Geoff McBoyle, dean of environmental studies since 1997, will hold that position for another two-year term, it was announced last night. His reappointment will keep him in the dean's office through June 30, 2004. After the initial five-year term, reappointment of a dean is usually for three years; the shorter term was at McBoyle's own request, the university secretariat says. The reappointment was approved by the UW senate in confidential session on Monday and by a special closed meeting of the board of governors executive yesterday.

Maybe 5,000 new students a year

"Preliminary plans have been submitted -- I underline, preliminary," said Chakma. By the end of December, he told Monday's meeting, "we would hope to have some sort of clear picture of where our enrolment should be for 2002 and 2003."

It's a complicated and touchy issue. The current year's first-year class was the biggest in UW's history, with 4,751 new students who showed up in September. The admission target was only 4,300 -- and that was after a last-minute increase of 250 in the hopes of attracting extra government funding.

Just over the horizon is the challenge of the "double cohort" that's expected in 2003 when two high school classes graduate at the same time, thanks to a shortening of the program from five years to four. As recently as last spring, UW officials were planning for a temporary bulge in admissions: a total of 4,754 first-year students in 2003 and 4,861 in 2004. Two years before the double cohort, that first level has already been reached.

UW plans public session Monday about the double cohort Federation will hold an open meeting a week from today Latest worry: will the province cut funding again?

And it's become clear from government statements that any additional funding for universities in the near future will be tied to enrolment growth. "There is no new money to cover inflation," Chakma reminded the senate on Monday. "Based on that, we're more or less moving toward expanding."

For September 2002, he said, "we're trying to hold the line at this year's level," that is, somewhere around 4,700 new first-year students. But for the fall of 2003, with the double cohort knocking on the doors, "we may, underline may, take in 5,000 students -- assuming that the budgetary situation is favourable." It will also depend on having enough residence rooms to put roofs over their heads, he noted.

Members of senate pressed him to say what parts of the university could find room for several hundred more new students. That's what the deans are working on, he said, but he noted that it should be possible to start some new streams or programs that will actually make things better rather than more crowded.

One possibility is for the faculty of engineering to take 100 students a year into a new program in "mechatronics". The dean of engineering, Sujeet Chaudhuri, told the senate that if those students arrive, and bring proper funding with them, the result could be a reduction in the average teaching load of professors all across engineering.

Site helps high schoolers decide -- from today's Gazette

Working through the maze of university programs available in Ontario became a little easier this month with the launch of myfuture.ca, an online resource that was the brainchild of UW registrar Ken Lavigne (left).

A news release describes myfuture.ca as an online resource "to help high school students identify their interests, relate them to programs offered at Ontario universities and, with the click of a mouse, connect to the institution(s) offering the program(s). Although accessible to everyone, this online program will be especially useful to students in Grades 9 and 10 who must make decisions on high school course selections that will affect their eligibility for admission to university programs."

An animated character guides students through the site -- in French or English -- digging into a knapsack full of URLs for information as requested. Students can pay a virtual visit to universities based on geographic location or programs of interest.

The germ of the idea was planted in Lavigne's mind in the spring of 1999 when a representative of the Ontario School Counsellors' Association warned registrars that they would have to find ways to deal directly with potential students and less with high school counsellors in the light of cutbacks in guidance staff.

Originally, Lavigne conceived the site as a "post-secondary interest registry" where students could get information about universities and leave information about themselves, "almost as a pre-application process." The result would be "a database that universities could mine to court students."

The Council of Ontario Universities was interested, and later that year created a task force to develop the concept. After focus groups across the province revealed students would be leery about leaving information about themselves on the web, the plan was modified to create "a virtual university fair", said Lavigne.

With a lot of volunteer labour -- Lavigne wrote the tips section after hours -- and professional web design team, the result is a tool high school students are comfortable with. "They loved it," said Lavigne after watching the official launch at St. Joseph's College School in Toronto.

More plans for wireless networks -- text of a web page produced by the engineering computing office

Laptop computers are inherently mobile devices. However, users quickly find they would like access to printers, networked files, Internet links, Email, assignments and other resources accessible through networks. There are two primary methods of providing network access: wired RJ45 Ethernet ports (10/100 Mbps Ethernet) and 802.11 (a/b/c) wireless Ethernet (55/10/55 Mbps theoretical).

Wired Ethernet ports are available in some parts of the Davis Library and will be available in the first few front rows of the new Engineering Multimedia Lab. Also, some Registrar-owned classrooms are being wired. Expansion of this service would be considered if demand exists.

IEEE sets latest wireless standard

There are several campus wireless projects using the popular 802.11b or 11 Mbps wireless Ethernet standard. This technology offers a usable limit of 5 Mbps shared among all users of each base station. We have chosen base stations which are field upgradable to also support 802.11a or 55 Mbps wireless Ethernet.

Thanks to CFI funding, the Davis Centre will have complete wireless coverage. The cost for the base stations alone is $45,000, installation will cost $3,000, and it uses infrastructure also paid for by CFI.

Math and Engineering are setting up wireless areas in student lounging areas. In Engineering we are initially covering POETS and the lounge outside POETS and RCH 108 thanks to WEEF. We also plan to expand into a few select classrooms next year. Math is initially covering their 'comfy' lounges using funding from Math's endowment fund.

Wireless cards draw significant amounts of power and so they will shorten battery life. No additional electrical outlets are planned (except in an E&CE DC classroom), students will have to find and use existing outlets.

Merely supplying network connectivity is not enough, we must also supply security and offer services to be used by laptops. Engineering Computing has designed a security system which will be used in most of the aforementioned wired and wireless access methods. Users simply connect to a secure web page to supply their userid and correct password, and are immediately given full access to the campus network and the Internet. This system is compatible with Wintel, Linux and Macintosh laptops.

Faculty e-mail, printing and file storage servers are all accessible to laptops. We are also doing a pilot project with Windows Terminal Services to allow laptop users remote access to scientific applications like Matlab and Mathcad in the Nexus environment.

Dave McDougall of the Federation of Students staff was working this morning to get the vote out.

Events of today and tomorrow

The Scholastic book fair winds up today in the Early Childhood Education Centre in the Psychology (PAS) building.

The Humanities Theatre is booked today for the "Lions Club Magic Christmas Benefit", children's shows at 1:00, 5:30 and 8:00.

A surplus sale of UW property is scheduled for 11:30 to 12:30 today at central stores in East Campus Hall, off Phillip Street.

"Music from the Romantic Piano", by Roman Rudninski, is today's free lunchtime concert at Conrad Grebel University College. The music starts at 12:30 in Grebel's chapel.

The biology department will present this year's Ram and Lekha Tumkur Memorial Graduate Scholarship in a ceremony at 2:00 in Biology I room 273. The scholarship honours the memory of two children of biology professor Nag Raj Tumkur who were killed in the 1985 Air India crash off the coast of Ireland. This year's winner of the $1,000 scholarship is Wendy Van Loon.

Waterloo Region, the municipal government responsible for University Avenue, will hold an open house tonight about proposed "improvements" to the street, from King Street to Albert. The plan involves "rehabilitation of the deteriorated pavement surface and to address the need for bicycle lanes". Tonight's open meeting runs from 4:30 to 8:00 at the Paul Martin Centre at Wilfrid Laurier University.

Roast chicken legs, wild boar sausage, "hog-pog medley" -- it's a mediaeval dinner, being served tonight in the Ron Eydt Village cafeteria (4:30 to 7:00).

"Resolving Conflicts with Children and Adults", a video on the theme of non-violent communication, will be shown at 6:30 tonight in Davis Centre room 1304. The Waterloo Public Interest Research Group is the sponsor.

Looking ahead to tomorrow:

• Steam (heat) will be turned off in the Physics building from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. for maintenance work, the plant operations department advises.
• Health services will be closed for staff training in the morning, opening for the day at 12:30 p.m.
• The annual Farvolden Lecture in the department of earth sciences will be given in the Humanities Theatre at 2 p.m. This year's speaker is Frank Schwartz of the Ohio State University, speaking on "Big Projects and Big Science: Lessons to Be Learned". After the lecture there will be a research poster display by graduate students.
• "The Virtual Field Station" is the theme of the "design café" sponsored by the LT3 learning centre. It starts at 11:30 in the LT3 offices in the Dana Porter Library. David Rittenhouse of the University of Calgary will demonstrate a CD-ROM and web-based tutorial for biology students.
• Suzanne Stevenson of the University of Toronto will speak on "Conversing with a Computer: The Statistical Side of Semantics", in a talk sponsored by the Women in Mathematics Committee (3:30, Math and Computer room 5158).
• An information for students in the arts faculty, about third year abroad programs, will start at 4:30 in Humanities room 334.
• "Race Relations in Canada" will be explored in a lecture by Karen Mock, director of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, at 7 p.m. in the Humanities Theatre. It's sponsored by the Waterloo Public Interest Research Group as part of the "2020" looking-ahead series.
• Cabinet minister Don Boudria, who's a UW graduate, will host a gathering of Waterloo alumni in the West Block of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, 6 to 8 p.m.

CAR