Daily Bulletin

Faculty approve 'Rand formula' dues

The university secretariat says 314 people voted yes and 154 voted no, with 7 spoiled ballots. That's a total of 475 ballots returned, or 68.3 per cent of the 695 that were sent out to faculty eligible to vote.

The vote means that the "Rand formula" for faculty association dues will come into effect at UW on January 1. The Memorandum of Agreement between UW and the faculty association specifies it in these words:

2.5.1 The University agrees that, effective January 1, 1999, it shall be a condition of employment of each Member that, subject to 2.5.2, he/she pay by the end of each month to the Association an amount equal to the Association's membership dues fixed in accordance with its Constitution. The University shall deduct that amount from the Member's salary and, subject to 2.5.2, shall remit that amount to the Association.

2.5.2 A Member may, by January 1, 1999, or within one month of appointment, file with the University and the Association a sworn affidavit explaining that he/she has a bona fide religious objection to paying to the Association an amount equal to its dues. In that case, the University shall remit the amount deducted to a registered Canadian charity mutually agreeable to the Association and the Member.

Chemistry professor Fred McCourt, president of the faculty association, said last night he was "pleased" with the result but didn't want to make any extended comment at present. "I wish to thank all of you who took the time to vote on this very important issue," he writes in an e-mail memo to faculty members this morning.

135,000 reasons to give

The on-campus campaign starts today (with a "dress-down day" in many areas) and runs through October 30. By that time, it's hoped, pledges and special fund-raising efforts will have brought in $135,000 for the benefit of more than 50 local charitable and community agencies.

And things are well on the way: by the end of yesterday, pledges and gifts of $33,187 had already been received, said Sharon Lamont of the Davis Centre library, who is co-chair of the campaign along with Winston Cherry of the statistics and actuarial sciences department.

More than 90 programs get some of their funding from the United Way, including Labour Community Services, Anselma House, and Big Brothers, which could use a $10-a-week donation from somebody at UW to provide a sexual abuse program for 40 Little Brothers and their mothers. Or maybe your gift is just $2 a week; over a year, that could provide a day's emergency shelter, counselling, security and hot meals for three women from the YWCA.

Climbing to the goal People are going to be climbing the 1,776 steps of the CN Tower this weekend -- among them, on Sunday, a contingent of UW's cheerleaders. The occasion is the Royal Mutual Funds CN Tower Stair Climb, a fund-raiser for the United Way, and money raised by the cheerleaders gets credited to the UW campaign. "Anyone wishing to contribute," a fan tells me, "may find the cheerleaders at this Saturday's football game against York."

It was a thoughtful group of 10 staff and faculty members who came back to campus last Friday after a tour of two of the agencies that rely on United Way help. Stops at the House of Friendship emergency food depot on Guelph Street and at R.O.O.F.'s services for street youth on Weber Street provided graphic reminders of those needing assistance and the thin line that separates "us" from "them".

Richard Crispin of the psychology department said the visit to R.O.O.F. was "a very emotional experience" since he knows young people in similar situations who may need help from R.O.O.F. in the future. "You just hope your kids don't need those services," said another staff member.

House of Friendship director Brian Hunsberger, a graduate of UW's school of planning, said he sees people laid off from well-paying jobs and temporarily down on their luck, plus a growing number of workers in temporary, part-time and contract positions struggling to make ends meet.

The tour was organized to give United Way area coordinators and department representatives an opportunity to see programs in action, Lamont said.

"Your pennies and dollars will have a magical effect in our community," says a letter from the co-chairs, "when you give them to the United Way."

$5,000 boost for solar car

Midnight Sun, UW's largest student project, is steadily working toward entering the 1999 North American solar competition, Sunrayce 99. For the cross-America race, student organizers are predicting that UW's car will build on the success of the UW vehicle that competed in the 1997 race, finishing in the top ten. The car also won an award for mechanical innovation.

The UW Midnight Sun project began in the fall of 1988, and since then the Midnight Sun teams have competed in four major North American solar car races. "In each race, the vehicle was a strong and successful competitor, and the teams proudly displayed the vehicle at schools, events and shows," says Ruth Allen, project manager for the Midnight Sun V and a chemical engineering student.

"One of our main aims is to educate the public about the possibilities of solar power," she said. The goal of the project is to design and build a high-efficiency electric race car capable of travelling on regular roads at speeds of up to 90 km/h, powered solely by the sun.

"The project is going really well," says Allen. "Construction of the airobody is well under way, and the electrical systems are coming along nicely. Our major focus right now is fundraising. We need an additional $40,000 US in order to buy the batteries we want. They will be the difference between us being competitive or not." She said everyone on campus is encouraged to "adopt a cell" on the car, for a tax-deductible $25 donation.

Some lively stuff is happening

UWinfo comments wanted The UWinfo operations committee, which is responsible for the central University of Waterloo web page at https://uwaterloo.ca/, is proposing a modest facelift for the page. The proposed new page can be seen at https://uwaterloo.ca/testing/ and is expected to be put in use late next week. Please take a look at it it, and send word to the committee, uwinfo-ops@uwinfo.uwaterloo.ca, if you encounter browser problems or other difficulties with it. The committee wants to emphasize that a facelift of this kind doesn't rule out the possibility of bigger changes to UW's web presence some time in the future.

David Goldberg of the University of Toronto visits the biology department today and will speak at 12:30 (Davis Centre room 1302) on "Wine as a Biological Fluid".

UW's winning aerial robotics team, which placed second in this year's Millennial International Aerial Robotics Competition, will hold a presentation from 2 to 5 p.m. for people from local high technology companies. It'll take place in the Davis Centre "fishbowl" lounge. About a dozen firms, as well as some people from the engineering faculty, are expected to be on hand. "The Waterloo Aerial Robotics Group is a student project involved in building 'smart' flying robots," explained Chris McKillop, a computer engineering student and a member of the team. It competed against top American and Canadian universities in the event last summer in Washington state, and won the "best design" award as well as second place overall.

An "ACM-style programming contest" starts at 10:30 tomorrow morning in Math and Computer room 3006. A memo from the Computer Science Club explains: "Our ACM-Style practice contests involve answering five questions in three hours. Solutions are written in Pascal, C or C++. Six years in a row, Waterloo's teams have been in the top ten at the world finals. We will be selecting team members to compete at the regional contest. . . . Pizza will be served after the contest. Please register on the web. All are welcome."

A one-day course on "Occupational EMG Assessment" takes place tomorrow in the kinesiology department. The official word: "This intense 1 day of hands-on training combined with the latest theory and philosophy, is directed at individuals working in ergonomic settings who need to quantify and assess the body's muscle activity." Instructors are Bob Norman, Richard Wells and Patrick Neumann of the kin department.

The football Warriors are at home to the York Yeomen tomorrow -- 2:00, University Stadium -- and the game is preceded by a tailgate party hosted by the Warrior alumni. Other home sports this weekend: volleyball against Windsor this evening, with the women playing at 6:00 and the men at 8:00; rugby against Queen's, 1:00 tomorrow at Columbia Field; soccer against Brock, also at Columbia Field tomorrow -- not the precise same field, I hope -- with the men playing at 1:00 and the women at 3:00.

National enrolment goes down

"This five-year decline was due entirely to a sharp drop in enrolment among part-time undergraduate students, especially those in older age groups. On the other hand, enrolment in full-time undergraduate studies has remained steady.

"In 1997/98, universities enrolled 497,100 undergraduate students on a full-time basis, virtually unchanged from the 1992/93 academic year. At the same time, the number of part-time undergraduate students fell 24.1% to 207,900.

"In total, counting both graduate and undergraduate students, 573,100 full-time students were enrolled in university in 1997/98, down only 0.6% from five years earlier. But the total number of part-time students declined 21.0% to 249,700.

"Preliminary data on enrolment for the current 1998/99 academic year are scheduled for release later this fall."

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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