February 8, 2002

Friday, February 8, 2002

Profs will vote on layoff rules
Today's memo to faculty members
Physical activity in children
Feds voting begins; other notes

Editor:
Chris Redmond
credmond@uwaterloo.ca

Carnival weekend in Québec, Rio, New Orleans

The news from off campus
U of T president puts pressure on the government
Ontario government insists there will be room for everybody when the double cohort hits campuses
U of Regina professor using a fake Waterloo PhD sentenced to house arrest
'Excitement builds' as Toronto prepares to host humanities scholars
Italy 'takes over Canada's place in science', researchers claim
U of Georgia heats buildings with chicken fat

Profs will vote on layoff rules

Faculty members will be asked to vote later this month on proposed rules that would govern layoffs of professors if UW should experience a "financial exigency" or decide to close an academic program.

The rules are set out in three proposed articles in the Memorandum of Agreement between the university and the faculty association. They were drafted by a joint committee -- three association representatives and three deans representing UW management.

If faculty members vote in favour of the proposed rules, they'll go to the board of governors for final approval.

The proposed Article 17, about layoff procedures, begins by stating that a faculty member can't "be dismissed, suspended, suffer employment contract termination, or otherwise be penalized . . . for budgetary reasons" under "normal circumstances". A layoff is "an exceptional action" and can only happen if there is a program redundancy or a financial exigency.

Either kind of emergency can only be established after a special committee, named by the management and the faculty association, reviews the situation:

Article 16: "An academic program may be declared redundant by the University upon a recommendation from Senate, either solely for bona fide academic reasons or for academic reasons in the context of a confirmed declaration of financial exigency." The article also notes that faculty members in danger of being laid off must be offered a position in another UW department, if there's an opening for which they're qualified)
Article 16: "Financial exigency denotes the extraordinary and rare condition in which substantial and recurring financial deficits in the total University budget have occurred or, on the basis of generally accepted accounting principles, are projected to be ongoing, thereby placing the solvency of the University as a whole in serious jeopardy. . . . Lay-off is an exceptional action which shall be taken only after the University has exhausted all reasonable means . . . by applying rigorous economies in all areas of the University's present and projected expenditures, by using all reasonable means of improving its income, and by using all other means of making the necessary reductions in the employee groups."

In either kind of emergency, who gets laid off? A "plan" for cuts must be developed, says Article 17, "so that the University may continue to operate as far as possible in accordance with its mission, and may proposed vertical cuts (involving full or partial program redundancies . . .), across-the-board cuts, or some combination." "Non-regular" faculty must be laid off before "regular" faculty members, and when regular faculty are being laid off, the criteria are seniority and merit performance.

That article also says how much notice (or pay in lieu of notice) and severance pay laid-off faculty member is entitled to. A tenured professor would get 18 months' notice, and then a month's pay for each year of service at UW (minimum 9, maximum 30).

The proposed new rules would take the place of a previous agreement between UW and the faculty association about financial exigency -- which said, among other things, that staff layoffs would have to precede any faculty terminations.

[Bow]
Poet Erin Noteboom has a daytime life too, as Erin Bow, manager of education programs for UW's epSTAR. She's featured in this week's issue of the Gazette after winning a first-place honour in this year's Canadian Literary Awards, announced last week.

Today's memo to faculty members

Says a memo signed by provost Amit Chakma and faculty association president Catherine Schryer:

"We are pleased to announce the successful conclusion of negotiations on three new articles for the Memorandum of Agreement between the Faculty Association and the University, and wish to thank members of the negotiating teams for their efforts and their achievement: Professors Jim Brox, Bob Kerton, Fred McCourt, Metin Renksizbulut, Mike Sharratt and John Thompson..

"The text of the new articles, which deal with Program Redundancy [15], Financial Exigency [16] and Layoffs [17], is available on the Secretariat homepage or in paper form from the Faculty Association [ext. 3787] or Secretariat [ext. 6064]. Copies have also been provided to academic department offices and to Dean's offices. Information sessions are currently being planned by the Association; details will be forthcoming.

"All regular and some part-time faculty members are entitled to participate in a ratification vote. The vote will be managed electronically -- information about the online voting process and the ratification ballot is available on the Secretariat homepage. The poll will be open from 8:30 a.m. on Monday, February 25 until 12:00 noon on Friday, March 8, 2002. If the ratification vote is favourable, these articles will be presented to the Board of Governors for approval at its meeting on April 2.

"We urge you to read the text of these articles and to cast your vote by noon on March 8."

Physical activity in children -- from Betty Bax, faculty of applied health sciences

Over the past decade children have become more overweight and substantially less active than they use to be. With the link between physical activity and optimal health being well established, researchers Mike Sharratt from UW and Phil Campagna from Dalhousie University's school of health and human performance teamed up to look at how to get kids moving more.

Campagna visited UW last year under the Hallman visiting professor program.

The two researchers decided to investigate whether an interactive pedometer, the Pikachu 2, would motivate 10 to 12 year old children to be more active. The study was done in a grade 5 class: data from children wearing the Pikachu 2 pedometer was compared with children wearing a non-interactive accelerometer -- an instrument that provided the "baseline" measurement of physical activity.

Both devices measured and stored the amount of daily activity; however, the Pikachu 2 provided positive feedback for more physical activity. The participants also kept a written logbook over the three-week period.

Results showed that both the boys and girls were much more active with the Pikachu pedometer than the traditional accelerometer. The pedometer helped to quantify their level of activity and proved to be an excellent motivating tool for children. The researchers admit that Pikachu users "dropped their activity substantially in the second week", as the novelty wore off, but note that they were still as active as they needed to be: "10,000 steps [per day] is still a very significant amount of physical activity and represents the target for enhanced health benefits."

Feds voting begins; other notes

The polls will open this afternoon in the election of 2002-03 leaders for the Federation of Students. Most of the attention seems to go to the presidential and vice-presidential positions, but across campus, undergraduates are also electing members of the students' council and an at-large representative on the university senate. Feds candidates will make a final pitch to the voters at 10:00 this morning in the great hall of the Student Life Centre; on-line voting opens at 4:30 tonight and continues through next Friday.

Co-op architecture students taking part in the interview process this term -- which is run separately from the main interview cycle -- should hand in their resumé packages by 8:00 tonight at the dropoff slot in Needles Hall, the co-op department says.

The plant operations department warns of a detour on the third floor of Carl Pollock Hall today: a section of corridor outside room 3370 will be closed for repair work.

The art gallery in East Campus Hall is promising "Frank Destruction" today. Explanation: early in January, installation artist Simon Frank created a, well, installation in the gallery; now the show is ending, and it's time for him to destroy what he made. The destruction process is open to the public, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today.

Computer down time
A memo from the IST (that's information systems and technology) department warns of a likely shutdown tomorrow morning: "The power to IST's main computer and communications rooms will be undergoing a power disruption on Saturday at 9:30 a.m. This work is to correct the low electrical voltage feeding these rooms. The power will be off for approximately 15-20 minutes. The UPSs (uninterruptable power supply) that are used to sustain power during small interruptions were not designed to maintain power for this duration. To reduce or eliminate the possibility of data corruption due to unexpected system crashes, most systems will be unavailable during the time of 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon and others will experience short outages. Campus network communications should not be affected but modem pool access might be limited."
To mark International Development Week, the documentary film "Whatever Happened to Bangladesh?", exploring the role of the media in covering international development, will be shown at 12 noon today in Arts Lecture Hall room 124. The film -- originally developed by the Aga Khan Foundation -- will be followed by a half-hour discussion, facilitated by political science professor Ashok Kapur.

The psychology department presents a colloquium this afternoon by Jim Olson of the University of Western Ontario: "Vigilance for Differences: Noticing and responding to differences between stimuli", at 2:30 in PAS building room 2083.

The engineering graduate studies office sends word of "an informal get-together" from 3:00 to 6:00 today at the University Club: "Each department in engineering will briefly present an overview of its program, followed by informal discussions on graduate studies in engineering (over food and refreshments). If you are interested in graduate studies in engineering, come and find out! All students are welcome, but especially those in engineering, science and mathematics, who are thinking of pursuing graduate studies in engineering."

[Boyz-Grrls logo] This term's first Boyz & Boys & Girls & Grrls Night, described as "a mostly-LGBT student pub and dance night", is scheduled for tonight at the Graduate House (9 p.m. to 2:30 a.m.). "This is now an all ages event!" says a note from the Gays and Lesbians of Waterloo organization. "And everyone is welcome to attend, regardless of your sexual orientation."

St. Jerome's University tonight presents Lee Cormie of St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, speaking on "Reading the Bible: Hope and Jubilee". A flyer notes that Cormie's talk will be based especially on Leviticus 25 and Luke 4, "for insight into what the Bible teaches about hope". Admission is free; the talk starts at 7:30 in Siegfried Hall at St. Jerome's. (The event is the inaugural Scarboro Missions Lecture, part of the program of the St. Jerome's Centre for Catholic Experience.

FASS, of course, continues -- this year's production of the annual show being the film-noir spoof "Dial F for FASS". Performances are in the Humanities Theatre, at 7:00 and 10:00 tonight, 8:00 Saturday night. There will also be a FASS 40th anniversary party in Humanities starting at 5:00 Saturday. Final FASS note: in yesterday's Bulletin, and in this week's Gazette, a photo of FASS was credited to the show's producer, Michael Brown; it was actually taken by stage manager Douglas Stebila.

Also continuing -- at 8:00 tonight and tomorrow night, and then next week -- is the drama department's production of three one-act plays under the title "Absurd Person Plural". The Humanities box office has tickets.

Tonight will be Hockey Autograph Day at the Columbia Icefield. (Some publicity apparently said it would be a daytime event, but in fact it's part of the Warriors' game against the Western Mustangs, which starts at 7:30 p.m.) "There will be lots of prizes to be won," says a note from the athletics department, "plus the kids can get autographs of all the Warriors following the game. Autograph sheets will be supplied."

In other sports this weekend, the basketball Warriors will host the Ryerson Rams tonight in the Physical Activities Complex -- the women's teams play at 6 p.m., the men's at 8 p.m. And tomorrow, the men's team hosts the Royal Military College, again at 8 p.m. Away from Waterloo, the indoor hockey team will be in a tournament at Carleton, the nordic skiers are at Sudbury, and the volleyball teams are at Western.

At a less exalted level of competition, this weekend brings the Heart and Stroke Foundation Volleyball Tournament as part of UW's campus recreation program.

There's a hefty student discount on tickets for the Davis Cup tennis competition scheduled for this weekend at RIM Park in Waterloo. Information is available from Tennis Canada at (800) 398-8761 ext. 333.

Students have played a big part in preparations for the annual "I Love Art" event at the Clay and Glass Gallery downtown. One feature of the event: a specially made minigolf course, the creation of UW fine arts students. Tickets for the Saturday night party are $25, or $40 for a couple -- phone 746-1882.

Something called "Wave" has the Humanities Theatre booked for a concert on Sunday, 7 p.m.

And finally, this weekend brings the second annual Iced in Black film festival, "bringing the African-Canadian experience to the silver screen". The screen in question is located in Davis Centre room 1302. There are a total of seven feature films, starting with "Love Come Down" at 7:00 tonight, and some shorts as well. Each showing will be followed by discussion. And tonight's opening film will be followed by a party in the Bombshelter pub in the Student Life Centre, with local band Motor Booty Affair and Toronto spoken word artist Dwayne Morgan. Saturday showings are "Black Soul" at 2:00, "Voices from Regent Park" at 5:00, and "When Morning Comes" at 8:00; Sunday's are "Journey to Justice" at 2:00, "Looking for My Pygmalion" at 5:00 and "My Father's Hands" at 8:00. All film screenings are free, though donations are welcome.

CAR

TODAY IN UW HISTORY
February 7, 1974: Undergraduates elect Andrew Telegdi to be president of the Federation of Students. February 7, 1978: The board of governors approves rent increases of 12.8 to 13.2 per cent in the Married Student Apartments, despite pleas from picketers outside Needles Hall.