Daily
Bulletin

Waterloo, Ontario, Canada | 519-888-4567 | The games through the eyes of a mascot

Yesterday | Past days
Search past Bulletins
UWevents
UWinfo | Text
About the Bulletin
Mail to the editor

Wednesday, September 5, 2001

Taking stock as the term begins
Soccer women host Humber today
Orientation highlights, and more

[Gettin' down in bright T-shirts]
'Give yourself permission to act a little crazy," an arts orientation leader urged his flock yesterday. After all, the first week at university is the beginning of the new you, right? Photographer Barbara Elve caught some of the first-year crowd following his advice at noon hour in the arts quadrangle.

Taking stock as the term begins

For those who are new at Waterloo, for those who are returning after a summer away, for those who have been here all along but might need a reminder . . . let me offer a summary of what's new at the university and what the coming year might bring.

Students are entering a "software engineering" degree program for the first time this fall. Among other new fields of study: a degree program in "sex, marriage and the family". Next major departure will be "health informatics", the use of computer technology to store and transmit health information.

For the first time, residence rooms were guaranteed to all first-year students who want them. With the opening of Mackenzie King Village this fall (320 rooms), UW has 4,300 residence beds, plus 800 in the four church colleges. First-year students will occupy the Columbia Lake Townhouse complex for the first time. One tower and one low-rise building at the UW Place complex on University Avenue (formerly Married Student Apartments) have now been converted to residence rooms for upper-year students. The other tower is scheduled for conversion next year.

New provost and vice-president (academic), number two figure in the administration, as of August 1, is Amit Chakma, formerly of the University of Regina. New dean of science as of July 1 is biology professor George Dixon.

Six faculty members (one newcomer, five already at UW) have been named to federally-funded Canada Research Chairs. More CRC positions are expected. The Canadian Water Network, a federally funded "network of centres of excellence" headed by UW earth scientist Bob Gillham, is beginning operation.

And besides all that, the campus is a place of mud and dreams once again, with more construction going on at one time than Waterloo has seen since the 1960s. Here's a list of current projects and their approximate cost:

Centre for Environmental and Information Technology, $43.2 million
Co-operative education and career services building, $10.2 million
Engineering Lecture Hall addition, $7.0 million
Engineering III addition, $10.3 million
Mackenzie King Village, $15.6 million
Carl Pollock Hall addition, $1.0 million
Columbia Lake Townhouses community centre, $845,000

And more work is being planned or proposed for next year:

Renovations to UW Place residence.
New home for school of architecture in Cambridge, giving students. easy access to sites of urban redevelopment.
First phase of north campus research and technology park.
Fire research facility at the regional landfill on Erb Street.

Computer science labs have just been renovated with funding from Bell. A wireless computer network is to be installed in the Davis Centre this fall.

Among other recent innovations is Quest, a new computer system introduced this summer that will electronically trace student files from admission through registration to marks, degree requirements and alumni lists. It allows students to change courses and personal information and calculate fees on-line. Expected next year: a companion system for co-op and career services that will match 10,000 co-op students with applications and interview times, and allow employers to review resumes on-line.

Finally, here are some of the major issues of concern on campus this fall:

Internationalization: effort to recruit more students, especially graduate students, outside Canada, and to enter more research partnerships with other countries.
Learning technology: development of "courseware" for distance education and also to improve on-campus teaching. President David Johnston is a national advocate of the Internet and technology.
Proposed north campus research and technology park, corporate links, relations with neighbours.
Planned move of the school of architecture, ways of keeping it integrated with programs on the main campus.
Review of conflict of interest and academic freedom policies, a high priority for faculty leaders.
Preparation for UW's largest-ever fund-raising campaign, likely target about $250 million, to be launched in 2002.
Balancing the year-to-year operating budget in the face of rising costs for utilities, books, salaries; government grants essentially frozen; student resistance to increased tuition fees; rising student-faculty ratio. (Operating budgets have already been trimmed by 3.5 per cent for this year.)
Planning for continued enrolment increase and the "double cohort" due in 2003.

Soccer women host Humber today

With one victory under their belts already this season, the women's soccer Warriors will host Humber College in an exhibition game this afternoon. Play starts at 4:30 p.m. on north campus field #2 just across Columbia Street.

A week ago today, the Warriors won a convincing 4-0 victory in another preseason game, this one against Laurentian. Head coach Bruce Rodrigues says he's pleased with the performance of his team, especially the first-year players.

The season is under way in other sports too, most visibly football, in which the Warriors defeated Laurier 16-7 on Monday evening. (Kicker Matt Armstrong scored all the Warrior points, as the defence and special teams led the way for Waterloo. Laurier's only points came following a fumble by UW quarterback Jordie Holton.)

The football team travels to Hamilton on Saturday for a rematch of last year's playoff game, in which the Warriors lost to the McMaster Marauders. Saturday's game starts at 2 p.m. and will be televised as "game of the week" on CHCH-TV.

Saturday will also bring action for the women's field hockey team, which took a weekend trip to Boston and came back with a 1-1-1 record -- defeating Harvard, losing to Brown, and tying Bentley College. Chris Gilbert of the athletics department reports:

On Saturday, the Warriors defeated Harvard 3-1. Wendy Moffett opened the scoring for the Warriors off a rebound to tie the game 1-1. Robin Leslie scored the next two goals for the Warriors to cap off the scoring.
On Sunday, the Warriors played Brown and were defeated 2-0. Brown scored their two goals on penalty corners showing some nice options. The Warriors finished off their weekend trip by settling for a 0-0 draw with Bentley College on Monday. Waterloo had many opportunities to score but could not capitalize.
Overall, the coaches were pleased with the team's effort throughout the weekend. The Warrior will travel to Toronto next weekend for three more exhibition games.

And one other sport is getting under way: men's baseball. The Warriors will host McMaster for a double-header on Saturday and then play two games at York University on Sunday. (Home games are played at Bechtel Park at University Avenue and Bridge Street.)

Orientation highlights, and more

Engineers of colour

First-year engineering students are divided into eight "colour groups" for orientation purposes, and the organizers sure didn't choose red, blue, green and yellow. For the record: the eight colour groups are Amber, Aqua, Emerald, Fuchsia, Indigo, Inferno (is Inferno a colour?), Tangerine and Ultraviolet.

The orientation program for new first-year students is in full swing. Village residents are heaving themselves out of bed this morning for floor breakfasts and photographs; off-campus students are gathering for breakfast in the Student Life Centre; and students at St. Jerome's College are involved in what a lovely typographical error calls "madarotry programming". Later in the day, the highlight for most orientation participants will be a "carnival" on the Village green, from noon to 4 p.m. Then faculty-based programming takes over from residence-based. Engineering students will have dinner with their "colour groups" before heading off on their first Scunt; meanwhile, science students are offered a luau at Federation Hall. And so on. Everybody's going to be more than ready for tomorrow morning's "campus-wide sleep-in".

Performances of "Single and Sexy" continue all week at the Theatre of the Arts, but there's only one show today, at 5:30 p.m.

The registrar's office has a reminder: "Undergraduate students are encouraged to submit your local address. Address change notices are available in the registrar's office or on the web."

Central stores will hold its first surplus sale of the fall term today from 11:30 to 1:30, at East Campus Hall (off Phillip Street).

UW's Carousel Dance Centre will hold another open house from 6:30 to 8:30 this evening, at its studios in East Campus Hall. "Carousel strives," a flyer proclaims, "to develop dance skills and fosters creative expression in each child. Come discover the art of dance with us!"

Tomorrow at 10:30, the Institute for Computer Research presents a seminar by Erik Kamsties of Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering. He'll speak on "Surfacing Ambiguity in Industrial Requirements Specifications" (Davis Centre room 1304).

And . . . among the current invitations from the local Volunteer Action Centre: "Teach English to someone new to Canada by becoming a tutor with the K-W Multicultural Centre. Volunteer tutors are matched with a new Canadian and meet for two hours a week. This rewarding position provides an opportunity to receive training and work with people from a variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds." For more information, the VAC can be reached at 742-8610.

CAR