April 22, 2002

Monday, April 22, 2002

Two crash victims are mourned
Maple commemorates Earth Day
Fire drills set for tomorrow
Employers meet to advise UW

Editor:
Chris Redmond
credmond@uwaterloo.ca

Two crash victims are mourned

Two students who were killed in a crash on Bearinger Road, just north of the campus, on their last day of winter term exams have been identified as Tao-Hung (Benny) Yu and John Lam.

Both were finishing their 2A term in mechanical engineering. Yu was from Burnaby, British Columbia, and Lam was from Markham, Ontario.

The crash took place about 2:30 a.m. Friday at the corner of Bearinger and Westmount Road, when a car carrying Yu and Lam collided with another vehicle. The driver of the other car was hospitalized.

Catharine Scott, associate provost (human resources and student services), said UW counsellors are available to talk with friends of the two men, as well as others who are affected by the news. Anyone who would like to talk to a counsellor can call ext. 3528 to arrange a conversation in person or by phone.

A funeral service for John Lam will be held this Saturday at 10:30 a.m. at North York Chinese Baptist Church, Don Mills Branch, 99 Scarsdale Road, in Toronto. Funeral arrangements for Yu have not been announced.

Maple commemorates Earth Day

As the world marks Earth Day today, some of UW's leaders will unite to plant a maple tree, bought for the university by three employee groups.

Taking part will be Ed Chrzanowski, president of the staff association; faculty association president Catherine Schryer; CUPE local 793 president John Rodrigo; and UW provost Amit Chakma.

Said Chrzanowski: "It is planted to commemorate Earth Day and the environmental awareness expressed by all groups on campus, and to show that a collegial working environment still exists on campus."

And, he said, the tree can be seen as a replacement for "the magnificent maple that was cut last year to make room for the Co-op building. Hopefully this one will grow to be as tall and aged as the original."

The new tree will go on a site between the Physics building and the Dana Porter Library, which is part of the same hill where the old tree lived and died. ("The tree has already been put in the ground," Chrzanowski admitted on Friday afternoon.) The official tree-planting ceremony is scheduled for 12 noon.

Fire drills set for tomorrow

Annual fire drills will be held tomorrow in buildings across campus, says the director of safety, Kevin Stewart.

[She's got a red hat]
Last year's fire drill outside Needles Hall. That's Nancy Heide of the community relations office wearing the fire warden's red hat.
"The fire drills are conducted according to procedures prepared for building evacuation co-ordinators and fire wardens," says a memo from Stewart. "Annual fire drills are a requirement of the Fire Protection and Prevention Act which was enacted in 1997. The fire drills are basically a test or practice of a building's fire safety plan and fire systems.

"Evaluation of the drill is made by the fire wardens, building evacuation co-ordinators, plant operations, fire department, safety office and police. Any problems are then addressed."

Tomorrow morning -- between about 8:30 and noon -- there will be drills on the north and west side of the campus: Optometry, the PAC, the Student Life Centre, Needles Hall, the arts buildings, the Dana Porter Library, Environmental Studies I and II, the General Services Complex and the Village I core.

After lunch the rest of the campus gets a turn: the engineering buildings, South Campus Hall, the science buildings, Math and Computer, the Davis Centre, East Campus Hall and the B. F. Goodrich building.

Davis says tomorrow -- right after the end of winter term exams -- "was chosen as the best fit in UW's busy calendar" for the fire drills. He added: "Some persons have asked why a day during academic term was not chosen. Basically this is because it would be very disruptive. Also, the fire department considers that undergraduate students are appropriately aware of fire drills from fire drills conducted in residence at the beginning of terms, and from high school."

Fire alarms sounded a total of 111 times in UW buildings during 2001, says the annual injury and fire report. That's up from 91 times during 2000, but still lower than the 114 alarms in 1999.

Village I had the largest number of alarms, 26, with UW Place following at 21 alarms and Ron Eydt Village at 17. While there were 10 deliberate false alarms at REV and five each in UW Place and Village I, the majority of fire alarms were caused by such factors as electrical problems, steam, humidity, paint fumes and dust.

"There were 7 cases of actual fire, fumes, smoke, which was a decrease from 11 in 2000," the report says. "There were no insured losses during 2001. All these fires were small and did not require an insurance claim."

Other notes
Friday's Bulletin included a picture of two students sunbathing ("like lizards", somebody said looking at them stretched out). I identified it as being in the arts quadrangle, but in fact, as you can tell from a close look at the shape of the steps, the photo was taken outside the Student Life Centre.
Co-op students who are still without a job for the spring term can attend a meeting with co-op staff today (1 p.m., Arts Lecture Hall room 116) for information on what happens next. It's a repeat of the information meeting that was held Friday.
Reminder: fees for the spring term are due April 24 if paid by cheque, April 29 if paid by bank transfer.
Both hot and cold water will be turned off in Beck Hall and Eby Hall at UW Place tomorrow from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Employers meet to advise UW

A student will be the keynote speaker tonight for the spring meeting of the Waterloo Advisory Council, representing employers of co-op students and UW graduates. WAC will meet tonight at Mackenzie King Village and all day tomorrow in Needles Hall.

[Schaan] WAC is one of UW's oldest traditions, a council of employer representatives that has been meeting since the university's early days "to bring advice from Canadian industry, business and government to the University of Waterloo in the continuing development of its education, research, and administrative programs and in particular co-operative education. The membership represents employers of students and alumni consistent with faculties served."

While most of WAC's time is spent with co-op staff and the deans and senior administrators, it's become usual to have a special speaker at the dinner meeting that begins each twice-a-year gathering. Last fall it was Paul Rhodes, a Toronto consultant with close ties to the Progressive Conservative government.

But tonight, the council will hear from Mark Schaan (above), fourth-year political science student and former vice-president of the Federation of Students. Schaan was recently announced as UW's second winner of a Rhodes Scholarship (and got considerably teased for it in the joke issue of Imprint published at the end of March).

Title of Schaan's talk tonight: "Whiter Shirts or Cleaner Minds: The Public Policy Environment for Post-Secondary Education and the Skills Agenda".

CAR

TODAY IN UW HISTORY
April 22, 1965: The board of governors meets, and appoints new faculty members including Ted Cadell (psychology), Hildegard Marsden (German and Russian), and Warren Ober (English).