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| The historical importance of one vote -- not |
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Tuesday, November 28, 2000
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Biggest-ever gift to UWAn announcement is expected later today of the biggest individual gift ever received by UW. The donor will be on hand, along with UW officials and invited guests, at a presentation ceremony at 4:30 p.m. in the Davis Centre lounge. It's followed by a dinner in honour of the donor, described as an alumnus who's been successful in business over the decades since getting his start at Waterloo. |
News media are full of analysis about how prime minister Jean Chrétien earned his third consecutive majority, how the Bloc Québécois faltered, and how the New Democrats actually lost seats despite the resonance of their platform on national health care -- read all about it in the Globe and Mail, CNews and pretty much everywhere else.
Locally, it was another Liberal sweep. Andrew Telegdi goes back to Parliament representing Kitchener-Waterloo (former Federation president makes good!) and Karen Redman goes back for Kitchener Centre. Both were returned to Ottawa with more than half the votes, an impressive feat in a five-or-more-party race.
Josh Doig, recent UW student and currently general manager of the Federation of Students, will be back at his desk in the Student Life Centre full-time, having failed to capture K-W for the Canadian Alliance. (He's been working for the Feds about three hours a day during the election campaign, says Federation president Chris Farley.) Doig ran second to Telegdi, but still captured fewer than half as many votes as the Liberal victor.
The Alliance also came second in Kitchener Centre, and UW math student Paul Royston came in fourth on behalf of the New Democrats.
Don Boudria, arguably UW's most famous graduate since he earned his degree through distance education while serving in the federal Cabinet, romped back into office, taking more than two-thirds of the vote in his eastern Ontario riding of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell. I'll ask the alumni office, when the dust settles, what other Waterloo graduates there are in the new House of Commons -- must be some, surely.
"We hope to raise a good chunk of the signatures that we need in order to call a referendum," says math student Simon Woodside, one of the organizers of the planned group. Organizers issued their official proposal yesterday.
Slightly fewer than two thousand student signatures (to be precise, one-tenth of the total undergraduate enrolment) would require the Federation of Students to call a referendum, likely during the winter term, on creating the Co-op Society and imposing a student fee for it. A referendum is considered a prerequisite for official status and collection of a fee, which organizers are suggesting would be $2.50 per term for each student.
"If students want to see a new society for co-ops, they should come out and help," says Woodside. The signature campaign will begin at 5:30 today in the third-floor lounge of the Math and Computer building. He notes that the petition is also available on-line: "we would love it if people would print it out, pass it around and return it to the drop boxed in EngSoc and MathSoc offices by Thursday. Only undergrads can sign."
The society "will be founded on the principles of representation, innovation and services for co-op students", organizers say. Among them is Ryan Stammers, engineering student representative on the UW senate and Federation of Students council, who says the society "will build on the strength of the existing four groups operating under the Feds, and create a new single organization that focuses on co-op".
It would be "co-ordinated with" the Federation, the proposal says, but separate from it, much like the existing Engineering Society and other student societies. In fact, creation of the society will mean some responsibilities are taken away from the Feds, the proposal says: "Leadership will be borne by leaders who are elected to represent students on solely Co-operative Education issues, as contrasted with the current structure in which the VP Education [of the Federation] is elected based on an entire portfolio that includes Co-operative Education. As a corollary, this ensures that the leaders have both experience with and are interested in Co-operative Education. These leaders will be able to concentrate all their efforts on Co-operative Education issues, as contrasted with the VP Education who is constrained in his/her portfolio that is overflowing with a heavy travel schedule and many other education issues."
Remainders from the "miniature art sale" held over the weekend in the fine arts department will be for sale again today from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the fine arts studios, East Campus Hall.
Tamara Danko, vice-president of the Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics, is on campus today and will give a talk on "The Russian Economy: Problems and Resolutions". The lecture (Davis Centre room 1302, 4:30 p.m.) is sponsored by the international programs office and three academic departments -- economics, statistics and actuarial science, and Germanic and Slavic. It will be followed by a reception.
The Waterloo Advisory Council, which represents employers and gives advice to UW's co-op department and the faculties, is holding an unusual short meeting today. Usually WAC meets for a day and a half, twice a year; today's meeting is scheduled for noon to 4 p.m., the co-op department says. WAC meetings are not open to the public.
Students in the electrical and computer engineering department have been invited to a forum today -- 5:30, Engineering Lecture room 112 -- by the "undergraduate chair evaluation committee", which is providing a student voice as the E&CE department carries on an evaluation.
The Jewish studies program presents a "distinguished guest lecture" tonight. Stephen Berk of Union College will speak on "Zionism, Ben-Gurion and the Holocaust", at 7:30 p.m. in Siegfried Hall, St. Jerome's University.
Later this week:
![[Screen shot]](/images/2000/0306libtest.gif)
Those are some of the headings on the
UW library web site
(right), and
they're explained in detail in a four-page leaflet that was recently
distributed to faculty, graduate students and staff across campus.
"The UW Library Web," it's headed, "Helping You With All Your
Information Needs."
The four pages of information describe some of the things users can find: "almost 5,000 full-text electronic journals", mountains of statistical data, photocopies of articles from other universities' libraries, names and phone numbers of specialist librarians, texts of laws and government reports, "raster and vector geospatial data" in the map and design library, and so on -- plus, of course, the Trellis catalogue to library collections at Waterloo, Laurier and Guelph.
There's also information about the library's rare book room, the "adaptive technology centre" with devices to help disabled people, a program of workshops about library use, the e-mail "AskLib" reference service, and locations of book return bins on campus.
"May we recommend" is the heading for a list of ten "sites to review and recommend to your students", including "Keeping Up with Your Research Literature Electronically" and "Evaluating What You Have Found".
Also mentioned are pages that offer library information tailored to faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates.
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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