Daily Bulletin

This year's star lecturer named

He will speak November 10 on "Optimal Experience and the Quality of Life", the Hagey Lecture committee has announced. He will also give a student colloquium the following day.

The Hagey Lectures, co-sponsored by UW and the faculty association, are given annually by a prominent invited speaker. Considered UW's leading invited lecture series, they were established in honour of UW's founding president, J. Gerald Hagey.

Csikszentmihalyi, who recently moved from the University of Chicago to the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University in California, is the author of some 13 books and -- at last count -- more than 180 scholarly papers, mostly on such topics as creativity and optimal experience. Among the books is Television and the Quality of Life, published in 1990.

His most recent book, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, "is about what makes life worth living", says a publicity page from Barnes & Noble bookstores. "The creative excitement of the artist at her easel or the scientist in the lab comes as close to the ideal fulfillment as we all hope to, and so rarely do. Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi interviewed more than ninety of possibly the most interesting people in the world -- people like actor Ed Asner, authors Robertson Davies and Nadine Gordimer, scientists Jonas Salk and Linus Pauling, and Senator Eugene McCarthy -- who have changed the way people in their fields think and work to find out how creativity has been a force in their lives."

B&N notes that Csikszentmihalyi's previous books included Flow, which achieved a pinnacle of pop culture fame when it was discussed during the telecast of the 1993 football Super Bowl, as the book that "inspired" Jimmy Johnson, then coach of the Dallas Cowboys. In that book, says B&N, "Professor Csikszentmihalyi explored states of "optimal experience" those times when people report feelings of concentration and deep enjoyment and showed that what makes experience genuinely satisfying is a state of consciousness called 'flow.' Here Professor Csikszentmihalyi builds on his flow theory, profiling individuals who have found ways to make flow a permanent feature of their lives and at the same time have contributed to society and culture. . . .

Actually, the B&N web page says "creative people are often seen as eelfish," but that may be a typographical error. My dictionary has "eelworm", but not "eelfish".

"Professor Csikszentmihalyi explores why creative people are often seen as selfish and arrogant (even though they are not) and reveals that the idea of the tortured genius is largely a myth. He argues that creativity needs to be cultivated not only in traditionally creative fields like sciences and arts, but also in business, government, and education."

He has also written thoughts on education, lectured on "Cultivating Creativity", and commented on web site design. His surname is, according to one web site, pronounced "CHICK-sent-me-high-ee".

Free tickets for the November 10 Hagey Lecture will be available in mid-October from the Humanities Theatre box office, the lecture committee said.

Serbian students offer views

Founded a year ago by a "group of students who find themselves proud to be Serbian", the club (members pictured at left) hopes "to inform the public of the real truth of the Kosovo conflict. If people become more informed about the situation in Yugoslavia, they will see the injustice that has been happening to our country."

Among the speakers who will be heard at the conference is David Orchard, cofounder of Citizens Concerned about Free Trade, and former candidate for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, who will speak on "The Fight for Canada: Globalization and the Loss of Sovereignty".

Marjaleena Repo, media critic and a freelance writer, and co-founder of Citizens Concerned about Free Trade, will address "Media's War: the Disinformation Campaign Against Yugoslavia". Carl Jacobsen, professor of political science, Carleton University, will explore "The Kosovo/a Crisis: Conflicting Principles, Conflicting Agendas; the NATO War". And Serge Trifkovic, executive director of the Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies and a professor at Rose Hill College, South Carolina, will speak on "From Westphalia to Kosovo: National Sovereignty vs. Gnostic Ideologies".

The conference will be held from 7 to 10 p.m. in Engineering Lecture Hall room 101, and is free and open to all. The event is part of a series of similar conferences being held in the next few days at the University of Guelph, University of Toronto and McMaster University.

Student injured Math student Jordan Hack, 22, is hospital with what police describe as "life-threatening injuries . . . severe head trauma" following a collision about 3 a.m. Sunday at the corner of Columbia Street and Albert Street. Hack was thrown some distance from his motorcycle when it collided with a car, Waterloo Regional Police said. He was taken to Grand River Hospital in Kitchener and then transferred to Hamilton General Hospital.

Teachers' colleges -- correct this time

The talks will take place in Davis Centre room 1302 -- I left out the location altogether -- and they're today and Thursday, not today and Wednesday as I said.

To be specific: today it's Western at 9:30, Queen's at 10:30, Ottawa at 11:30, York at 2:30, Lakehead at 3:30. On Thursday it's Nipissing at 10:30, Toronto at 10:30, Toronto's child studies program at 11:30, Windsor at 2:30 and Brock at 3:30.

Co-op employers get lunch talks

Each Tuesday and Thursday during the next four weeks, someone from one of UW's six faculties or the co-op and career services department will speak on a topic that's calculated to interest interviewers, the co-op department says. Called "Chew on This!" the lunch meetings, organized by CECS associate director Cathy Jenkins, will give employers an opportunity to learn about "some exciting and innovative teaching and research activities of faculty who are highly regarded in their field" or get the scoop on what's planned for improving recruiting methods at UW.

Topics and presenters for this term:

October 7, Bruce Lumsden, director of CECS, "Lunch with the Director".
October 12, Larry Lamb, ecology lab manager and adjunct lecturer, faculty of environmental studies, "Why Lawn is Evil: Ecofriendly Landscaping".
October 14, Alfred Menezes, combinatorics and optimization, "Secure Electronic Commerce: Dream or Reality".
October 19, Peter Bernath, chemistry, "The Destruction of the Earth's Ozone Layer: A Canadian Satellite to the Rescue".
October 21, Stuart McGill, kinesiology, "Preventing and Rehabilitating Low Back Troubles".
October 26, Bruce Lumsden, "Lunch with the Director".
October 28, Larry Smith, economics, "Computing's Next Empires: Why They Have Nothing to do with the Internet and Everything to do with Information".
November 2, Ralph Haas, civil engineering, "Good Roads Cost Less".

Things that are open to debate

A word from the plant operations department: electrical power, heating, cooling and ventilation will be shut off in Engineering II and Engineering III for an hour starting at 6:30 a.m. tomorrow. "This shutdown is for the installation of a new breaker in the main electrical substation. Computer equipment should be shut down in an orderly fashion."

Health services will be closed tomorrow (Wednesday) until 9:30 a.m. for a staff meeting.

The teaching resources and continuing education office presents a workshop on teaching dossiers this Thursday (with a repeat session on November 1). Donna Ellis and Gary Griffin of TRACE will lead the hour-and-a-half session: "At this workshop, you will learn what a dossier is and how you can use one. Then you will work in groups to discover how you might begin to create your own dossier. You will also see some sample tables of contents for dossiers to help you think about what you may want to include in your own. We will wrap up the session with a brief discussion of some caveats and cautions. Bring your questions and join us for this interactive workshop! The workshop is open to anyone who teaches at UW and is the first of two required workshops for those pursuing the Certificate in University Teaching." Participants can register by e-mail (trace@watserv1).

Nominations are requested for two seats on the university senate, a notice from the secretariat says. At least five nominators are required in each case. One faculty member is to be elected by and from the full-time AHS faculty members, term to April 30, 2000. One faculty member is to be elected by and from the full-time math faculty members, term to April 30, 2002. Nominations should be sent to the Chief Returning Officer, University Secretariat, Needles Hall, Room 3060, no later than 3:00 p.m., October 13. Elections will follow if necessary. Nomination forms are available from the Secretariat, ext. 6125.

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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