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Monday, July 23, 2001

  • Making the transition to first year
  • UW wins research awards
  • Monday notes

Midnight Sun update:
UW's solar car team is running in third place overall in the American Solar Challenge. The race down Route 66 will wrap up on Wednesday.

Here are the latest checkpoint results:

[LT3 team]
LT3 summer co-op students and other temporary staff have taken up residence at St. Paul's United College where they are spending this term working on developing courseware for UW faculty as well as for exchange with other institutions. St. Paul's principal Graham Brown, back row at right, welcomes the LT3 West staff (from left, back row) Tom Voll, Peter Goldsworthy, Neil Malcom, Jill Porter, Lauri Koziar, Liwana Bringelson, Graham Carey, (front row) Kevin Leung, Allison Salter, Zal Petrowich, and Mike Sop. Not pictured are Cindy Poremba, Paul Ottaway, and Michael Roberts.

Making the transition to first year

"An enormous transformation in life" begins when a young person starts university, a psychologist with counselling services told an audience of staff last week -- some preparing to launch their own children into higher education and others working with first-year students on campus.

Your Child's Transition to University was the title of a talk by Theresa Casteels-Reis at an Employee Assistance Program brown bag lunch.

She has taught a course in Adolescence Development for the psychology department at St. Jerome's University, and has experience dealing with the challenges of that adjustment throughout her 15 years of counselling at UW. While she has worked with residence dons, students, their parents, and staff, the largest group seeking help is first-year students.

Not everyone experiences the transition in the same way, she adds. For some parents, having a child start university means more freedom and independence; for others, there may be a major sense of loss.

Likewise, new university students may deal with major changes in the areas of identity, independence and intimacy very differently. Entering what is, for many, an alien environment, students "may feel like the rug has been pulled out from under them. The time is ripe for focus on self-definition."

In response to an altered social reality and exposure to different ways of thinking, first-year students may take on new philosophical or value positions, engage in new behaviours, or change their career paths.

"Abrupt changes can be very challenging for the family," says Casteels-Reis, and lead to a redefinition of the relationship between parent and child.

"We can't predict how a student will change, but change is unavoidable."

Handling greater independence requires the development of what -- for many students -- is a new set of skills: learning when to get up or come home, how to manage money, deciding when or if to study, eat, or do laundry, how to deal with illness and medication on their own, and how to handle deadlines.

"Most of them thrive and grow," she assured parents. "For some, it's a very scary, difficult time.

"Relationships are critical to the learning and growth that takes place during university years," she adds. "We refine aspects of identity through relationships and develop a clearer sense of self and how we fit into the world."

During this time, young people tend to develop intense friendships, but relationships also become more complicated because of the greater diversity of the university environment. Most students are exposed to a wider range of socio-economic groups, religions, cultures, political and sexual orientations than ever before.

While premarital sex is the rule rather than the exception, on the positive side, students are more aware than ever of safety issues related to both sexual relationships and alcohol use, she says.

One of the most complicated relationships is often with a roommate -- which Casteels-Reis compares to an "arranged marriage." Students may experience conflicts over social and privacy needs, personal habits and backgrounds.

The challenge is: "How much of myself am I willing to give up to live peacefully?" In the end, Casteels-Reis finds "the vast majority of people negotiate the roommate situation extraordinarily well."

[turquoise grass]
Photo by Barb Elve
Turquoise turf: A seed mixture of a particularly vivid hue was applied to the construction site of the new co-op building last week. The substance is meant to ensure what's left of the pared-down hill doesn't wash away.

UW wins research awards

Four University of Waterloo researchers have been awarded Canada Research Chairs. Brian Tobin, the federal minister of Industry, made the funding announcement recently at York University. In total, $83.8 million in federal funding will make its way to 25 universities across the country.

Waterloo recipients of the research chairs are:

The Canada Research Chairs program is intended to support excellence in university-based research, and chair holders are world leaders or rising stars in the natural sciences and engineering, health sciences, and social sciences and humanities.

Further awards announced earlier this spring from federal and provincial governments will assist 10 UW faculty members with their research projects.

The UW office of research says four Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) New Opportunities Awards, which are being matched by Ontario Innovation Trust (OIT) awards, will fund the following projects:

These government awards represent about 80 per cent of the research budgets, with the remaining 20 per cent coming "from additional sources," according to a research office spokesperson.

Additional CFI funding of $576,756 was announced this month for another five UW research projects:

Matching OIT awards are expected.

From the registrar:
For those students who were not able to complete class selection for winter 2002, open appointments on QUEST have been scheduled from 8:30-4:30 on July 26, 27, 30, 31, and on August 1, 2 and 3.

Monday notes

The Grad House presents another instalment of its Summer Swing Series tonight. Cost is $2 per person for a one-hour lesson and three hours of great dance music. Registration starts at 7:30 p.m., dance lessons begin at 8.

Also tonight the City of Waterloo's Free Summer Concert Series features jazz and folk music at Brewmeister Green -- at the corner of King and William Streets. The Monday Melodies concerts on the green will continue through August 20 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. each week.

And the student awards office sends advance word that it will be closed all day Wednesday, July 25. The office will re-open on Thursday at 10 a.m.

Avvey Peters


[UW logo] 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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