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Daily Bulletin

University of Waterloo -- Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
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Monday, March 10, 1997

Co-op jobs are posted today

This afternoon at 3:00, co-op students will find out whether they have jobs for the spring term. Match results from the regular interview period will be posted at that time on the bulletin boards in Needles Hall. "If you are not matched," the co-op department advises, "you should attend the Continuous Phase instruction meeting at 4:30. Room numbers for these meetings will be posted."

There are 2,619 students looking for jobs in the spring term, which is always the lightest term of the year because fourth-year students will have graduated and new first-year students haven't arrived yet. During the 20-day February interview period, a total of 970 employers conducted 8,622 interviews with co-op students -- an average of 431 interviews a day, with an average of 49 employers a day visiting campus.

And now comes the "continuous phase", with a total of seven more job postings between now and March 27 (including Posting #1, last week, which listed 238 jobs). Continuous phase interviews are expected to start next week.

The co-op department last week published placement results for the winter term, showing that 253 more students found co-op jobs this term than in the winter term a year ago. "The percentage employed is similar to last year," adds Bruce Lumsden, director of co-operative education and career services.

For the winter term in 1997, 3,562 co-op students found jobs while 118 are unemployed -- a 96.79 per cent placement rate. A year ago, there were 3,309 students with jobs and 113 without, for a placement rate almost the same as this year's, at 96.70 per cent.

Lumsden's report says the placement rate was over 99 per cent in two major areas this term, accounting (where just 3 of 416 students ended up jobless) and arts (just 2 of 235 are jobless). Right behind that was the teaching option, with placement rate of 98.89 per cent (1 of 90 jobless). Rates for other areas: mathematics, 97.77 per cent; engineering, 97.41 per cent; environmental studies, 95.96 per cent; applied health sciences, 94.19 per cent; science, 89.19 per cent; architecture, 88.98 per cent.

Most of the students without jobs were near the beginning of their academic careers -- there were 52 first-year students jobless (including 20 from engineering, 18 from science and 14 from math) and 47 second-year students without jobs (including 12 from architecture).

Lumsden also made public the "weekly earnings survey" for co-op students for the three 1996 work terms. The average pay for a co-op student ranged from $310 for an applied health sciences student in a first work term, or $451 for an engineer at the same stage, up to $709 for an actuarial science student or $613 for an engineer in the sixth and final term of co-op work experience.

The issue is tuition fees

Students at the University of Western Ontario are just as unhappy about tuition fee increases, their leaders say, as those at institutions such as Toronto, York, Queen's, Carleton and Guelph, where there have been protest sit-ins at presidents' offices. (McMaster briefly joined the list last week.) But "I have a hard time picturing such outlandish actions taking place at Western," says University Students' Council president Dave Tompkins. That is why I have organized the first ever virtual sit-in."

The idea: a Web page from which individuals can send mail to announce that they're joining the protest. Icons representing their faces then turn up on the Web page, and UWO president Paul Davenport gets notified that another virtual person has squeezed into his office. As of early this morning, there were 614 such protesters demanding that Davenport "Maintain the current levels of tuition fees adjusted to the inflation rate for 1996 and stop pursuing the deregulation of tuition; Publicly denounce the use of new student loan programs as a mechanism for increasing tuition, and agree to withhold endorsement of a new student aid program until it has been approved by the students of Western".

Here at Waterloo, the Federation of Students has organized an open forum on tuition fee issues, to run from 11:30 to 1:30 today in the Student Life Centre great hall. UW president James Downey and provost Jim Kalbfleisch are among those who are expected to speak.

Visitors hit campus tomorrow

Tuesday will be a busy day, with the arrival of a few thousand prospective students and their parents to see what Waterloo is all about. Among the events of the annual Campus Day: Visitors will be working with a four-page orange tabloid that notes the times and locations of all these information sessions, describes what the bookstore and Computer Store have to offer, and includes a campus map. They'll mostly be parking across University Avenue from the main campus entrance, and getting around with a ring road shuttle bus.

Staff representatives are wanted

The staff association is looking for staff members to sit on several committees: the committee of inquiry on staff grievances; the president's advisory committee on traffic and parking; and the newsgroup advisory committee (that one deals with requests to have particular newsgroups made available at UW, after a proposal to eliminate the "binaries" newsgroups goes into effect).

Mark Walker, chair of the staff association nominating committee, can provide more information; he can be reached at mwalker@sciborg. Application deadline is March 31.

The talk of the campus

My reference book says today, as the second Monday in March, "is observed as Commonwealth Day" in Canada, but I can't say I've ever heard of it. What I do hear is this. . . .

[Warrior symbol] The basketball Warriors fell to McMaster's Marauders 77-68 on Friday afternoon in an OUAA semifinal game played in Toronto. The game was tied 39-39 at the half, and Mano Watsa had 27 points for Waterloo, including two three-point baskets in the final minute, but it wasn't enough. "We just got beat up," said coach Tom Kieswetter. Wait till next year. . . .

New telephone books from Bell Canada should be hitting campus (and the rest of Kitchener-Waterloo) in the next few days. How to get rid of the old ones? "Place/pile/box them beside the white box for removal by the custodial staff," says Patti Cook, UW's waste management coordinator. . . .

FASS '97 is over with, but the creation of FASS '98 is just about to start, says Seonaid Lee-Dadswell, chief script-writer. "If you want in on the ground floor," she says, come out to the theme brainstorming," which will start at 7:00 tonight in Humanities room 119. "Timbits will be available." . . .

Books signed out on term loan from the UW library will be due soon -- April 9, to be precise. "As the books you would like to renew must be done so in person, it's best not to wait until the last minute," suggests Alex McCulloch of the user services department. Renew them (or return them) now, he suggests. As of a few days ago, new term loans are due on August 13.

CAR

TODAY IN UW HISTORY
March 8, 1994: Noting International Women's Day, the Daily Bulletin reports that 15.8 per cent of UW's 829 full-time faculty members are women.

March 9, 1994: The senate finance committee discusses a draft budget for 1994-95 and is told that a possible source of new revenue is the parking service, which until now has run on a break-even basis.

March 10, 1975: Protesters from Renison College occupy the office of UW's dean of arts demanding "free arbitration" over the college's decision not to renew the contracts of three faculty members.

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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