September 3, 2002

Tuesday, September 3, 2002

New cafeteria is a revelation
What the new students are doing
Senate executive meets; other notes

Editor:
Chris Redmond
credmond@uwaterloo.ca

Ontario government warns students about scams

[glad to be a grad!]
These stickers will mark a special kind of UW staff and faculty this week -- ones who are also Waterloo graduates. Mailed out just in time for orientation, they're a creation of the alumni affairs office, which asked on-campus grads to wear them "to promote the continued connection that alumni have to UW". Alyson Woloshyn of alumni affairs notes that to encourage people to wear the yellow circles this week, "we will be giving out prizes to people wearing the stickers and UW clothing/colours." Ten prizes are promised each day this week. "Thank you," writes alumni affairs director Gwen Graper, "for helping to welcome our future alumni to campus!" Need more stickers? Call ext. 2530.

New cafeteria is a revelation

Or rather, a REVelation, as the logo at right suggests. [REVelation logo]

The renovated revelation is the residence refectory at Ron Eydt Village, where the thirty-year-old "central complex" has been rejuvenated during the summer at a cost of some $2.5 million. The job was finished just in time for the arrival of this year's first-year students over the long weekend. Offices and equipment were being moved into place at the end of the week, said Village manager Dave Reynolds, who claimed his furniture was "somewhere in limbo" Friday morning.

The Village's great hall isn't quite so great now, as space has been carved out of it for a meeting room. Pool tables have been moved to a better location, the Internet café on the main level has more stations and newer equipment, and a snazzy new counter is expected to improve service at the REV main office.

But the cafeteria and dining room are "the main thrust", says Reynolds. And they're a big source of pride for Jeannie Watt and her colleagues in the food services department, which paid most of the renovation cost and designed a food outlet they think will match the dining tastes of today's first-year students.

They also came up with the REVelation name after running a campus-wide contest. "We had some awesome names submitted for the eatery name contest," says Watt, "and from these some were chosen as concept names within the eatery. Sheila Hurley submitted Cravings, which is our decadent dessert concept, and Healthy Bites, which is our vegetarian concept."

She adds: "Amy Zoeller from Graphics has done a phenomenal job in designing the concept logos as well as the logo for REVelation. Using her creative flair, she also suggested other concept names such as Soulful Soups, Flaky Treats, Deli Delites, Bagel Blitz, and Salad Days.

"We are really excited as the final touches are being completed."

Grand opening for REVelation, and the other new work in Ron Eydt Village, is scheduled for October 29, when members of UW's board of governors will be on campus to tour the project. (Meanwhile, a group of VIPs had a preview lunch at REV on Thursday, and I hear the comments were good.)

[Warrior logo]
Warriors win in last 6 seconds
The football Warriors defeated Wilfrid Laurier University 18-16 last night in a hard-fought adventure that was heavy on penalty yardage. Ian Forde of the Warriors scored the winning touchdown with six seconds left in the fourth quarter.
The men's and women's soccer teams also played over the weekend, but I'm sorry, I don't have any results from those games yet.

What the new students are doing

After 48 hours of high emotion -- goodbyes to parents and hellos to a whole new world -- UW's first-year students face orientation in earnest starting this morning.

The roughly 5,000 newcomers will spend the day in activities tailored to the programs they're in. Engineering (and software engineering) students will attend a mid-day Hard Hat Ceremony, for example, while new mathies will "earn your tie" and students in science and applied health sciences meet their respective deans. As I walked in from the parking lot this morning, I saw groups of colour-coded orientation leaders preparing to hand out kits to new arts students, and I presume the same is happening in other faculties across campus. (And what does it portend that arts students are organized into groups with names like "blue", while engineering students have groups with names like "amethyst"?)

AHS, arts and engineering students also have time today to attend performances of "Single and Sexy", the famous "high energy, entertaining, nonjudgemental, powerful presentation of scenarios and attitudes frosh are likely to witness of experience". In other words: a free play about what it's like to be grown up.

S&S, coordinated each year by UW's health services department, will be staged all week in the Humanities Theatre. Admission is free. Performances are at 10:30, 1:00 and 4:00 today; 5:00 and 7:00 Wednesday; and 10:00, 1:00 and 4:00 Thursday.

[The Watchmen] Tonight, first-year students from all faculties will get together with others from their residences (and that includes the "off-campus dons" group of people who aren't living in UW-related housing). Students at Conrad Grebel College will be doing their own thing, but all other residence groups are heading for the Waterloo Recreation Complex for a show by rock band The Watchmen (right)with Grindig. The music starts at 9 p.m. This alcohol-free event is a closed show for only UW first-year students and orientation leaders.

Tomorrow morning is sleep-in time for new students across campus, other than those in architecture, who have an academic session on the schedule. Noon tomorrow brings the first of three sittings of the English Language Proficiency Exam.

Speaking of tonight's concert being alcohol-free, it's noteworthy that first-year students will be attending only two licensed events during orientation week. One is Saturday night's outdoor toga party; the other is an event either Wednesday or Friday night that varies according to which faculty the student is in. And 2002 could be the last year that there's even that much liquor during orientation. Catharine Scott, associate provost (human resources and student services), says, according to Friday's issue of Imprint, that there will be no alcohol in orientation week next year, when students start arriving on campus from the new four-year high school program. "When 90 per cent of frosh are under age," she says, "I don't know how we can run wet events."

[Blue, purple, green]
Masses of flora surround Armand Buzbuzian's 1977 sculpture, "David of Sassoun", at the southwest corner of the Math and Computer building. Seen from the right angle, the blue metal really does seem to form "CS". Barbara Elve took the photo late last week.

Senate executive meets; other notes

The executive committee of the UW senate will meet at 3:30 this afternoon in Needles Hall room 3004. Senate is the university's academic governing body, made up mostly of elected faculty and student representatives. It meets monthly, and its executive committee meets two weeks ahead of each meeting to review the planned agenda. Among the items pending for September will be UW's response to the federal "innovation strategy", and the annual report of the tenure and promotion advisory committee.

Here's a note from plant operations, of interest to graduate students and other people who will need new UW keys this term: "Key Control will be open Monday to Friday over the noon hour in addition to our regular hours, beginning September 3 until September 13. Hours of operation will be 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m."

And from the faculty of environmental studies, here's word of a PhD oral exam scheduled for this Friday. The student is Richard Petrone of the department of geography, his supervisor is Jonathan Price, and his thesis is titled "Hydroclimatic Factors Controlling Net CO₂ Exchange in Managed Peatland Ecosystems". The oral defence will be held September 6 at 2 p.m. in Environmental Studies I room 221.

The beginning of term is a tough time for parking, which is probably why the folks at Research In Motion, UW's neighbour to the northeast, have sent a reminder letter about the rule that only vehicles with RIM permits can be in RIM's parking lots. "Any vehicle parked in any RIM parking lot without a valid displayed RIM issued parking permit will be issued a warning ticket on the first offence," the letter says, and after that, worse will follow.

The Graduate Student Association will be holding a full program of "welcome week" events for new graduate students, September 9 through 14, including a Thursday night "welcome mixer", much food, and -- really! -- Scrabble Night. Check tomorrow's Gazette for a GSA ad with the details, and of course I'll mention the events in this Daily Bulletin as the dates get closer.

CAR

TODAY IN UW HISTORY
September 3, 1969: President pro tem Howard Petch issues a statement responding to charges by Robin Mathews, of Carleton University, about the "Americanization" of UW and other Canadian universities.