Daily Bulletin

Tuesday, October 21, 1997

ECE chair to become dean

The appointment was approved by UW's senate last night and has also had approval from the board of governors through its executive committee, says an announcement this morning from the president, James Downey:

Dr. Chaudhuri began his career at the University of Waterloo in 1977, and was promoted to associate professor in 1983 and to professor in 1989. He served as associate chair for graduate studies from 1987-90, and has been Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering since 1993.

Dr. Chaudhuri has also contributed significantly in both teaching and research. He has taught a wide range of courses from first year to graduate level and has successfully supervised 10 doctoral and 16 masters students. He holds two patents and has more than 110 refereed publications.

Dr. Chaudhuri's appointment has strong support within the Faculty of Engineering, and I very much look forward to working with him.

Profs consider policy on files

The "official file" is actually a collection of documents in three main places, the draft policy says -- the dean's office, the department chair's office, and human resources. "It includes documents related to initial appointment, reappointment, tenure, promotions, leaves of absence, and annual performance reviews. It may also include letters of commendation or complaint, and routine information concerning salary, benefits, etcetera."

A few lines from the draft policy:

No anonymous, undated, or unsigned material shall be placed in the File. Routine financial and administrative information of a strictly non-evaluative nature, and aggregated statistical information which is recorded in evaluations and official minutes of meetings are not considered to be anonymous within the meaning of this Policy. . . .

The Member may challenge the inclusion of any item in the File. . . . The Member has the right to have added to the File, at any time, additional relevant material, including her/his written comments on the accuracy or meaning of any items in the File.

Except as specified in Appendix A, disciplinary letters shall not be used as evidence against a Member for any purpose whatsoever, when no further disciplinary measures have been imposed on her/him for two subsequent academic years. . . . The University may retain a disciplinary letter and the documentation supporting it if the grounds for discipline included harassment, discrimination, or other verbally, physically or psychologically abusive behaviour by the Member.

Signed confidential letters of reference received in relation to initial appointment, reappointment, promotion, tenure or continuing appointment shall not be shown to the Member except where access is provided under another University of Waterloo Policy. . . .

The Member shall have access to all material in the File, except as specified . . . above. . . . Upon reasonable notice and upon the presentation of appropriate identification, the Member or the Member's duly authorized representative shall have access to her/his File during normal business hours in the presence of a person designated by the Dean, Chair, or Associate Provost, Human Resources. The File shall not be removed from the office of the Dean, the Department Chair, or Human Resources.

Other notes this chilly day

A talk on "Telepresence" starts at 3:00 this afternoon in Davis Centre room 1302, sponsored by the InfraNet Project. The speaker is David Martin of Smart Technologies Inc. Says an abstract:

Getting people who are not co-located to work together in teams presents several interesting challenges. As the visionary and chief technical officer at SMART Technologies Inc., Mr. Martin has worked on solutions to this issue since 1987. He has led a development team to produce a number of firsts in electronic co-location, including the creation of the first MS Windows application for multi-point conferencing in 1992. . . . Mr. Martin will describe his experiences in using technology to facilitate work within meeting rooms and across distance. He will outline how his 100 person team, split equally into two teams, work cooperatively across a distance of 2,200 miles. Mr. Martin will reveal the technologies that are used daily by his team to increase meeting effectiveness and productivity, including audio and data conferencing, as well as desktop video conferencing.

Talks by representatives of various teacher training programs are starting today and continue through Thursday, in the multipurpose room of the Student Life Centre. On today's schedule: the University of Western Ontario at 9:30, University of Toronto (child study) at 10:30, Brock at 11:30, Ottawa at 2:30, Queen's at 3:30.

Tomorrow at 9:30, William Geoghegan of IBM's instructional technologies division speaks on "Instructional Technologies and the Mainstream: The Risks of Success". He says:

Despite massive expenditures over the last 15 years, information technology has still not brought about the revolution in teaching and learning that advocates had predicted. The situation, however, has begun to change in the last two years, with rapid growth in some largely unanticipated areas.

Two faculty members have been acclaimed to the Presidential Nominating Committee, the university secretariat says. They are Bob Norman (kinesiology) and Susan Shaw (recreation and leisure studies). Six representatives of the specific faculties were named earlier, and other committee members are to be chosen at the board of governors meeting next week.

CAR

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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