Daily Bulletin

UW mourns a science veteran

"A good coterie of colleagues stood a vigil," said Le Roy, and someone administered cardio-pulmonary resuscitation until ambulance attendants arrived, but Atkinson could not be revived.

Dead a few days before his 66th birthday, Atkinson leaves campus memories not only of his work in analytical chemistry but of his administrative achievements. Educated at the University of Toronto, he came to UW in 1961 as a lecturer and gradually moved to higher ranks. He was the first director of both the "liberal science" program and the centre for society, technology and values.

But, above all, we'll remember him for his role as a committee member. Over the years he served on everything from the "Batke committee" on university government -- one of the early efforts towards the 1972 University of Waterloo Act -- to the building committee for Chemistry II. He chaired the senate committee on teaching and learning while there was such a body, and served at length on the long-range planning committee. For a time he was the resident pundit of the UW senate, and could be relied on to cut through obfuscation with a drawled anecdote, probably to do with a noted British scientist, and a sharp punch-line. He was president of the faculty association in 1977-78.

Atkinson was given the distinction "honorary member of the university" at convocation ceremonies last May.

Funeral arrangements have not been announced.

Research help for new profs

"The last two years have been a period of significant change and renewal for the University," it says, "during which more new faculty members have been hired than at any time in the recent history of the institution. To assist these new faculty members as they begin their academic careers, the University is making funds available, on a competitive basis, to enable them to support graduate student assistants for their research.

"Invitations to apply for funding in this competition are being sent to new tenure-track faculty members who started their first appointment at the University of Waterloo on or after January 1, 1996. . . .

"The criteria for support from this program are the quality of the research proposal, and evidence of having applied or the intention to apply for external funding. . . . The program will provide support in the amount of $5,000 plus 15% benefits for a graduate student research assistant, plus a maximum of $1,000 for direct costs of the research."

Barb Cooke in the research office can provide all the details, and she's the one to whom "the original plus seven copies" of the application form must be sent before the deadline.

How many new faculty have there actually been since January 1, 1996? Calculations are hard to make, with people coming and going in various categories of appointments, but Angela Ferguson of the institutional planning and analysis office tells me that UW's annual report to Statistics Canada in the fall of 1996 showed 35 faculty ("not including visitors and researchers") who weren't on the 1995 list, and the 1997 report showed 43 who hadn't been on the 1996 list. Total over two years: 78.

"Their arrival has had a palpable effect on morale," said UW president James Downey at last fall's annual general meeting. "The credentials of those who have joined us are tremendously impressive, and their arrival has given a lift to our spirits."

Some notes from human resources

The new staff performance appraisal form is now available on the HR web site, says Freddie Swainston of the same department, and managers can download it from there to use in the appraisal process, which is supposed to be completed by the last week of March.

Income tax time is at hand, and this notice comes from HR about the T-4 slip that summarizes the year's income and tax deductions for employees: "T4s will will be available by February 28th, 1998 at the latest. T4s for ongoing employees who were on payroll in December, 1997 will be forwarded to their on-campus address. All casual employees will receive their T4s at their home address."

The Wednesday of reading week

Back on campus, a group of mature students (that means the ones who returned to studies after years of work or child-raising) is getting together for lunch today at the University Club. The mature student services office, phone ext. 2429, has details.

The computer science department this afternoon sponsors a talk by Gabriel Silberman, of IBM Toronto, on "Deep Blue: IBM's Massively Parallel Chess Machine". Deep Blue also became massively famous after defeating grandmaster Garry Kasparov. "Deep Blue's chess prowess," says Silberman, "stems from its capacity to examine over 200 million board positions per second. . . . In this talk we describe some of the technology behind Deep Blue, how chess knowledge was incorporated into its software, as well as the attitude of the media and general public during the match."

Sorry, you lose again. But Karen Zehr in the registrar's office doesn't; she was this month's winner of $1,000 in the Dollars for Scholars Raffle, the development office announced yesterday.

Finally, the curling club has announced its winter bonspiel, to be held Saturday, February 28, at the Elmira Curling Club. Anyone interested should get in touch this week with Curtis Cartmill (cccartmi@neumann); you can sign up either as a team or as an individual. Curlers who don't get enough on the 28th might also want to remember the Hagey Bonspiel, the annual "funspiel" for staff, faculty, retirees and hangers-on, scheduled for March 21 (information from Steve Cook, ext. 2515).

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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