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Monday, June 21, 2004

  • Employers' conference is tomorrow
  • Three Warriors and coach off to Spain
  • A few quanta of UW information
Editor:
Chris Redmond
credmond@uwaterloo.ca

Sudddenly summer

[Looking down from the lawn chairs]

Canada Day comes on Thursday next week, and will bring the usual crowd to the north campus: bands, craft vendors, kids with flag-painted faces, and the folks with the fireworks as the day ends. Details of the annual July 1 party are on the web and will be much publicized over the next few days. The photo, by math student Martin Pei, shows last year's celebration.

Employers' conference is tomorrow

Tomorrow's conference for employers is being held "in order to enrich the important partnership between the University of Waterloo and its employer partners in co-operative education", says a UW news release.

Organized by the co-operative education and career services department, WatWORKS will be "a splendid opportunity for employers of UW co-op students to pick up some tips on attracting and retaining co-op students and gaining the best results from the mindpower they offer on their work term," according to Cathie Jenkins, associate director for student services.

ONE CLICK AWAY
  • Photos and coverage of June 9 Keystone Campaign event
  • UW rugby player going to world championships
  • UN briefing mentions convocation speech
  • Library explains its Electronic Data Service
  • Student publishes astrological study of federal election
  • Imprint coverage of local all-candidates meeting
  • Student issues 'conspicuously absent' (Varsity)
  • Shy people in academic life
  • UK report on voluntary giving to higher education
  • Online MBA in project management
  • U of T claims lead on trademark accountability
  • U of Toronto names new provost
  • New headquarters for Canada's Technology Triangle
  • U of Guelph student graduates at 18 (Star)
  • It's now Region of Waterloo International Airport
  • Policies about academic freedom for U of T's clinical faculty
  • 'In the Kitchen with an Academic Feminist Mother'
  • RIM could double its size in a year
  • Insurance hard to get for licensed student events (Imprint)
  • Scientists urge restored funding for weather research
  • U of Colorado image troubles continue
  • Environmental pledge for new MBAs
    • "Participants will also gain an understanding of some of UW's dynamic new programs and how students in these programs can add value to their work environment," the news release says. "They can either visit some laboratories to see research activities by professors who are on the cutting edges of their fields, or attend an interviewing skills workshop."

    Larry Smith, adjunct assistant professor of economics and president of Essential Economics Corp., will be the keynote speaker at 11 a.m. (Tatham Centre room 2218) on "Responding to the Challenges of Competition". He will describe factors that continue to ratchet up the competitive pressures on Canadian enterprise, examine how those pressures translate into higher standards of performance for all workers, present strategies that enable effective responses to competition and characterize the values of the millennial generation.

    Working sessions begin at 9:15 a.m. tomorrow with an interactive panel discussion on "Best Practices in Co-operative Education". A panel of co-op employers and students will offer practical approaches to creating successful work-term assignments, recruiting the best students, supervising success and retaining top students for full-time employment upon graduation. These are the afternoon sessions:

  • The Renaissance of Engineering: Some Interdisciplinary Gems. "Participants will learn how co-op students enrolled in mechatronics, nanotechnology and software engineering can add value to a business. Each of these dynamic and demanding new programs offers a rich blend of courses across several disciplines." Speakers are the directors of the three programs: Jan Huissoon, Tony Vannelli and Joanne Atlee.

  • Designing Your Customers' Experience: How to Compete in the Digital Marketplace. Robert Barlow-Busch, senior consultant, Quarry Integrated Communications, will talk about an important shift in the competitive landscape for digital products and services -- the shift towards an economy driven by "customer experience" over technology. "Tremendous opportunities exist for those who identify this shift and respond accordingly in product design, development and marketing. Also featured will be English professor David Goodwin, director of the Digital Arts Communication specialization, who will talk about this new UW program and the role of arts in developing the kinds of knowledge and skills that students will need to become digital designers."

  • Measure for Measure: The Power of Performance Appraisals. Catharine Scott, UW associate provost (human resources and student services) will focus on how to evaluate employees, whether full-time or co-op. She will discuss the benefits of establishing learning objectives and annual (or work-term) goals, and how to use the performance review to coach employees.

    The event ends at 4:15 with a reception and remarks by UW president David Johnston.

    Three Warriors and coach off to Spain

    The head coach of the Warrior swim team, Brian Cartlidge, has been selected to represent Canada at the FISU World University Triathlon Championships in Palma De Mallorca, Spain, next week.

    [Family photographers in background]

    At Thursday's convocation ceremony, a brand-new BA graduate gets her diploma from Betsy Zanna of the dean of arts office, while other graduates' family members wait for a chance to take photos and beam.

    Cartlidge will be accompanying three Warriors who qualified for the games earlier this month. Eerik Randsalu, Caroline Amyot, and Kristie Henry all qualified at Sherbrooke, Québec, in the Triathlon Vert et Or, an Olympic distance triathlon. All three athletes compete on the Warrior swim team. Henry and Amyot also compete on the Warrior cross-country team, and Randsalu is a member of the Nordic ski team.

    Next week's event will be the 7th World University Championships. The men's and women's individual races will consist of 1.5 km swimming, 40 km cycling, and 10 km running.

    It's the first time Cartlidge has been named to the World Championships. "It is an honour to be named to the staff," he says, "and I am looking forward to supporting our Canadian athletes and all three Warriors."

    The Sherbrooke event was run over a difficult but scenic, hilly course in a temperature of 12 Celsius. Athletes from throughout Ontario, Québec and the Maritimes took part. Amyot finished with the silver medal in the women's division and Henry with the bronze.

    "That was the hardest course I've ever raced with so many hills," said Amyot after doing the seven laps of a 5.7 km bike course that included two long climbs. And Henry added: "The race website was in French, so we didn't really know what to expect." But her conclusion? "It was great and I'm really excited to go to Spain."

    In the men's division, Randsalu just missed a medal from the Vert et Or, finishing fourth.

    The FISU championships will be held on the Spanish resort island of Mallorca July 1-3. FISU (in English the World University Sports Federation) is the governing body for international university championships in even-numbered years, in events that range from bridge and chess to rugby and softball, and the Universiade, or world university games, in odd-numbered years.

    A few quanta of UW information

    Following the news that several people from UW are off to the world university triathlon championships, I asked Judy McCrae, director of athletics, whether Waterloo would be represented at the Olympics in Athens later this summer. Her answer: nobody from her department is going in a staff role this time, and no Warrior athletes have been confirmed. There's one possible team member, yet to be confirmed.

    The Fourth Canadian Summer School on Quantum Information is under way -- things started with a wine-and-cheese event last night, and talks run all this week. They start today with what sounds basic ("the basic principles and notation of quantum mechanics") and move on through quantum cryptography and "theoretical quantum optics" to things like "Trapped ion quantum bits and entanglement schemes". On Wednesday there are also poster sessions, with such titles as "Polarization-Based Quantum Key Distribution Protocol Over Noisy Quantum Channel". The event is hosted by UW's Institute for Quantum Computing, which is now housed in the former B. F. Goodrich building on Columbia Street. Most of the sessions take place in Davis Centre room 1302, with a move to the Math and Computer building for Wednesday.

    WHEN AND WHERE
    Senate graduate and research council, 10:30, Needles Hall room 3001.

    Engineering faculty council, 3:00, CEIT room 3142.

    'Business Etiquette and Professionalism', career workshop, 3:30, Tatham Centre room 1208.

    UW senate, 4:30, Needles Hall room 3001; agenda includes approval of the planned new nanotechnology program in engineering.

    National Aboriginal Day celebrations, Victoria Park, Kitchener, 1 to 5 p.m.; talk by Aboriginal actress Jennifer Podemski, 7 p.m., St. Paul's College, admission free.

    Materials and Manufacturing Ontario exhibition and networking event, "Partnerships 2004", Tuesday, Toronto Congress Centre, details online.

    Mock candidates' debate sponsored by UW Debating society, Tuesday noon, Student Life Centre.

    Ideas to Innovation program, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, presentation for all interested faculty, Tuesday 1:30, Rod Coutts Hall room 110.

    Renison College "Principal's Ceilidh" for alumni and friends, Tuesday 7 to 9 p.m. at the college, information 884-4404 ext. 657.

    Environmental studies reception honouring Geoff McBoyle as he ends his term as dean, Wednesday 3;30 to 5 p.m., ES I courtyard.

    Festival of Art and Spirit, St. Jerome's University, Thursday to Saturday, details online.

    A pair of UW students -- Heather MacDougall and Laura Mooney -- are just back from attending the International Symposium on Work Assisted Learning (better known as "co-op") in Trollhättan, Sweden. The symposium is held in alternate years by the World Association for Cooperative Education. The symposium drew about 100 delegates from 22 countries, including Bruce Lumsden, UW's director of co-operative education and career services. It was the first time a student panel had been part of the program for the three-day event. Student participants came from Waterloo, Northeastern University in Boston, Trollhättan-Uddevalla in Sweden and Nanyang Technical University in Singapore. Says Lumsden: "Delegates heard first hand from the students about the pros and cons of their co-op experiences. The panel was a huge success and will be a standard feature at future conferences." Mooney is from systems design engineering, MacDougall from arts; both spent recent work terms inside the CECS department.

    The "general computing environment" in the faculty of mathematics will suffer a split at 4:00 today, the math faculty computing facility says. "Sometime Monday evening the new CS environment will be in place. The Math environment will mostly cease to work for CS people, so you'll have to change how you do some things. . . . Be sure your workstation uses MAIL.CS.UWATERLOO.CA to read and send mail." The split today completes a change that began with a split of the teaching environment almost a year ago, and the creation of the Computer Science Computing Facility in the school of computer science.

    Summer hours begin today for UW's retail stores (and run through August 27). The bookstore, TechWorx and the UW Shop in South Campus Hall will be open 8:30 to 4:30 Monday to Friday, and closed on Saturdays. The Campus TechShop in the Student Life Centre will also operate 8:30 to 4:30 weekdays only. ArtWorx in East Campus Hall is closed for the summer.

    Local francophones are coming up to their big annual celebration, marking Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day. The "day" is June 24, but the celebration will be Saturday, June 26, from 12:30 to 9;30 at Laurel Creek Conservation Area, just north of the campus. Promised are spectacles (that's "shows" in English), refreshments, music, children's games, and, well, ambiance francophone, something that may not be too easy to find in southwestern Ontario. The Association des Francophones de Kitchener-Waterloo has a number of UW people among its membership, I'm told, and its current president is Robert André of the pure mathematics department. Tickets for Saturday's event are $10 in advance, $12 on the day, children free; call 746-7502 for information.

    The stairwell at the southwest corner of the Physics building (that would be the corner facing Biology, if I'm calculating correctly) will be closed all this week, as repair work continues. The plant operations department says the job should be finished by Friday.

    CAR

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