, "Private Branch Exchange") and the Bell network to a digital connection from an analog one. As adjuncts to this first phase, we will be purchasing several hundred new digital telephones, as well as the on-campus telephone cabling and old telephones for their residual value. . . .

Until now, Bell has owned the cables and phones all over campus. "We will now become the owners of the cable," explains Bruce Uttley of IST, "so that we can stop paying monthly maintenance costs to Bell. And that will mean that we are responsible for the care and feeding of the cable plant. It is the same story with the old telephones."

Black's announcement continues:

The second phase, scheduled for early in the 1997-98 fiscal year, will replace about half of the remaining telephones with new digital telephones and associated digital equipment attached to the PBX. Phase 3, scheduled for early in the 1998-99 fiscal year, will replace the remaining telephones with new digital sets. The timing and details of phases 2 and 3 are uncertain, but my current expectation is that we will complete the replacement some time in 1998. Current internal costs for telephone services will not change. . . .
Telephone sets on campus will be replaced based on the order of the associated line cards in the PBX cabinets. Telephone sets are purposely connected in a random fashion to these line cards so that a hardware failure will not affect all the phones in one area. As a result it will appear that there is no rational plan behind the conversion of telephone sets in offices and rooms around campus. If necessary, we will modify the order of installation as different priorities become evident.

December 19, 1996, will be the last day for changes to the old phone system: "No moves, adds or changes to extensions or phones will be made until after the cutover date of January 24, 1997." On January 24, which is a Friday, there will be no phone service at all for one to four hours as the new PBX is plugged in, along with new digital connections to the Bell network. "If necessary, problem resolution will continue throughout the weekend." Then on January 31, there will be an "upgrade" to the voice-mail system.

Says Black: "All new telephones will be multi-line sets with message waiting lights and at least 8 buttons, at the same cost as current Link or Unity sets. . . . As individual lines are converted, we will be contacting the departments involved to decide on options and features for each extension."

More information: http://www.dcs.uwaterloo.ca/phone/announce96.html.

Grad's funeral is today

A funeral service will be held this afternoon for Salim Dastagir, the graduate student in management sciences who was found dead on Sunday. The service begins at 1 p.m. at the Waterloo Masjid, on Erb Street just east of Westmount Road. A memorial service within the management sciences department will be held at 12 noon tomorrow, in Carl Pollock Hall room 4336. To mark the funeral, UW's flags are flying at half-staff today.

Two general meetings tomorrow

The staff association and the faculty association will both hold general meetings tomorrow: the staff group at 11:45 (Davis Centre room 1302) and the faculty group at 2:30 (Biology I room 271). They are the two major employee groups at UW, both non-unionized -- the faculty association lost a union certification vote earlier this year -- and both with voluntary membership.

The staff association's annual general meeting will hear reports and financial statements, and will vote on changes to the group's constitution, including a proposal to allow proxy voting. There won't be any voting for 1997 officers, however, as all the positions have been filled by acclamation.

Karen LeDrew of the registrar's office, who has been president-elect through 1996, will be president of the association in 1997. Her successor is also a registrar's office staff member: Charlene Schmidt, who has been acclaimed as president-elect for 1997 and president for 1998. Other members of the association's executive for the coming year: Mark Walker, biology, will be past president; Karen Piech, faculty of mathematics, vice-president; Linda Lingard, statistics and actuarial science, treasurer; Stephen Sempson, applied health sciences, secretary; Rita Cherkewski, psychology, and William Rowe, development and alumni affairs, new directors; Gail Clarke, housing, and Cathy Hale, research office, continuing as directors.

The faculty association doesn't conduct elections at this time of year -- that will come in the spring -- and today's general meeting is expected to deal chiefly with salary negotiations. "If a salary settlement has been reached under mediation, the details will be reported," the association newsletter, Forum, said last week. "If a settlement has not been reached, final offer positions will go to the internal arbitrator by December 10, and Professor McCourt, chief negotiator, will report in closed session on the negotiations."

The week of white ribbons

Information has finally arrived about a week of events devoted to "Developing Responses to Violence" -- all leading up to a memorial service on Friday, the seventh anniversary of a horror at Montréal's Ecole Polytechnique, in which 14 women engineering students were killed.

Today, from noon to late evening, there will be films in the Student Life Centre ("insight into violence in media and the effects of violence on all of us"). Wednesday there are speakers at 2:00 and 3:30; Thursday, "workshops about positive ways to resolve conflict", again at 2 and 3:30; and Friday, the memorial service. "Candle lighting begins at 5 p.m. in Siegfried Hall," an announcement says. "All are welcome to attend."

It also says: "Show your support for stopping violence against women by wearing a Rose Button ($1, proceeds go to local women's shelters) or a White Ribbon (free of charge for men this week). Events are brought to you by the Federation of Students, UW Womyn's Centre, and the Engineering Society."

And in other news . . .

Performances of "Pass the Sugar, Honey", the new play about sexual harassment, will start at 12:15 and 1:30 p.m. in the Theatre of the Arts.

Students and faculty are back in class at Trent University this morning, after the signing of a tentative agreement to end the two-week strike by the Trent faculty association. The agreement was reached yesterday after 28 hours of negotiation, says a memo from the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations. Members of the union will vote Thursday on ratifying the agreement, which negotiators say is "reasonable" and "a good basis for future negotiations".

CAR

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