December 12, 2002

Thursday, December 12, 2002

Less than two weeks to Christmas
Payroll schedule for this month
Top speakers due at January conference
ES grads slither into cool jobs

Editor:
Chris Redmond
credmond@uwaterloo.ca

[Willms in full cry]

Less than two weeks to Christmas

In the middle of exams, and with a daily quota of holiday lunches keeping the University Club busy, there's also much more happening on campus. In perhaps the most special event of the day, carols will ring out in the Modern Languages lobby at noontime as they have this time every year since (pause for arithmetic) 1985. Jake Willms, now retired from the dean of arts office, will lead the music -- that's him at left -- and local musician Joanne Bender will be at the keyboard. Everybody is welcome to come and sing. The music starts at 12:15, and there will be light refreshments.

The pension and benefits committee will meet this morning -- 8:30 to noon, Needles Hall room 3004 -- to talk about "asset liability modelling", generic drugs, flexible benefits, "rebalancing" the pension investments, and other matters.

A presentation on the national Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, sponsored by the South Western Ontario Research Data Centre, starts at 10 a.m., Math and Computer room 5158.

The end-of-term and Christmas lunch for mature students is scheduled for 12 noon at the Festival Room (reservations, ext. 2429).

The LT3 technology centre presents "A Crash Course: Introduction to Universal Instructional Design" starting at 1:30 in Dana Porter Library room 329. Explanation: "This talk is geared towards a mix of computer-technical people, representatives from disability services and instructional designers. It assumes you aren't already highly informed about UID but rather foresee its importance in the future. Jaellayna Palmer is project manager for the Universal Instructional Design Project at the University of Guelph. She'll talk about where UID came from, how it's being applied (in physical learning spaces and online learning spaces), where it might be going, how standards are evolving." More information: ext. 3779.

Jim Frank, associate dean of graduate studies, will host a reception this afternoon (4:00, University Club) for recipients of the Retirees' Association Bursary, as well as executive members of the retirees association itself. A total of 21 graduate students each received $1,000 bursaries from this fund during the past year, the graduate studies office says.

The Interdisciplinary Coffee Talk Society continues its monthly presentations. Today at 5:00, Leonid Brown, of the department of physics at the University of Guelph, is the speaker, with the title "How Biological Systems Use Light". Location: the Graduate House.

Lieutenant-General Ken Pennie, deputy commander of NORAD, speaks tonight about the hot topic of Canadian-American security and cooperation, at the invitation of the local Canadian Institute for International Affairs, 7 p.m. at the (former) Seagram Museum in central Waterloo.

Notes for tomorrow: A blood donor clinic will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Student Life Centre. . . . Key control will be closed from noon to 2 p.m., so staff can join in the plant operations department's Christmas lunch. . . .

Last day of work: December 20
In a change to the schedule as it appears in the UW calendars and various other places, UW offices and services will be closed on Monday, December 23, for the beginning of the Christmas and New Year's break.
The last regular working day of the year will be Friday, December 20. Fall term exams end that evening.
Staff and faculty return to work Thursday, January 2, and the winter term begins January 6.

Payroll schedule for this month

"We are getting lots of calls," says Sandie Hurlburt, assistant director of human resources and the person in charge of payroll.

It's not surprising: faculty and staff like to get paid, and December bills come at the same time as holiday schedules that can cause confusion about when payday is due. Hurlburt has the answers:

Deadline: Human resources is requesting that people who submit pay information for casual employees have it submitted by noon on Monday, December 16, for the December 27 pay date. This is a change from the previously announced schedule.
"Monthly pay will be deposited into bank accounts on December 23. Monthly employees will be able to access this information through myHRinfo by Tuesday, December 17. Printed pay advices will be mailed out on campus arriving in mailboxes on December 19. The next monthly pay will be deposited in bank accounts on January 24, 2003." (That's a week earlier than the standard "last Friday of the month", to avoid a gap of almost six weeks from payday to payday.)

And: "Biweekly union employees and casual pay will be deposited into bank accounts December 27). They will be able to access this information through myHRinfo by December 20." The next biweekly/casual pay will be on Friday, January 10. The next few days will be busy for payroll staff, getting several thousand direct deposits ready before the holidays, Hurlburt said. And no, it won't be necessary for any of her colleagues to come in to work just because payday falls on a day when UW is closed. "We confirm everything a week ahead," she said. "As long as the bank is open, they will accept our file."

She notes that full information about pay schedules is available on the human resources web site (look under the Payroll pull-down menu item at the top).

Of interest on the web

Italian journal features UW architects
Ontario funding for northern colleges and universities
Supplier describes wireless net at St. Jerome's
Professors endorse Romanow report on health care
Federal funding for veterinary colleges
Assessing credentials of foreign engineers
New economy changing how Canadians learn
Presidents of all Italy's universities resign
Appointments in national defence education
Dissent at the U of Saskatchewan

Top speakers due at January conference -- from the UW news bureau

The role of engineering in international development will be the focus of the second annual national conference of Engineers Without Borders -- Ingénieurs sans frontières to be held January 29 to February 1 at UW.

The event promises a lineup of provocative speakers, dynamic panel discussions and interactive workshops. The speakers, well known in their fields, will share experiences and insights on issues surrounding international development.

Topics to be explored at the conference include the environment, gender roles, peace and conflict, education, health, economics, technology, society and culture. Among the speakers scheduled to address the conference:

James Orbinski, who was president of Doctors Without Borders, an international humanitarian aid organization that provides emergency assistance to populations in danger in more than 80 countries, at the time it won the 1999 Nobel peace prize.
Stephen Lewis, former UN ambassador and UN special envoy for AIDS/HIV in Africa, who has advanced UNICEF's passionate advocacy of the rights and needs of children, especially children in the developing world.
David Hughes, recently appointed president of Habitat for Humanity, who has had first-hand exposure to the effects of famine, poverty, discrimination, segregation, civil injustice and armed conflict.
David Brooks, a natural economist whose main interests lie in linkages between environmental protection and the use of minerals, energy and water, as well as with options for moving toward sustainable development.
David Johnston, president of UW, with interests in securities regulation, information technology law, intellectual property law, corporation law and public policy.

Both students and professionals are welcome as delegates. To check on availability, turn to the conference web site.

Engineers Without Borders -- Ingénieurs sans frontières is a Canadian charity founded by two Waterloo engineers. In less than three years, EWB has grown to include 20 chapters across Canada, harnessing the creativity and ingenuity of more than 2,500 engineers, and helping developing communities gain access to the technologies they need to improve their lives.

[One student, two snakes]

ES grads slither into cool jobs

What in the world -- or rather, what in St. Lawrence Islands National Park -- is Jane Devlin doing with those snakes (right)?

You'll find the answer in a recent "Cool Job of the Month" profile posted on the web by UW's faculty of environmental studies. Devlin's summer job ("reptile and amphibian monitoring") took a turn in the Cool Job feature along with the work of a geography graduate who's a rescue team manager for the World Wildlife Fund, a school board planner in York Region, and a geographic information systems specialist who maps out efficient routes for trucking.

And then there was last month's holder of a Cool Job: Ryan Abbotts, who earned a degree in planning two years ago and now claims he's "getting paid to bike" as a transportation planner for Chicago-based T. Y. Lin International.

"I'm responsible for a wide variety of transportation and infrastructure planning projects with various private and public agencies," Abbotts writes. "These projects involve bicycle design projects as well as non-motorized planning and investment plans. I analyze and implement state, county, city, and village bike route systems, trail access and trail-road intersection studies, commuter rail analyses, and even canoe launch site studies. . . .

"One of the best things about my job, which I didn't realize at first, is to walk or ride along something that I helped to create. It's an amazing feeling to be able to say, 'I helped make this happen'."

This month the Cool Job belongs to Graham Whiting, who is an intern architect with J. David McAuley Architect Inc. in Guelph. Like most of the other Cool Job profiles, this one offers some insight into what the job really involves: "The truth is that only about 10% of the work that goes into a building is actually the sort of 'sleeves rolled up hunched over a drafting board' type of design that movies always portray. My involvement in a project starts with a proposal (the sales pitch), continues through all the stages of design, construction drawings, product and finish specifications, tendering, and ends with construction supervision and turning the building over to its new owner."

The Cool Job site is created by Andrew Smith, recruitment and promotion coordinator in the ES dean's office, who says the purpose is "to make prospective students aware of career options" during and after a student's time in one of the diverse programs environmental studies offers.

"It's a challenge externally, but on campus as well," says Smith, pointing out that ES includes programs about the "built environment" (architecture and planning), the natural environment (geography), and human involvement (environment and resource studies), plus an "environment and business" program that's the only one of its kind in Canada.

Somehow, he says, ES is so little known that people even get its name wrong, calling it "environmental sciences". But at least we now know that ES students and graduates get cool jobs.

CAR

TODAY IN UW HISTORY
December 12, 1959: Colours are picked for the new University of Waterloo: gold, black and white.