Daily Bulletin

University of Waterloo -- Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

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Monday, September 30, 1996

Staff training opportunities

This fall's "Get Up & Grow" brochure will be going out to staff members this week -- both non-union staff and, for the first time, members of Canadian Union of Public Employees local 793, who are now eligible to sign up for the staff training and development sessions it lists. Also eligible for the first time are part-time staff members, but they have to pay a fee, whereas full-time staff can sign up at no charge.

Something else new in the brochure is an offer to "deliver" sessions on such topics as "cutting paperwork", "handling customer aggression", and "Time of Your Life" right to departments' offices. "We'll bring it straight to you!" the brochure promises.

The brochure list both individual sessions, on such topics as stress management and "When I Say No I Feel Guilty", and several series:

The New Workplace series of sessions on sexual harassment, "valuing diversity" and human rights.
The FrontLine series for supervisors and the Working series for other staff, which both begin with "core interpersonal skills" and move on to such topics as "dealing with change".
A new Teamwork program.

The brochure also has some miscellaneous workplace tips, and a reminder of the staff training and development library of videotapes and other materials available from the human resources department.

Professor's dismissal explained

An adjudicator has released the details of his decision in the dismissal of a UW faculty member, Adrian Bondy of the combinatorics and optimization department. As reported last spring, the arbitrator upheld Bondy's firing, which had been ordered by the president on the recommendation of the dean of math. The adjudication goes into detail about the justification for the dismissal. It notes that Bondy, while away from UW on a non-teaching term, took a job at another university (the Universite Claude Bernard in Lyon, France) and "consciously and deliberately failed" to tell UW that he was holding two faculty posts at the same time -- "a fundamental breach of ethical behaviour". Look for excerpts from the report in this Wednesday's Gazette.

United Way month starts casually

Tomorrow is officially "Casual Day" on campus, say the organizers of the 1996 United Way campaign at Waterloo. "Dressers-down are expected to contribute $2 to the Campaign and can give their donation to their area rep," says Terry Stewart in applied health sciences, one of the energetic people behind the campaign. Last year's Casual Day raised $1,241 (wouldn't that be 620-and-a-half people wearing jeans to work?).

More than 100 on-campus volunteers will be soliciting support for UW's contribution to the United Way this year, says campaign chair Helen Kilbride:

In these Twin Cities and surrounding area there is a whole sub-structure of suffering and deprivation and loneliness and despair. The United Way agencies have already helped hundreds of thousands of our friends and neighbours, and perhaps some of us, but the beat goes on and the need continues.
Last year we raised $155,405 of which $137,320 came directly from UW employees, including a good number of Leaders and Friends, and mostly through payroll deduction. Events such as lunches, raffles, draws, clothing and bake sales, as well as donations from off-campus friends and organizations, raised a further $18,084. This year the number of University employees has shrunk, and we are asking you to give us your special help to enable the University to reach, and surpass, its 1996 target of $145,000.

Staff and faculty will get individual pledge forms this week, delivered by volunteers. Graduate students and retirees will get similar pledge forms in the mail. Undergraduate students who would like to support the United Way can call the campaign office at ext. 3840 for pledge forms.

Other notes as September ends

A proposed policy on computer newsgroups, which would have the effect of eliminating "binaries" newsgroups (photos, sounds, software) at UW, will be presented at a public meeting tomorrow. Members of the "working group on news management" will be there to explain their recommendations, announced earlier this month. The meeting runs from 11:45 to 1:15 tomorrow in Math and Computer room 2066.

The East Asian Festival at Renison College is continuing, today with the 1995 Chinese film "The Postman", being shown at 7 p.m. at the Princess Cinema downtown. Tomorrow night, same time, the Princess shows "Vive l'Amour", a 1994 film from Taiwan. Wednesday night at 7:30, there will be "Chinese dance, song, kung fu and folk arts" in the Humanities Theatre.

A brochure announces that the periodic Imaginus poster sale runs all this week in the Student Life Centre.

And finally . . . I hear that Elvis visited the Davis Centre on Friday to help celebrate a birthday for Donna O'Brecht in electrical and computer engineering. He arrived in a white limousine and (if rumour is true) enlisted three E&CE faculty members as his backup singers for a serenade, finger-snapping and all.

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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Copyright 1996 University of Waterloo