Daily Bulletin

Minister isn't bringing money today

But UW president James Downey says he is confident that UW will still get to take part in the program, after energetic negotiations with the provincial government through the summer. Johnson's visit has only been postponed, and the minister will be here one day soon to smile about the plans and the multi-million-dollar funding.

"We are expecting a letter from Queen's Park presently," maybe even today, he said, to confirm UW's involvement and give the details.

Provost Jim Kalbfleisch gave a sketch of the expected arrangements to members of the UW senate on Monday night. In general terms, UW is to get special expansion funding for CS and E&CE without agreeing to double the enrolment in those already huge programs. Other universities, with smaller programs in high-tech fields, had to double the total number of students, but UW will increase by about one-third in computer science and one-half in electrical and computer engineering. The figures are complicated because the formula -- the "baseline" figure from which growth is calculated -- is being changed from what was announced earlier, the provost said.

UW and other universities will also get some funding to increase enrolment at the graduate level in those high-tech fields, something they had said was essential to provide teaching assistants and to make sure not all the new graduating students four or five years from now are at one level of training.

When an announcement of UW's ATOP expansion comes, the big questions will be where the university will get enough new faculty members and enough space for the new teaching. That's being worked on, Downey said -- mentioning that part of the solution is the planned building on parking lot B1, for which funding is still awaited. Originally a "Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering", that building has been rechristened the "Centre for Environmental and Information Technologies", the president said.

The ex-premier, or the historian?

At Wilfrid Laurier University, it's former Ontario premier Bob Rae, speaking on "Social Democracy: Without Illusions". He'll be heard at 7:30 p.m. in the Maureen Forrester Recital Hall.

And at UW, in the Humanities Theatre, the first Stanley Knowles lecture of the fall term will examine the impact of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples on native communities. In "Recognized at Last? -- Reflections on the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples", historian Olive Patricia Dickason will bring the combined perspectives of her academic background and her Métis heritage.

Dickason has written numerous books and articles on aboriginal affairs, including The Myth of the Savage and Canada's First Nations: A History of Founding People from Earliest Times. She is professor emeritus at the University of Alberta and an adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa.

The lecture will be given at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are free at the door, or can be reserved in advance by phoning St. Paul's United College at 885-1460. St. Paul's is the home of UW's Canadian studies program, which includes the Stanley Knowles Visiting Professorship in Canadian Studies.

A second Knowles lecture is planned for later this term. On November 5, also in the Humanities Theatre, Tony Clarke of the University of Chicago -- who is at UW this term teaching Canadian Studies 365K -- will speak on "Challenging the Corporate Security State: The Search for Democratic Alternatives".

A few more things are happening

And from noon to 5 p.m., an "internship fair" will run in the cafeteria at Conrad Grebel College. "Come discover hundreds of internship opportunities in a variety of local and international settings," a flyer says. The event is sponsored by the Peace and Conflict Studies program.

The science faculty will rehearse for its annual open house with a little preview today under the title of "Twisted Culinary Science". Engineering Science Quest leaders will be visiting Cedarbrae Public School to celebrate Science and Technology Week. "Plugging into the class's science curriculum," says Scott Nicoll of chemistry, "we will illustrate the electrical, chemical and mechanical properties of common foods and materials. Where else can young scientists eat their laboratory? The event will include ghostly glowing electro-pickles, hands-on cryogenics and directly applied (and eaten) food chemistry!" The open house will run from 11 a.m to 4 p.m. this Saturday, during both morning and afternoon convocation ceremonies.

The "Chew on This" series of noon-hour talks for co-op employers continues today, with Aftab Patla of the kinesiology department speaking on "Slips, Trips and Falls".

At 3:30, in Davis Centre room 1302, Judy-Anne Chapman of Women's College Hospital and the University of Toronto will speak on "Alice in Wonderland: Behind the Scenes in Breast Cancer Research". Chapman, who did her BSc and PhD degrees from UW, has been doing cancer research for some twenty years now, including work on bladder cancer, mortality data, radiation in Toronto homes, and most recently breast cancer - "detection, pathology, surgery, biochemistry, treatment, quality of life, and statistical modelling of disease process". In today's talk, "Judy-Anne will show how she is using her Waterloo training in mathematics and statistics in front-line international breast cancer research."

You can now search the Bulletin

New look for UWinfo A new design of the UWinfo home page was introduced this morning. The home page, at www.uwaterloo.ca, now gets more than 10,000 hits a day as UW's electronic front door. The new design was placed on view for comment last week by the UWinfo operations committee.

The first Daily Bulletin appeared May 11, 1993, which means there are now close to 1,400 daily slices of UW life on record through this medium.

Many thanks are due to Carol Vogt of the information systems and technology department, who provided a great deal of technical help in adapting a freeware search script for Daily Bulletin purposes. The search engine reveals that she's been mentioned in the Bulletin 11 times over the year: once in 1993, four times in 1994, once in 1995, once in 1996, twice in 1997 and twice so far this year. Well, three times counting today.

If you find any glitches in the search engine, please drop me a note and I'll try to have something done about them when it's possible.

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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