Daily Bulletin

Wednesday, October 8, 1997

University of Waterloo -- Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

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On a mild October morning

The sun came up as a red ball over parking lot A; two members of the grounds crew walked side by side along a path, pushing lawn-mowers as if they were baby strollers; an orange leaf or two fell from a maple tree in the still air -- no "west wind" this morning in Waterloo!

More trucks than yesterday were in evidence on the west side of the ring road, where paving work continues near the PAS building. Drivers entering from University Avenue seemed a little more confused than yesterday by the "Road Closed" sign. In fact the road is not altogether closed -- there is still access to parking lot H, but you can't drive past H lot in the PAS direction.

Elsewhere on campus, work continues on the paths south and west of the Math and Computer building. The "pedestrian spine" with its grey stones, lined in red brick, is being extended now up into Alumni Lane, pointing towards Matthews Hall.

[Turkey] Thanksgiving will be Monday -- a holiday -- and in case you can't wait for the weekend for turkey, or want to eat it with on-campus colleagues, you can make reservations for either of two Thanksgiving buffets scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday). The Laurel Room in South Campus Hall will be open from noon to 2, serving roast beef as well as turkey, plus pumpkin pie, salads, cherry cheesecake and such, for $9.95; reservations, phone ext. 3198. The University Club buffet is on from 11:30 to 2, and costs $10.95, including "turkey roulade stuffed with sundried cranberry and spinach" and "chocolate Marquise"; reservations, ext. 3801.

Two receive $5,000 scholarships

Waterloo students have been awarded two of the three scholarships given this year by the Canadian Engineering Memorial Foundation -- each worth $5,000. The winners are Joelle Pineau, receiving the first-year scholarship, and Elizabeth Parry, the final-year scholarship. Both are in systems design engineering.

The CEMC, administered by the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers, gives the scholarships to women engineering students each year. (The third scholarship goes to a graduate student.) They are a memorial to the 14 women students at Montréal's Ecole Polytechnique who were shot to death December 6, 1989. Engineering associations and a dozen major corporations are the sponsors.

The Foundation will fly the award winners to Richmond, British Columbia, for the awards presentation October 23; it's taking place as part of this year's annual symposium on University-Industry Research and Development.

Gold medal winners named

This year's recipients of the Alumni Gold Medals for top standing in graduate programs have been announced. They'll receive their medals at fall convocation on October 25. The Gold Medals for top undergraduate standing, one in each of the six faculties, are awarded in the spring.

The medal recipient at the PhD level is Ty Ferré of the earth sciences department, whose work is titled "Design and Analysis of Time Domain Reflectometry Probes for Monitoring Water Content and Electrical Conductivity Under Steady and Transient Flow Conditions". The winner at the master's level is Hao Zhang of computer science, whose thesis was on "Delay-Insensitive Networks".

Staff at Western unionize

Staff members at the University of Western Ontario voted Monday to turn their staff association into a union, representing an estimated 1,040 technicians, secretaries and other staff. The vote, conducted by the Ontario Labour Relations Board, was 429 to 189.

"We've gone five or six years without raises. People feel vulnerable," said Carol-Anne LaRouche, past president of the staff association. The association says Western seems to have ceased its practice of giving regular pay raises for progressing through the ranks. By comparison, managers, professional staff, and faculty members at Western all received salary increases last year. The association is also concerned about the security of the staff benefits package and sees union certification as the means to protect it.

Says WesternNews: "It is turning out to be a busy fall on the campus labor front. Last week, Graduate Teaching Assistants ratified their first union contract. Later this month the UWO Faculty Association will decide whether to continue to contract talks with the administration or to launch their own certification drive. As well, there are ongoing negotiations with the union that represents the staff at the heating plant." (Western and Waterloo are among the few Ontario universities where professors are not unionized.)

Exposing their private . . . what?

"Female Parts" opens tonight, the drama department's first production of the season -- check out the cast picture on page 3 of this morning's Gazette. Here's the brief paragraph that describes the play in its advertising:

Five women expose the private parts of their lives in a hard-hitting and very funny collection of pieces by this husband-and-wife team. Uncompromising, aggressive and with an in-your-face attitude, the comedy spares no one as it underlines the one thing women want most: men to stop asking them what they want!

Performances start at 8 p.m. in Studio 180 in the Humanities building -- tonight through Saturday, and again October 15 through 18.

And also happening today

Tom Calvert of Simon Fraser University speaks on "Creating a Sense of Presence in Virtual Learning Environments", at 10:30 a.m. in Davis Centre room 1304.

Manfred Erdmenger of the University of Braunschweig, Germany, speaks on "Language Processing Strategies in the Computer Lab", at 11 a.m. in Humanities room 334.

The co-op and career services department offers another interview skills workshop at 2:30 this afternoon -- information from the career centre in Needles Hall.

Author Rick Friesen (The Shunning, The Broken Bowl) will read tonight (7:30) at the Conrad Grebel College chapel, as the Mennonite Authors Reading Series continues.

Artist Catherine Widgery will speak on "Public Work" tonight at 7:30 in East Campus Hall room 1205.

CAR

TODAY IN UW HISTORY October 8, 1968: Prominent mathematician Paul Erdos begins a week of visiting UW, giving a general interest lecture in Math and Computer room 2066.

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