Daily Bulletin

Boldly facing January 4, 2000

Or maybe nothing will go wrong at all.

UW has staff working hard to check "Y2K compliance" on hundreds of computing systems, and seminars are being held this fall to advise researchers and administrators about how to make sure their data won't be hopelessly muddled by the shift to dates that begin with a "2". But those are small-scale difficulties, and officials aren't expecting any trouble with the central computing systems when students show up for their courses after New Year's, on Tuesday, January 4.

UW is "the only educational facility" in the area that will be starting classes that day or that week, the university's joint health and safety committee has been told. The University of Guelph and Wilfrid Laurier University, for instance, will begin winter classes the following Monday, January 10. (Guelph always starts the term later than UW, says Waterloo registrar Ken Lavigne. WLU apparently chose to delay things by a week in part because "Waterloo is doing it", which turned out not to be true.)

The local boards of education are keeping students in class almost until Christmas, and running the winter break through the first full week of January, resuming classes on Monday, January 10.

Lavigne isn't worried about the computing systems that do things like generate students' schedules and issue their fee receipts. "We've checked out everything and it works," the registrar says.

"In fact, we've repaired essentially all the legacy student applications, and they've been back in production for some time," adds Jay Black, associate provost (information systems and technology). Those "legacy" systems are ancient -- a complete replacement is under way in the Student Information Systems Project -- but in the meantime, they're what we've got, and they're expected to work.

"Also," says Black, "because so many of them are batch-oriented, any failures would be observed the first time they were run during the New Year, rather than at 12:01 a.m. January 1, when we won't be running any production jobs anyway. Postponing those first runs for 10 days wouldn't help. . . . We're confident we don't need to take any steps beyond our normal procedures for dealing with system problems."

Black adds: "More fundamentally, as long as there's light and heat in the buildings (not my problem!), we can teach most courses, even if all the computers are inoperative (which they won't be)."

From the minutes of the joint health and safety committee: "The Boiler House, fire alarm systems, building systems, etc., have all been investigated and should not have any major problems to cause a delay in starting classes."

Awards offered for volunteering

Custodian mourned Julio Tomas Mendes, a UW custodian assigned to the Humanities building, died Sunday at the age of 56. "He took seriously ill in late summer," a co-worker reports. "His wife, Maria, is also a current employee." The funeral is expected to be held in Portugal.

Catharine Scott, associate provost (human resources and student services), announced this year's awards in a memo distributed this week. "The awards," she writes, "honour the extracurricular contributions of students in a variety of service areas, some of which may not be highly visible but nonetheless important to the community. A Committee normally selects ten recipients each year to receive awards of $250 each.

"Any member of the University or the community at-large may nominate a student. As well, because volunteer work often has a low profile, students are very much encouraged to apply directly for an award.

"Once again, I ask that you make these awards known to deserving students and consider nominating some of our extraordinary volunteers yourself. Application/nomination forms are available at the Student Awards Office (Needles Hall 2001), the Graduate Studies Office (Needles Hall 3021), the Federation of Students (Student Life Centre 1102), and the Secretariat (Needles Hall 3060). Applications/nominations and reference forms must be returned to Dianne Scheifele, Secretariat, Needles Hall, by Friday, November 5, 1999."

For more information, Scott can be reached at ext. 3186 (e-mail cscott@mcladm). More information, including eligibility requirements, may also be obtained from Dianne Scheifele in the university secretariat, phone ext. 3183 (e-mail dscheif@secretariat).

Microsoft alliance with MIT

Said a news release:

Dubbed "I-Campus," the alliance involves cooperative projects among students, faculty and researchers at MIT and members of Microsoft Research. In addition to assigning several staff members to I-Campus, Microsoft will allocate an estimated $25 million over the course of the five-year effort.

Based on a shared commitment to excellence in technology-enhanced education, Microsoft and MIT will focus on methods and technologies that could set the pace for university education in the next five to 10 years. In an effort to achieve broad impact, both MIT and Microsoft are committed to engaging additional academic and industry partners and to producing materials that adhere to open standards, with results and source code that can be widely published and disseminated.

"This alliance draws upon MIT's research expertise and our core strength of highly interactive teaching and learning," said MIT President Charles Vest. "Education-focused research supported by Microsoft will lead to new learning environments for our students and will make us an even better university. Still more important, the MIT-Microsoft alliance will help create knowledge and information-based services that can improve higher education worldwide." . . .

The alliance begins with three initial projects: an expansion of the MIT Shakespeare Electronic Archive; the design of an educational system using a "global classroom" recently established between MIT and the National University of Singapore under the auspices of the Singapore-MIT Alliance (which also includes Nanyang Technological University); and an initiative in MIT's Aeronautics and Astronautics Department on the experimental use of distance collaboration in design courses.

Gates's money "exemplifies a growing trend of giving to underprivileged students", said a summary from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. "Gates' gift will underwrite 20,000 scholarships over 20 years for minority students with significant financial need who want to attend college."

Said CASE: "Several recent gifts from the Lilly Endowment also benefit minority students. Lilly gave $30 million to the American Indian College Fund last month, $50 million to the Hispanic Scholarship Fund in July, and $42 million to the United Negro College Fund last year.

"Recent gifts by filmmaker George Lucas, Barnes & Noble Chairman Leonard Riggio, and others will benefit financially strapped students. Several of these gifts are aimed at public schools, reflecting a concern among many high-profile donors that the nation's public school system is in jeopardy, reports The New York Times. . . . The increase in donations to public schools appears to have had little affect on giving to higher education, which reached a record $18.4 billion last year."

Events of today, briefly

The noon-hour concert series at Conrad Grebel College continues today with "Classical Sax en Française", featuring Daniel Rubinoff on saxophone and Shei Wei Zhou on piano. Rubinoff teaches saxophone at York University and the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. He has performed in Canada, France and the United States as a soloist and chamber musician. He has several recordings to his credit. Zhou is a former professor of piano at Shanghai Conservatory. She accompanied renowned violinist Isaac Stern in the acclaimed film "From Mao to Mozart". Maintaining a studio in Thornhill, Ontario, she is in demand as an accompanist and teacher. The concert starts at 12:30 in Grebel's chapel; admission is free.

A satellite videoconference on language teaching and learning -- "The Future of the Profession" -- is happening from 2 to 4 this afternoon, broadcast from Boston, and will be shown in Davis Centre room 1302.

Lila Kari (right) of the University of Western Ontario will speak today on "DNA Computing in Vitro and in Vivo". Says her abstract: "Biomolecular computing is a new computational paradigm that employs (bio)molecule manipulation to solve computational problems, while at the same time exploring natural processes. . . . The main idea was that data could be encoded in DNA strands, and molecular biology techniques could be used to executive computational operations." Her talk, at 3:30 in Math and Computer room 5158, is sponsored by the Women in Mathematics Committee, but everyone is welcome.

Graphics copy centres will close at 3:45 this afternoon for a staff meeting. The centres that have evening hours -- Graphics Express in the Dana Porter Library and the outlet in the Davis Centre -- will reopen at 4:45.

The faculty of science will hold "International Exchange Night" starting at 4:30 in Davis Centre room 1301. "If you are interested in an academic term overseas," a notice says, "get all the information you need." Rose Armstrong in the dean's office (phone ext. 5296) would appreciate RSVPs from those who plan to come.

Joseph Shaw of the University of Toronto department of fine art will speak at 4:30 today (Modern Languages room 346) on "The Greek Temples at Kommos in Crete: Excavation and History".

The men's and women's swimming teams host a dual meet with the University of Guelph, starting at 5 p.m. today in the Physical Activities Complex pool.

Thanksgiving isn't until next Monday, you know, but residents in the Villages can get Thanksgiving dinner tonight at Mudie's (Village I) and the Ron Eydt Village cafeteria. (The vegetarian alternative at Mudie's is eggplant parmesan.) Tomorrow, Brubaker's in the Student Life Centre will also have a Thanksgiving dinner, "with all the trimmings".

An evening-long conference on "peace in the Balkans", sponsored by the Serbian Students Association and other groups, starts at 7:00 tonight in Engineering Lecture room 101.

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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