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University of Waterloo -- Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
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Monday, July 21, 1997

Finding a dean of math

A total of 19 people have applied or been suggested for the position of dean of mathematics, says a memo from Gary Waller, associate provost (academic and student affairs), who's chairing the nominating committee. The deadline for nominations and applications was June 30.

"The committee has established a much shorter list of internal and external candidates, and is now at the stage of writing to referees," says Waller. "The responses they provide will greatly assist the Committee when it meets again in September to determine which of these candidates to interview."

It's looking for a successor to Jack Kalbfleisch, dean of math since 1990, whose term ends June 30, 1998.

There's a lot of turnover in deans' offices at UW these days. Here's a rundown of the other five faculties:

Applied health sciences: Bob Norman, dean since 1991, is leaving office July 31. Mike Sharratt will be acting dean until next summer while a nominating committee conducts a search.

Engineering: David Burns, dean since 1990, ends his term June 30, 1998; a nominating committee is currently at work.

Arts: Brian Hendley, dean since 1991, ends his term in 1999.

Environmental studies: Geoff McBoyle became dean July 1, with a term that runs through 2002.

Science: John Thompson, dean since 1990, has just had his appointment renewed through 2001.

As the summer drifts along

Spring term exams will be here before we know it, and to encourage studying, the UW has announced extended building hours, in effect now through August 15. The Dana Porter Library will be open 8 a.m. to midnight Monday to Thursday; 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday; 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday; 11 a.m. to midnight Sunday. The Davis Centre Library will open at the same time as Porter each day and close one hour later than Porter.

The registrar's office warns that August 1 -- Friday of next week -- is the deadline for submissions of Intention to Graduate forms for fall convocation. (Convocation ceremonies are scheduled for October 25 this year: applied health sciences and arts at 10 a.m., other faculties at 2 p.m.)

The UW Summer Choir will hold its end-of-term concert this Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Theatre of the Arts. The event is titled "Around the World and Home to Bed" and is described as being "especially geared to children". Tickets are $8, students and seniors and kids $5, at the door or from Conrad Grebel College.

Conferences continue at Ron Eydt Village, such as the Hockey Ministries International Christian Athlete Hockey Camp which started yesterday and runs through Friday. Today, the annual Elizabethan Theatre conference also gets underway. And continuing to rent "motel" space in the Village are many of the participants in the World Horseshoe Championships, being held in Kitchener through this week.

The talk of the campus

A letter to faculty members from the president, distributed last week, gives the official minimum salaries for the various faculty ranks, after the recent scale increase: assistant professor, $39,321; associate professor, $51,117; full professor, $66,846. . . .

The camp counsellor who rescued a boy being attacked by a bear in Algonquin Park last week has been identified as Mike Hildebrand, a UW physics student. . . .

The entrepreneur behind a proposed "technology house" in Waterloo -- a rooming house for students who would live free in silicon heaven and turn over a share of their software inventions to their landlord -- says the project has been delayed. He's hoping to open it in January 1998. . . .

Waterloo Web site of the day

CROATIAN HOMEPAGE
http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/GERM/practice/croat1.htm

Where at Waterloo are you going to find a Web link to Radio Zagreb, except on a page created for that special band of students who take courses in Croatian from the department of Germanic and Slavic languages and literatures? Erwin Warkentin of the G&S department explains the original intent:

The problem that we were trying to address with this site was that of the lack of opportunity to use Croatian other than in the classroom. This environment allows students to discover that Croatian is indeed used outside of the walls of the Modern Languages building. Students can visit Radio Zagreb and hear the latest news from that part of the world. It serves a secondary pedagogical function in that the students hear "model speakers" with excellent pronunciation. One of the problems is that the Croatian servers tend to go down a lot.

The next link called "The Web" links students to a page that provides information on Croatia. This provides further links to almost anything one might want to know about Croatian life. The next link is called "Webercises." When clicked it brings up an exercise in the lower right-hand frame. The questions are linked to the pages where the information to answer the question is found (or, where one can start looking for the information). The student fills out the forms with the answers and then with the click of a button forwards it to the instructor.

The page is also serving as a prototype for other pages that will be employed in the teaching of language and culture. German, Russian, Polish, Ukrainian and Dutch sites are being planned for the future. Unfortunately the creator of the page does not speak any Croatian (that is being remedied as he intends to create more module for the Croatian site), so pointing out any errors would be appreciated.

Some of the language exercises require the use of the Shockwave plug-in, and the site has a link that allows students to download it if they need it. "Once this is done," says Warkentin, "the student may do interactive exercises over the web. It also allows the administrators of the page to track students doing the exercises and log their scores."

CAR


TODAY IN UW HISTORY
July 20, 1963: A group from the physics department travels to Moosonee to observe a total eclipse of the sun. July 20, 1994: The Electronic Library is introduced.

July 21, 1976: The staff association holds the first of two open meetings to answer questions and discuss plans after the federal Anti-Inflation Board rolls back staff salary increases -- from 14 per cent to 9.1 per cent in the case of secretarial-clerical staff.

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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