![[University of Waterloo]](/goldbar.gif)
| Yesterday |
Thursday, September 11, 2003
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Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
![[Sedra]](/images/2003/0910sedra.gif)
The interview was done by Gazette editor Barbara Elve. She quotes the new dean: "The whole idea is to take engineering, which is a very good faculty, and push it forward a notch or two -- to make it truly outstanding. The question is, what areas do we need to work on to achieve that, to make it one of the half-dozen top engineering schools in North America?"
He says one area that's already about as good as it can be is engineering co-op, the key strength of the undergrad program. But Sedra adds that there are plans, still very tentative, for "enrichment" -- for example, online delivery of some softer elements of the program -- a course on economics, or entrepreneurship, or even English, that would allow students on work terms to get more of their academic program done, and would also help them stay connected with the university during the months away. Aside from that, "you're not going to see a major change in the co-op system."
However, he says, change will come at the graduate level. Following his review of the university's graduate programs last year, "it was my view then and still is now, that in order to be fully in the category of a research-intensive university, the University of Waterloo needs to emphasize graduate studies and research more."
In some areas of engineering, for example, Waterloo needs more graduate students, and should be attracting the best in the world. "If a student in India who wants to do graduate work in, say, chemical engineering, doesn't have the University of Waterloo among his top three or four choices, then we can't say we are in fact a world-class university."
How to move in that direction? By providing full support, including tuition, for all graduate students, and by hiring more top-quality professors. To help this happen, fundraising will be high on Sedra's agenda, both indirectly -- helping president David Johnston make a case with government for better funding -- and directly, in contacts with alumni, friends of the university, and corporations. "That's an area that I intend to devote a lot of personal time to," Sedra says.
He goes on: "I'm a believer in planning and measuring performance and benchmarking, and there is not very much of that going on here at this time." He plans to help each engineering department go through a self-study process, to review its strengths and weaknesses. Once those are known, the departments can draw up an effective plan for academic change.
"I am here to help the departments achieve their objectives -- which is why they have to have a good set of objectives."
![[Couple on bridge]](/images/2003/0909victoriapark.gif)
The UW drama department will stage its next production on an island in
Kitchener's Victoria Park (left) "as a response to a desire deep
inside this text -- and,
indeed, inside most young people in love -- to escape."
In a departure from the usual plays staged in campus theatres, "Tuesdays and Sundays", written in 2000 by two University of Alberta students, Daniel Arnold and Medina Hahn, is being performed in the park at 7 p.m. from Tuesday, September 16, through Sunday, September 21, with pay-what-you-can admission.
The play, according to a drama department news release, "is based on an actual love story that took place in 1887, in a community not unlike our own. The play effectively creates two worlds, the limbo in which young Mary and William awaken at the opening, and the riverside community in which they met and fell in love. The two worlds are not separate, however. Through language and memory, the pair recreate their courtship while still in their dreamlike state, which could be one day, or one hundred years, after their story ended."
Victoria Park Island, as the set, says the release, "is a place of play, of nature, of romance, and perhaps most of all, it is a place of escape from the pressures of the surrounding city. Or is it?"
Directed by drama professor Andy Houston, "Tuesdays and Sundays" features UW students Nathan Bender and Natalie Mathieson in the lead roles, with violin accompaniment by Marina Brankovic, a local high school student.
Meanwhile, the drama department is working towards its usual on-campus theatre season as well. According to its web site, the first production, scheduled for November, will be Shakespeare's "As You Like It", directed by Joel Greenberg. The February show is "an exciting departure for our Department, as we will be hosting a two-week festival of short plays, the Upstart 2004 Theatre Festival, which is open to students and staff across campus, high school students in the area, and theatre artists from the Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge region."
The Festival will be followed in March by "a collaborative, site-specific theatre project" under the co-directorship of faculty members Andy Houston and Diana Denton. "The working title of this exciting project is 'Mimetic Flesh'."
![[Stretching at railing]](/images/2003/0819cancerwalk.gif)
Ready to walk
60 kilometres, as part of a September 19-20 "Weekend to End Breast Cancer",
are a crew from UW's distance education office: Tami Everding, Scott
Murie, Victoria Michalek, Lois Goldsworthy, Mark Tuzanski. "We are having
a fund-raising party this Saturday," Murie writes. Tickets are $10 each
-- at the door, or in advance from him (smurie@uwaterloo.ca) -- and the
festivities are scheduled for the K-W Labour Association Hall at 141
King Street East. "There will be many prizes," he promises, "and food
and beverages," including a cash bar.
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To wind up "welcome week" for UW graduate students, the Graduate House is presenting "Gradstock, a two-day musical extravaganza" from noon to late night today and again tomorrow. Performers today start with Alan Piggins ("post-punk folk") and run through "Celtic/east coast", "Chicago style blues" and other genres to end up with The Sour Keys ("math rock/hardcore punk") at the midnight hour. Admission is $5 -- or free for graduate students -- and proceeds go to the Grad House renovation fund.
Campus Crusade for Christ invites all comers to "a day full of fun, fellowship and worship" today, under the title "Got Jesus?" (I managed to announce this event a day early in yesterday's Daily Bulletin, but it really is today.) Plans, according to participant Heidi Prins, include sports on the biology green at 2 p.m.; a free barbecue supper at 5:30, also in that green area between Biology and Math and Computer; and at 7 p.m. a free Christian concert by Audience of One, "with testimonies", in the Bombshelter pub in the Student Life Centre.
Academic seminars and colloquia are getting rolling: today at 3:30, Granville Tunnicliffe Wilson of Lancaster University will speak on "Turbocharged Autoregressions". The session, in Math and Computer room 5158, is of course sponsored by the department of statistics and actuarial science.
The two art exhibitions that were described yesterday are, as I said, officially opening today, with a reception from 7 to 9 p.m. in East Campus Hall. Artists Aidan Urquhart (of "Locked Knowledge") and Jennifer Macklem and Luke Roberts (of "The World May Be Post-Dated") are expected to be on hand.
And, the social event everybody has been waiting for, at least everybody who's single and inclined to mingle. It's the first Boys 'n' Girls Night of the term, tonight at Federation Hall.
The "summer" newsletter is just out from the UW retirees association, and among other things it announces that Neil Hultin, retired English professor, has taken over as the group's president. He succeeds Steve Little, formerly of the registrar's office, who died suddenly in May. "One of the features of UWRA that I have come to prize most highly," Hultin writes, "is its refusal to separate staff and faculty into distinct retirees' associations, as is the case in so many universities. Had UWRA done so, many of us would have been deprived of the fine wit, the rich self-deprecating humour, and the warm friendship that we experienced in our contact with Steve," and also Joan Molloy, formerly secretary to UW's presidents, who also died earlier this year. "It is a daunting task," Hultin adds, "to follow Steve as president of the association."
Here's a note from Jack Cooper of the information systems and technology department: "Web surveys are much more than the simple collection and processing of web form data. There are several software solutions available to assist with the design and implementation of surveys over the web. Many of these solutions aren't cheap, but the better software allows multiple surveys to be created, implemented and managed by one or more individuals or groups. IST has been approached by several groups on campus over the past few years who have been interested in implementing web surveys. We have also been involved with the trial use of a couple of web survey solutions and have also researched some of the options available. We would now like to get a better grasp on whether a campus-wide solution for web surveys would be appropriate. We invite anyone who is interested in web surveys to attend an open forum held in MC 2009 on Thursday, October 2, from 9:30 to 12:00." Anyone who can't attend but has "questions, opinions or suggestions" can reach Cooper at jack@ist.
John Sullivan of the football Warriors has been named male athlete of the week by Ontario University Athletics after his heroics in the season's first two games. . . . The Graduate Student Association will hold a special general meeting next Wednesday (September 17) at 5:30 p.m. in Davis Centre room 1302. . . . Melissa Latour (mmlatour@uwaterloo.ca) wold like to hear from anybody who would like to join a Weight Watchers group on campus this term, and will hold an information meeting Tuesday at noon at St. Jerome's University. . . .
And no, I don't yet know what might have caused the power flicker that hit campus about 8:35 this morning. About quarter to nine, I understand, the Davis Centre was still without power altogether.
CAR