Americans eat turkey today

Daily Bulletin

Critters surrounded Brenda Scott, of the CIBC bank branch in the Student Life Centre, at last year's staff association craft sale. This year's sale begins today, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Davis Centre room 1301, and continues tomorrow. Last year the sale raised more than $1,300 for scholarship and bursary funds -- not to mention finding homes for teddies, Santas, elves, candles, jewellery and ornaments.

Admission requirements set for 2003

The requirements were approved by UW's senate on Monday, and yesterday Peter Burroughs, the director of admissions, was presenting them to a conference of high school teachers. They'll be published early next year in a Council of Ontario Universities booklet that will show the requirements for all the universities in the province.

Changes are possible, Burroughs said, pointing out that UW admission requirements are altered a little just about every year, in one way or another. Admission requirements for 2002 -- the last year in which everybody entering university will come from the old curriculum -- will be given final approval in March.

But publishing the rules for 2003 now will make it possible for current grade 10 students, the first youngsters to be going through high school under the new rules, to choose their grade 11 and 12 courses with an eye to their post-secondary plans. Burroughs said the new document will be available on the Web by about December 1.

There isn't really much change from the present admissions rules. Students entering first year now are required to have six "OAC" credits -- "Ontario Academic Courses", formerly known as grade 13 courses. The basic requirement, starting in 2003, will be six grade 12 courses.

The new grade 12 courses, to be offered for the first time in 2002-03, are classified in several levels, only some of which are suitable for university admission. The admissions document says courses offered by students entering UW "must be comprised of a minimum of four university U preparatory courses and any two university or university/college U/C courses. Some programs, including Engineering and Software Engineering, will require five U courses and one other U or U/C course."

Burroughs notes that all the grade 12 math and English courses to be offered will be at the "U" level, and those are the ones most commonly required for admission to various UW programs. Students entering honours math, for instance, will need to have "Advanced Functions & Introductory Calculus","Geometry & Discrete Mathematics", and English, all of which are U-level courses, plus "one other U course" and "two other U or U/C courses".

Students entering first-year arts must have English and three other U-level courses among their total of six, including "one Arts-related course" such as history, French, world geography or philosophy. A further note says that "If both U and U/C courses are offered in a particular discipline, the U course must be taken."

Descartes contest won't be compulsory

The senate ruled this week that the Descartes will not be a requirement for students entering UW in the fall of 2001. Students applying to math or software engineering have been required to submit their Descartes scores as part of their application in the past few years, but those scores won't be needed this year. The Descartes also won't be a factor in scholarship decisions, says the director of admissions, Peter Burroughs.

The reason is that in some school systems, preparing students for the Descartes is seen as an extracurricular activity, and teachers are boycotting such activities as part of their workload dispute with the provincial government. So some students, including those in Metro Toronto, won't have a fair chance at the exam, which is scheduled for April 18.

They're still "encouraged" to write it if they can, Burroughs said.

No decision has been made about use of the Descartes for admissions in 2002, he said. But starting in 2003, it'll likely be phased out, because it's based on the present "OAC" math curriculum, which will no longer be taught in Ontario schools. Instead, students will be expected to write one of UW's other math contests, the Euclid, which is based on grade 12 mathematics.

The nominating committee for provost

The elections of a Senator of professorial rank from the Faculty of Arts and of two regular staff members to the Vice-President, Academic & Provost Nominating Committee closed at 12:00 p.m on Wednesday, November 22. The results were as follows:

Arts faculty senator. James Brox, Economics, 69; Jane Buyers, Fine Arts, 44. The candidate declared elected to the Committee is James Brox. Of the 200 ballots distributed, 113 were returned (a 57% return rate).

Staff. Edward Chrzanowski, Math Faculty Computing Facility, 237; Lesley Hartley, Fine Arts, 190; Linda Norton, UW Graphics, 354; Nancy O'Neil, Student Life Centre, 175; Mark Walker, Biology, 536. The candidates declared elected are Linda Norton and Mark Walker. Of the 1870 ballots distributed, 827 were returned (a 44% return rate).

According to Policy 48, item IV.A.3., two regular faculty members, elected from and by the faculty-at-large of the University [shall be elected to the Vice-President, Academic & Provost Nominating Committee]. Nominations are requested for the election of two regular faculty members to the Vice-President, Academic & Provost Nominating Committee.

Consistent with past practice, the Secretariat will be conducting these elections. At least three (3) nominators are required in each case. Nomination forms and further information are available from the University Secretariat at ext. 6125 and from the web. Nominations should be sent to the Chief Returning Officer, Secretariat, Needles Hall, Room 3060, no later than 3:00 p.m., November 30, 2000. Elections will follow if necessary.

MP3s and art and trivia

Flu shots continue -- the clinic in the Student Life Centre today (11:00 to 5:30) is for people whose surnames begin with the letters M through R.

People who are 10 to 15 years away from retirement are being offered something called the Personal Retirement Education Program this fall, for a fee. The program is introduced at a (free) 90-minute session -- one was held last week and another is scheduled for today at 4:30. "If anyone missed attending on November 15, they can attend this session," says Carolyn Vincent of the human resources department. "There is limited seating." The first step: give her a call at ext. 2078.

A preview of the fine arts department's fourth annual miniature art sale and open house continues from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in East Campus Hall. The sale runs through the weekend, starting tomorrow from 4 to 8 p.m.

The Ram and Lekha Tumkur Memorial Graduate Scholarship, awarded each year in UW's department of biology, will be presented this afternoon (2 p.m., Biology I room 273). The recipient this year is master's student Julie Gauley.

A tea party in the Graduate House at 3:00 this afternoon celebrates the 1929 legal case that led to the enfranchisement of women in Canada. Pouring the tea, and speaking about her own feminism, will be Nancy Ruth, whose grandfather was the lawyer for Nellie McClung and the four other women who took the "persons case" to the highest courts.

A panel discussion on "The Legality of MP3 Distribution" will start at 5 p.m. in Davis Centre room 1351, sponsored by the local section of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). Panelists will include En-hui Yang of electrical and computer engineering, an expert on the technical aspects of data compression (such as the MP3 format for music); David Wang, an E&CE professor whose spare-time activities involve Christian rock music; and second-year E&CE student Joseph Fung, described as "an avid Napster user". Everyone is welcome.

"The Merchant of Venice" continues this afternoon (school performance) and this evening (8:00) in the Theatre of the Arts, Modern Languages building.

Tomorrow morning brings the last in this fall's series of tourism lectures. At 9:30 a.m. (Environmental Studies I room 350), Alison Gill of Simon Fraser University will be speaking on "Growth Management in Whistler".

Co-op students who don't yet have winter term jobs are reminded that tomorrow is the deadline for submitting 15 copies of the resume package together with the "continuous phase registration form", at the co-op department in Needles Hall.

And the answer is: St. Jerome's University. The question: Where is the first annual Trivia Challenge taking place? Everyone's got a head full of largely useless information. Tomorrow, they can put it to work, as St. Jerome's hosts the Challenge to raise funds for its scholarship programs. The party starts at 7:30 Friday night in the Community Centre. Participants play in teams an effort to correctly answer one hundred questions in all areas of general knowledge. The team scoring the highest total will get its name forever inscribed on the Bragging Rights Trophy. Pizza and snacks are included in the admission, and there will be a cash bar. Tickets at $12 per person, $20 per couple and $75 per table are available from Harry Froklage at 884-8111 ext. 255 or froklage@watarts.

This weekend brings end-of-term concerts from a couple of the music department ensembles: the stage band on Friday night at Conrad Grebel College, the UW Choir (with the University of Guelph Choir) on Saturday night at St. Peter's Lutheran Church, Kitchener. Details tomorrow.

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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