Daily
Bulletin

Optometry professor Tony Cullen has had what he calls "the surprising honour" of being named the 2001 International Optometrist of the Year by the World Council of Optometry, which met in Helsinki at the end of May. "The selection," he notes, "is made by the Governing Board of the WCO, which represents the six world regions." Pictured is the scroll presented to Cullen by the president of the WCO, Scott Brisbin, who just happens to be a Canadian -- and a Waterloo optometry graduate (1965).

Co-op pay can reach $938

Those are the kinds of numbers that will be important to several thousand students today, as they weigh their options for fall term co-op jobs. Ranking forms are available at the Needles Hall paging desk starting at 10:00 this morning, and must be returned by 4 p.m. with the student's choices indicated. Job matches will be announced next Monday.

The web site uwstudent.org reports this morning that the number of jobs available during this hiring period was 2,547, down from 2,682 in the same period last year.

The figures on weekly earnings are also from the year 2000, and indicate the top and bottom of a "weekly earnings survey" for the three terms of last year. They were issued recently by the co-op and career services department.

The department calculates that for a work week of 37.5 hours (seven and a half hours, five days a week), the hourly rates can go up to $25 or could be as low as $8. (The minimum wage in Ontario is $6.85.)

Figures are quoted in two ways: an average, and a "range" that excludes the top and bottom 10 per cent of salaries reported. The department stresses that it doesn't set the pay rates, it just reports them. Individual employers decide how much they'll pay for co-op jobs.

The highest rates were reported for actuarial science students in their sixth work term: an average of $836 a week, with a range from $691 to $938. Close behind came math students in the sixth work term, with an average of $775 and a range of $649 to $938.

Other sixth-term averages: applied health sciences, $536; arts, $610; engineering, $730; architecture, $600; science, $604.

Averages for a student in the first work term of a program: applied health sciences, $383; arts, $448; engineering, $499; architecture, $464; environmental studies, $441; mathematics, $498.

Also happening at UW A two-day course on "Internet and Electronic Commerce Security", sponsored by the Institute for Computer Research and starring Gord Agnew of the department of electrical and computer engineering, starts today in the Davis Centre. And the ICR, together with the Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence lab, presents a talk on "University-Industry Collaborative Research and Technology Transfer", at 2:00 this afternoon in Davis room 1304. The speaker is Clarence de Silva of the University of British Columbia. The teaching resource office runs a workshop this afternoon on Teaching Dossiers -- last-minute information should be available from the office at ext. 3132. Tomorrow brings one of the regular surplus sales at central stores, East Campus Hall. This sale will run only from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. . . . and elsewhere Canadian enrolment is decreasing, international study finds U of Toronto law professor is exonerated in straight-A's scandal

What's happening with SuperBuild?

There has been no official word from Queen's Park, but two news releases from local MPPs announced the $40 million figure.

Two of the four projects involve UW directly: the construction of a new home for the school of architecture, along the Grand River in Cambridge, and infrastructure for the university's proposed "research and technology park" on the north campus. The Region had asked Ontario for about $29 million to support those two projects, plus $4.3 million each towards a new Waterloo public library and a new Kitchener market, and more grants for other projects still to be worked out.

Matching grants from Ottawa were also requested. "We believe that the federal funding is complete, and it's a provincial decision," president David Johnston told the university senate last night in a brief SuperBuild update.

"We're in close contact with the various parties," Johnston said, adding that he talks to Ken Seiling, chair of Waterloo Region, pretty much every day. "The details will be worked out between the Region and the province."

Broadband report is issued

About the broadband report Federal news release CNews Globe and Mail

It says there is "a digital divide" between Canada's urban areas -- where profit-making businesses already provide high-speed Internet service or soon will -- and rural and remote areas where it will take government intervention and spending to bring "broadband" Internet. That means not just a dial-up connection of some kind, but a wire thick enough to carry full-motion interactive video, something on the order of 5 megabits per second.

Broadband Internet access is needed, says the task force, for electronic education, "tele-health", government services and electronic business.

Johnston was in Ottawa yesterday morning for a videoconference (connecting three locations) that launched the report, commissioned by the federal ministry of industry. By late afternoon he was back at UW, where he chaired a meeting of the UW senate and said a few words about the broadband study.

He told the senate that "about one-quarter of the Canadian population, or three-quarters of the communities, would not, without some public intervention, have broadband access by 2004.

"The notion of equality for all Canadians in broadband access is an important one."

A summary of the task force report lists these main findings:

• All Canadians should have equitable and affordable access to broadband services;
• Focus should be on communities where the private sector is unlikely to deliver services;
• First Nation, Inuit, rural and remote communities should be a priority along with public institutions (learning institutions, libraries, health care centres and public access points);
• Investment estimates for deployment of broadband infrastructure vary widely depending on whether they include support for transport to communities or access within communities, as well as depending on the combination of technology solutions;
• Accessibility means more than infrastructure - it also means content, services and building community and individual capacity.

WLU grad takes UW entrepreneurship chair -- from the UW news bureau

After graduating from WLU 16 years ago, Rod McNaughton will return to work in the city where he earned his undergraduate degree. To take up his new post, McNaughton is leaving the University of Otago in New Zealand.

"The Eyton Chair is an exciting opportunity to help students become involved in technology-based new ventures, and to collaborate in the teaching of entrepreneurship and business across faculties," McNaughton said. "Waterloo has all of the ingredients to foster entrepreneurship, and a track record of success."

The Eyton Chair exists to help UW students gain experience with innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as to encourage creative research that may have applications for business and industry. It is based in the faculty of engineering's management sciences department.

McNaughton looks forward to joining the faculty at Waterloo because of "the quality of its staff and students, cutting-edge research, innovative programs, and close ties to alumni and the business community."

His own track record includes lecturing and professorial experience at WLU, the University of Lethbridge and the University of Otago, among others, and four university degrees -- he has PhDs in economic geography and in marketing. Most recently, he was the Chair in Marketing at the University of Otago. McNaughton's research expertise is in international and business-to-business marketing, with a focus on international channel design and management issues.

CAR

Editor of the Daily Bulletin: Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
credmond@uwaterloo.ca | (519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
| Yesterday's Bulletin
Copyright © 2001 University of Waterloo