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Thursday, July 16, 1998
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Klondike Days
Although the hoopla's for the city's 50th birthday, Waterloo's history dates back much farther, notes St. Jerome's University history professor Ken McLaughlin, author of Waterloo: An Illustrated History published in 1990. In fact, the nucleus of the settlement existed in 1833 with 25 dwellings and two stores. The community was incorporated as a village in 1857, grew to become a town, and with "barely more than 10,000 residents," was declared a city on January 8, 1948.
The history of the university and the city intersect in a number of interesting ways, he said. The two entities reach out to each other physically in Waterloo Park with UW's parklike setting extending to the central core of Waterloo.
"The town-and-gown relationship has been relatively trouble-free," said McLaughlin, avoiding conflicts and tensions over expropriation of land experienced by many other universities. With UW contributing to growth and the city providing services, "both have benefited."
Celebrating its own 40th anniversary last year led the university to reflect on its connections with the city, he added. "The university would like to play a greater role in the life of the community," with plans underway to establish a chair in community history. "If it succeeds, it will create a research centre within the university," collecting papers from local families, companies and institutions to share with the community.
Among the criteria required for a president who will lead the university into its fifth decade are "a visionary approach in all matters both internal and external," a commitment to both fund-raising and "friend-raising," as well as to strengthening "the positive relations with and among campus constituent groups (faculty, staff, students) at the University through open communication and accessibility."
In addition to having the "academic qualifications and scholarly achievements appropriate to one of Canada's leading research-intensive universities," the ideal candidate will be expected to have "demonstrated excellence and a record of significant achievement in administration within a university setting, the business community, or the public sector." He or she should be "highly principled, (a) risk taker with integrity and a high level of energy."
Lynne Magnusson speaks today at 5:30 on Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, St. Jerome's French professor Carmeta Abbott discusses Molière's The Miser on July 31, and St. Jerome's English professor Ted McGee addresses two Shakespeare plays, Julius Caesar on August 25, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona on September 10.
Magnusson and McGee have also contributed program notes for Much Ado and Two Gentlemen. The liaison with Stratford is, in part, said Magnusson, an effort by UW faculty to "explain what they are doing" to the general public, a need recently articulated by the new head of SSHRC, Marc Renaud, a social scientist. "It is partly in the spirit of taking this seriously that I am working with the Stratford link -- it involves a huge public audience," she said.
Introduced last season, the popular Table Talk series features a buffet lunch or supper, followed by a lecture in the Paul D. Fleck Marquee. Tickets at $27.50 must be reserved in advance.
A new move by the federal human resources department to deny financial assistance to students with a bad credit rating has student groups fuming. Under proposed amendments to the Canada Student Financial Assistance regulations, to be effective August 1, 1999, first-time applicants for student loans, age 22 and over, could be ineligible if, for the three years before they apply, they have missed a payment (on debts of $1,000 or more) for 90 days or more on three separate occasions. As a result, "the unfortunate truth is that people who are in a bad situation already will not be able to access the resources they need to improve their situation," says Robin Stewart, UW Federation of Students vice-president (education). Although he acknowledges student loan programs have incurred losses through the failure of graduates to repay their debts, he predicts the amendment will "hurt students -- especially mature students -- more than it will help the program."
Student Life Centre turnkeys are hosting a used book sale today from 11 a.m. and a coffee house and bake sale at 8 p.m. Both events take place in the Great Hall, with proceeds going to the university and college chapter of the Hospice of Waterloo Region. The hospice provides support and respite care for persons facing a life-threatening illness.
Students, faculty and staff are invited to preview the new co-op online system -- dubbed CECS.online -- at 6 p.m. today in DC 1350. The new web-based computer system promises to simplify procedures for both students and employers, with implementation expected during the 1999 winter term.
The ResNet network in Village One will be down for approximately 15 minutes at 1 p.m. today for an equipment upgrade. The housing department apologizes for any inconvenience.
English conversation class meets today and every weekday during July from 9 to 11:15 a.m. in Needles Hall room 2080. Students, faculty, staff, and spouses are invited to attend. To learn more, contact the international student office at ext. 2814.
Writing, editing and desktop publishing skills are in demand by three local agencies seeking volunteers to help with newsletters. As well, volunteers who speak English, German, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian or Serbian are needed to visit seniors, and a local sailing club is looking for a secretary. To help, phone the Volunteer Action Centre at 742-8610.
Some traditional games of Canada's northern people may be as much as 4,000 years old, says this page from the UW museum and archive of games. Others are considerably newer -- some, indeed, show the influence of Russian, Danish, Canadian and American cultures of the twentieth century. Inuit games of all periods are part of the museum's treasures and are shown off on this web site, with detailed descriptions and pictures.
"The Inuit section of the Museum site at first was envisioned as just another section," says Elliott Avedon, the retired recreation professor who is the museum's curator. "However, in addition to the Museum collection per se, for the past decade, we have had a number of educational kits which are lent to schools, libraries, and other museums. These boxes include game reproductions and related cultural information. Some of the schools who have borrowed the Inuit kit in the past, indicated that Inuit culture is part of the bilingual curriculum. When we told some of these people about the intended Website, they asked if we could put up the content in both English and French. As a consequence, a bilingual teacher from the Waterloo Public School system volunteered to translate our English text into French."
And then . . . "Shortly after we put the pages on the server, we began getting e-mail from Europeans who were unaware of Inuit Games. One of these people (in Germany), who maintained a related Website concerning the history of games, had a large Eastern European audience. He indicated that he would volunteer to translate our text into German, so it could be read by many others in Europe. We agreed, and so using his translations, we modified our Webpages so that a viewer could now read about Inuit games in either English, French, or German."
He notes that the graphics provided are of two types. Some are scans of Inuit art in the Museum collection or government informational materials which we use in on-campus exhibits. Others are edited photographs which were taken of Inuit objects in the collection. These original photos were taken by former UW president Gerry Hagey in his retirement.
Says Avedon: "There are many questions that now come to the Museum about Inuit Culture as a consequence of the site. It seems there doesn't seem to be much informational content about aspects of Inuit culture on the Web, as the amount we have about Inuit games." So the museum gets questions on other Inuit topics as well, and tries, Avedon says, to forward them to someone who can help.
CAR
and Barbara Elve
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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