University of Waterloo

Daily Bulletin

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Wednesday, January 3, 1996

The first day of classes

Hope you made it to your Physics 125 lecture at 8:30 this morning! With classes under way, registration is continuing, in the "blue north" activity area of the Physical Activities Complex all this week. Late fees begin Friday. Need a WatCard? You can get your picture taken at the Student Life Centre this week, or at the WatCard office anytime.

Applications for early retirement

Because of fears that the sidewalk outside the human resources department might be jammed on January 15, there's been a small change in the way applications for the special early retirement program are being accepted. The change doesn't make any difference to anybody's chances of being approved for early retirement, but here's how it works.

Applications will be accepted -- from any of the 550 staff and faculty members who are eligible -- starting next Monday, January 8. All the applications received January 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 15 will be held together, and considered just as though they were received on the 15th, which was the original starting day for the program.

If there's enough money in the $35 million early retirement fund to cover everybody who has applied by 4:30 p.m. on the 15th, then all those people get to retire. If there isn't, then they'll be sorted not by when the applications were received, but by seniority (age plus years of UW service) and the people who have been at UW longest will be approved for early retirement. The system is not first-come, first-served.

If some of the $35 million is left over at the end of January 15, then applications will be accepted on January 16. And so on -- as long as February 16, if the money doesn't run out. Applications are to be hand-delivered (not necessarily by the individual who is applying) to the human resources department in the General Services Complex. Handing in the application and getting a receipt will be "about a ten-second process", says David Dietrich of HR.

Says a memo that was sent to the 550 eligible people just before Christmas:

We encourage you to discuss the SERP with an accountant or other personal financial advisor. If you have not already attended a group session, please register by calling Anne Wagland at extension 2078. There are spaces available at sessions scheduled on January 5 and 8.

Brief sports results

Jennifer McCormick of the department of athletics and recreational services sends these results of tournaments held during the holiday break:

Warrior basketball: Waterloo took the silver medal at the Ed D. Armon Classic held at Ryerson Polytechnic University. They beat Nazareth College 83-56 and Ryerson 100-61 before losing to the Guelph Gryphons 73-59. Mano Watsa of the Warriors was named most valuable player in the tournament.

Athena basketball: As host team for the Christmas Shoot-Out held in UW's Physical Activities Complex, the Athenas defeated Laurier 55-54 but lost to Laurentian 66-57 and then, in the bronze medal game, fell to Queen's 69-57. Western, the number-one-ranked team nationally, won the gold medal over Laurentian.

Warrior hockey: The Warriors took the gold medal in the Guelph Invitational tournament, beating Queen's 5-4, Toronto 5-4 and Guelph 4-3. The team, which stands second in the "far west" division of the Ontario Universities Athletic Association, plays at Western tomorrow night and has two more away games before returning to home ice Sunday, January 14.

Still using the gopher?

Anybody who's fired up the UWinfo gopher lately will have found that there's not much left of it. The migration of UWinfo from gopher to the World Wide Web is nearly complete; the central gopher is to be shut down January 31. And here's warning that the gopher version of this Daily Bulletin will cease to exist as of the end of this week. You can read the Bulletin either on the uw.general and uw.campus-news newsgroups (but then you don't get the hyperlinks and fancy formatting) or, in all its glory, on the UWinfo Web.

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

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