![[University of Waterloo]](/goldbar.gif)
| Yesterday |
Wednesday, August 20, 2003
|
Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
Where possible, managers should try to organize work assignments/responsibilities to minimize the need for staff members to work overtime. As well, it is important for managers to monitor the amount of voluntary and unscheduled extra time that staff members may choose to work. Staff members should inform their managers if the amount of work they are doing outside of their normally scheduled full-time hours becomes a problem. It is the manager's responsibility to restructure a staff member's workload if the extra (voluntary; unscheduled) or overtime (scheduled; approved) hours become excessive.The draft policy is now "on display" for comments from across campus.Staff members should not feel pressured to work extra hours or overtime. As much as possible, overtime should be scheduled in advance and at a time that will minimize the impact on staff members' personal lives.
Staff members are eligible for overtime only if the overtime has been scheduled by the department head, chair or manager and the overtime hours have been approved by the department head, chair or manager. Staff members cannot schedule their own overtime.
A memo from Anne Jenson, the staff association executive who currently chairs the staff relations committee, says the provost asked the committee in March to take a look at the existing Policy 16.
She writes: "In addition to making it clear that staff cannot schedule their own overtime, the Committee made other modifications to improve the Policy."
Her memo lists these highlights in the proposed changes:
Comments on the proposed changes should be submitted -- before September 19 -- to Trenny Canning in the university secretariat, tcanning@uwaterloo.ca.
![[Thompson]](/images/2003/0819thompson.gif)
The brief interview with Mary Thompson (right) of
statistics and actuarial science, who's beginning a sabbatical leave
September 1, appeared in the Gazette last month.
It notes that Thompson "has worn many hats" at UW, including statistics professor, department chair, associate dean, acting dean, and mentor to more than 20 PhD students." She is co-director of the Survey Research Centre and has represented UW on the Council of Ontario Universities.
This summer, just before taking over as Statistical Society president, she received the society's Gold Medal for her substantial contributions in statistics.
The Keystone profile touched on her UW career in general, as well as her contributions to the campaign, which is aimed at raising $4.5 million from staff, faculty and retirees as part of Campaign Waterloo.
Which UW hat(s) do you most enjoy wearing? "I enjoy the rewards of teaching and supervising upper-year and graduate students, and seeing them develop as researchers. I'm currently teaching graduate courses in estimating functions and analysis Of complex surveys, areas in which I'm particularly interested."
What do you value most about Waterloo? "It's relatively easy here to focus on institutional goals. In the early days, a vision expressing what I think of as mid-Ontario values inspired the management of the University. Today, there is tremendous UW community loyalty that pushes toward the centre and makes the University the success that it is. In the large picture, very little energy is wasted on strife at Waterloo; it's a can-do place."
To what project do you target your gift and why? "I give mainly to the undergraduate scholarships fund to help attract the best and brightest students to UW. Our undergraduate program is arguably the most important thing that we do here. With scholarships, we're able to attract top students into our undergraduate programs. And our fine undergraduate students make teaching at Waterloo attractive to new faculty."
Computing coursesThe information systems and technology department (IST) is offering computing courses in September to UW faculty, staff and students. The following courses are being offered for students: IST Services for Students, Using PowerPoint for a Class Presentation, Using Word for Assignments, Introduction to Unix, Creating a Web Page Using HTML.The following courses are part of the Skills for the Academic e-Workplace program, and are offered to faculty, grad students, and staff with instructional responsibilities: Academic Computing Overview, Using the Campus e-Classrooms, Scoring Multiple Choice Exams, Marks Processing Using Excel, Scientific Computing Using Matlab, Statistical Analysis Using SPSS, Keeping Current Digitally -- Engineering. Information about the courses, along with a registration form, can be found on the web. |
Some 40 people, mostly staff members, were invited to dinner at president David Johnston's farm last night as a thank-you for their efforts in one of UW's less publicized achievements of the past year. They were involved in introducing academic credit for co-op work terms, which began last spring. This new policy not only affects how UW's per-student income is calculated, but "sends a signal", officials said at last night's party, to employers, academic departments and students about the importance and academic relevance of co-op work. Last night's guests came from the co-op department, information systems and technology, and other departments that put in major effort to get the new system approved and working in a very short time. Gary Waller, who just finished his term as associate provost (academic and student affairs), and Jay Black, who was associate provost (information systems and technology), played host.
Today is the third, and should be the last, day of a hot water shutdown on the main campus buildings, as plant operations winds up the annual cleaning and inspection of the central boilers.
And visitors of a quite different kind are also in the Ron Eydt Village conference centre -- a couple of different kinds, actually. Some of them are participants in a Skate Ontario training camp being held in Kitchener. Others are some of the performers in Waterloo's annual Busker Carnival, which opens tomorrow (and I'll say more about it in tomorrow's Daily Bulletin).
The student awards office in Needles Hall will be closed all day today and tomorrow, "to meet critical deadlines", reopening Friday at the usual hour of 10 a.m. "We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause," writes financial aid coordinator Martha Foulds (yes, the same Martha Foulds who's well known from the dean of engineering office; she changed jobs a few weeks ago).
News on the sports front: the athletics department has announced the appointment of two assistant coaches for the men's hockey team for this year. Working beside new head coach Karl Taylor will be Brian Bourque, a high school teacher who has been coaching for a Junior A team in Newmarket and formerly with the York Yeomen and Ryerson Rams, two of the teams the Warriors will face, and Shawn Dietrich, who comes from the Kitchener-Waterloo minor hockey system.
And . . . Ling Yun Wei died July 26. He was a faculty member at UW from 1960 to his retirement in 1985, specializing in telecommunications and semiconductor electronics in what was then the "department of electrical engineering".
CAR