Galveston, O Galveston: 100th anniversary

Daily Bulletin

Running back Mike Bradley just keeps, well, running -- and scoring -- for the Warriors, who will host McMaster's Marauders tomorrow. Going into his fourth year on the team, he has a good chance of setting the league record for career rushing this season. Bradley, a legal studies and sociology student, declared in a recent interview that Waterloo football fans are "the best in the OUA, if not in Canada . . . a huge boost for us".

Football, then the toga party

Today brings various tours, parties and celebrations, with food that ranges from a pancake breakfast (for mathies) to a pita lunch (AHS) and sub dinner (science). Engineers will spend the afternoon -- and long into the night -- scunting. Science students will end the day with a bonfire and AHS students with "Enchantment Under Da Sea".

And from all faculties, students who need to pass da English Language Proficiency Exam will have a chance to do so today in the Physical Activities Complex. Scheduled times: 9:30 (engineering), 11:30 (arts and independent studies), 1:00 (science), and 2:30 (ES, AHS and mathematics).

Today brings the final performances of "Single and Sexy" for this season -- at 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. in the Theatre of the Arts, Modern Languages building.

Tomorrow starts with another "campus-wide sleep-in". Noon brings the pep rally at East Campus Hall, at which a few thousand hungry students will gobble up the world record submarine sandwich being created by UW's food services department, listen to live music, and whip up some enthusiasm. Then at 2:00 the football Warriors host the McMaster Marauders at University Stadium, in the opening game of the OUA season.

The climactic event of orientation is Saturday night's toga party, which is scheduled to start at 9:00 on the Matthews Hall green -- a new location, more enclosed by UW buildings, chosen to protect peace-loving off-campus folks from the noise. The event is licensed, but "anyone caught drinking under age will be processed at UW Police," the official schedule warns.

There are alternative Saturday night events for those who don't have togas or don't like crowds -- a turnkey coffee house in the Student Life Centre, movie night in Math and Computer, and something called "PAC Attack". And new students from Conrad Grebel College will miss the whole thing, as they'll be off at Silver Lake camp for a weekend-long retreat with the rest of the college family.

Meanwhile, first-year students from Wilfrid Laurier University will be scattered across town tomorrow morning for the annual Shinerama event. It's a chance to get cars, shoes and even eyeglasses polished, in return for donations to benefit cystic fibrosis research. WLU is the home of Shinerama, founded there in 1961; it's some years now since UW took part in the event as part of its orientation activities.

And soccer and baseball and so on

Also tomorrow, the baseball Warriors will begin their season with a game at Brock. Sunday they'll be at WLU, and Wednesday they'll play their first home game, hosting Western at 6:00 at Bechtel Park.

More than 500 UW students are expected to play interuniversity sports this year, and about a quarter of them will be academic stars as well, says Judy McCrae (right), the director of athletics and recreational services. She says UW is introducing something new this year: the President's Academic Athletic Honour Roll, which will be launched with a reception later this month. McCrae said 123 of last year's athletes will receive certificates to celebrate a season in which they played Warrior sports and also achieved grade averages of 80 or higher.

What they won't be receiving is huge "American-style" scholarships, in spite of changes to the scholarship rules approved this year by the Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union.

"The athletic scholarship issue has been extremely divisive," says McCrae, who is serving as president-elect of the CIAU and will take its helm in 2001-03. Many universities in the Atlantic provinces and western Canada would like to be able to give sizeable scholarships, she said, but Ontario universities are generally opposed -- partly because they have more sports, and more athletes, than institutions in the rest of the country.

Ontario now has league championships in 41 sports, she said. Nationally there are championships for only about 17 sports. UW is fielding teams in 24 sports this year, a number that could soon go up with the addition of women's hockey.

"Last winter there were 52 women playing [hockey] in the campus rec men's league," says McCrae. She takes that as a sign that there are women who would turn out for an interuniversity hockey team if the university did what was necessary -- scrape up a budget, in particular, and make renovations to the Columbia Icefield to put in a women's dressing room. McCrae thinks it'll happen, some year very soon, and if other universities do the same thing, a league could get started.

Even sooner than that, baseball -- which has been just an experiment so far -- will soon be official. The governing body of Ontario University Athletics is set to vote in December on making baseball a league sport, starting in the fall of 2001, and McCrae says it's a foregone conclusion, with nine campuses already fielding teams.

The qualities of a good TA

Coordinated by teaching assistant Enrique Díaz de León L. and staff member Cindy Howe in the engineering undergraduate office, the program is led by professors, experienced TAs and resource people who can talk about specific issues, such as sexual harassment and computing resources for teaching.

A thick sheaf of handouts includes background material that TAs will need -- UW's exam regulations, academic discipline policies, advice on exam marking from those who have been there. (One tip: "Design the test so that it is easily graded in the first place.")

What makes a good TA, anyway? The handout devotes most of a page to listing five qualities "which can be developed by individuals if they so desire, as evidenced by the courses and image makers which are available for business people and politicians". Here they are:

• Personal qualities of character such as patience, decisiveness, perseverance, industry, wisdom, good judgement, and diplomacy.
• Good organization of people, time, and things.
• Experience and knowledge in the immediate field of instruction are desirable and a breadth of experience or knowledge in other areas contributes to the overall effectiveness of a TA. It is good practice to apply for positions in the field of a TA's own research or related fields, particularly for novice TA's, to minimize the amount of time which is required in preparation and to be effective as a TA. Choosing a position in the field of one's own interest helps a person to be an effective TA, not only because they possess experience and knowledge in that field but because they can motivate students to learn material by showing their own enthusiasm.
• Teaching skills. Although some people may be natural teachers most people must develop these skills. Teaching is a dynamic situation which involves many aspects such as lecturing, questioning/responding, and thinking on one's feet.
• Professionalism is an important part of teaching and engineering. An important aspect of professionalism is personal appearance (i.e. grooming, dress, etc.) and personal hygiene. Unsuitable attire or poor personal hygiene may deter a student from seeking help or may make the student feel uncomfortable when receiving help.

Pixels in the big picture

A memorial service will be held tomorrow for Victor Mason, who was a faculty member in UW's department of management sciences in the 1980s. Mason died August 27, aged 80. The service will be held Saturday at 2:30 p.m. at Ratz-Bechtel Funeral Home on King Street West in Kitchener.

"Be a Big Sister," suggests a note from the local Volunteer Action Centre. "Female volunteers from all cultural backgrounds who are 18 years of age or older have the opportunity to make a positive difference in a child's life. Each Big Sister is matched with a girl between the ages of 4-17 or a boy between the ages of 4-11. Presently there is a large waiting list of teens." More information about the program -- which includes training for new Big Sisters -- is available at 743-5206.

UW's libraries will offer an orientation session for international students starting at 10:30 this morning in Davis Centre room 1302.

Graduate students, faculty, staff and visitors in the computer science department will start the fall term today with a suppertime potluck picnic in Waterloo Park.

Off to Canada's Wonderland tomorrow is a busload of graduate students; if any tickets are left at this late date, the Graduate House would be the place to get them.

Things have slowed down somewhat at the University Catholic Community, a full-service church based at St. Jerome's University, but now it's back to the regular schedule of activities. Saturday evening Mass (5:30 p.m.) resumes tomorrow; Sunday morning (11:30) brings Orientation Mass; and Sunday evening Mass (7 p.m.) begins this Sunday. Weekday Masses -- Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays -- are at 12 noon in the Notre Dame Chapel at St. Jerome's.

The libraries will be closed Saturday and Sunday; regular fall term hours begin Monday.

The mature student services office will hold its annual used book sale Monday and Tuesday in the Modern Languages building, with books priced from 25 cents to $10.

Here's a clarification to an item I mentioned a few days ago: Paul Kay, who's serving as associate dean (undergraduate studies and educational liaison) in the faculty of environmental studies, has that position only on a temporary basis. He's filling in for a year while Ellsworth LeDrew takes a sabbatical leave.

And here's an administrative appointment that hasn't yet been announced, although it took effect July 1: Robert Hiscott of the sociology department becomes associate dean (computing) in the faculty of arts, succeeding Duane Kennedy of the school of accounting.

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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