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Monday, March 1, 2004

  • The day of March has come
  • UW release about the new CEIT
  • The UW connection with Juliet's dresses
Editor:
Chris Redmond
credmond@uwaterloo.ca

TV station marks its 50th with 'champions'


WHEN AND WHERE
Student loan repayment information sessions with a representative of the National Student Loan Service Centre, today and tomorrow 10:00, 12:00 and 2:00, Rod Coutts Hall room 109. All students welcome.

'Climate Change and the Response in the Physical Geography", Martin Sharp, in the Geography 475 series of climate change lectures, 10:30, Arts Lecture Hall room 124.

Referendum public meeting about the March 10-11 vote on UW membership in Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, 12 noon, Student Life Centre great hall.

Let's Make a Deal stop-smoking contest begins today.

'Ethical Issues in Financial Management", Grant Russell, school of accountancy, at Kitchener Public Library, 12 noon.

Senate executive committee, 3:30, Needles Hall room 3004.

'Biometric Recognition: State of the Art", Hamid Tizhoosh, 6 p.m., Davis Centre room 1304.

'Teachers' Perception of Professional Development for the Knowledge Learner", Eleanor Pierre, distance education office, Tuesday 12 noon, Flex lab, Dana Porter Library.

Apple server and storage information session, sponsored by Campus TechShop, Tuesday 12 noon, Davis Centre room 1302.

'Afghanistan: Failed State or Struggling Democracy?" Flora MacDonald, former federal cabinet minister, Tuesday 3:30, Humanities Theatre.

The day of March has come

Suddenly we're in the last month of the winter term. At least that's true for the engineering and math faculties, where the last day of classes will be March 30, four weeks from tomorrow. In the other four faculties, classes continue through Friday, April 2. That means there's a load of learning, designing, writing, reading, studying, building and socializing to be packed into just a few more days.

Final-year students can skip this paragraph, but for other undergraduates, it's important to note that this week is Pick Your Plan Week, the time to make (with an advisor's help) any necessary changes to majors, minors and options. Class enrolment appointments (on Quest) for the fall term will start in early June. Students who will be on campus in the spring term, however, should be on the alert by next week, as online appointments for spring course choices run March 8 through April 3.

And for students going to co-op jobs in the spring, who don't yet have such jobs sewn up, today's the day to hand in your resumé package at the Tatham Centre, the co-op department says.

Today brings the opening of an exhibition of work by fine arts students, at the main branch of the Kitchener Public Library. I don't have much information about this show, but the KPL newsletter says it includes "paintings, drawings and prints" by students from first through fourth year, organized by the Students of Fine Arts, or SOFA. It also says an opening reception for the show is scheduled for Wednesday evening.

"An informal get-together" is scheduled tomorrow for graduating students who might be interested in graduate work in management sciences -- "a unique graduate program specially designed for students with a strong technical background". Anyone interested should get in touch with Lynne Wight, lmwight@engmail, for the details.

The city of Waterloo will hold a symposium on Thursday and Friday under the title "After the Double Cohort: Student-Community Relations". Municipal officials, landlords, and student leaders are are among those invited, to discuss topics such as student housing, "common barriers to improved relations", and bylaw enforcement. The event is being held at the Waterloo Memorial Recreation Complex; there's an $85 registration fee.

The Information Systems and Technology department (IST) is offering computing courses in March to UW faculty, staff and students. The following courses are being offered for students: Learning More Unix, Creating Web Pages with HTML/Unix. 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: Parallel Programming with OpenMP, OneNote, Scientific Charting Using Microsoft Excel, Finite Element Analysis with FEMLAB, Creating Theses Using Word, Database Management Using Access, Technical Animation Using Flash, Submitting Your Thesis Electronically, Creating Your Theses Using Scientific Workplace and LaTeX, Bibliographic Databases with Reference Manager. Information about the courses, along with a registration form, can be found on the web.

Finally, a correction to what was said in this space on Thursday: It turns out that all four members of the Mennonite Artists Collective, who currently have a show in the East Campus Hall gallery, are UW alumni. The gallery's publicity had said that three of the four were UW grads, the fourth being Paul Janzen. We've all now learned that Janzen is, like the others, an alumnus -- but while they're all fine arts graduates, his degree is in math.

UW release about the new CEIT

As the Centre for Environmental and Information Technology had its official opening on Friday (left), UW's media relations office issued a release describing the building and how it's "bringing together researchers to solve complex environmental problems and expand the frontiers of information technology".

The release gives the cost of the new building as $36.5 million -- a figure that goes up to some $43 million when a maintenance endowment is counted in -- and notes that it's "one of four building projects with a total cost of $61.1 million at UW under the Ontario government's SuperBuild program. Provincial funding was matched by contributions from the university, students and private donations."

More from the news release: "The 15,800-square-metre (170,000-square-foot), five-storey centre combines teams of experts from the Faculties of Engineering, Environmental Studies, Mathematics and Science. It houses a 150-seat lecture theatre and 19 specialized laboratories for teaching and research. The centre is also home to the Waterloo Institute for Groundwater Research -- a leading research priority of the university."

It quotes UW president David Johnston: "This project addresses a huge need here . . . the new centre provides urgently needed space for many kinds of environmental and information-technology teaching and research, and encourages inter-disciplinary interaction among faculty, students and staff. It reinforces some of Waterloo's strengths and concentrates more expertise in these areas of study than anywhere else in the country."

Also quoted is David Caplan, Ontario's minister of public infrastructure renewal, who was on hand Friday for the opening ceremonies. Caplan called the project an example of the province's major investment to strengthen universities.

Says the news release: "Funding of $27.5 million was allocated for CEIT through the Ontario government's SuperBuild and Access to Opportunities programs. An additional $9 million in private sector funds was being raised.

"Inter-disciplinary research teams at the centre work to find innovative solutions to complex research problems and to build on Waterloo's strong record of technology transfer to the private sector through the creation of spin-off companies. . . .

"Environmental responsibility has been built into the design of the centre, including a heat recovery system, improved insulation levels and window glass that reduces heat gain from the sun.

"Relocated to the centre is the Earth Sciences Museum, with its two famous dinosaurs -- Albertosaurus and Parasaurolophus -- and the Great Lakes exhibit with geologically significant minerals and gems. The museum is located in the March Networks Exhibit Atrium along with a 9.14-metre (30-foot) monolith rock installed in the foundation as a centrepiece. The slab of vertical metamorphic rock called Gneiss rises from the basement to the second floor. The atrium is named to honor a donation to CEIT by Terry Matthews, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, March Networks of Ottawa."

The UW connection with Juliet's dresses

UW's many links with the Stratford Shakespearean Festival, a half-hour drive away, are described in a detailed article that was published in the most recent issue of the UW Magazine and has just been made available on the web.

Writes Kelley Teahen, the Festival's media manager and author of the Magazine article: "Since 1957, when the University of Waterloo was founded and the Stratford Festival opened its first permanent theatre, ideas, expertise, and even people have flowed both ways."

Prominent in the article is Ted McGee, an English professor at St. Jerome's University who has served on the Festival's board of governors. "His scholarship is also inspired by the Festival," Teahen writes, "particularly his latest research on the ideals of beauty as portrayed by Juliet."

[McGee with dresses] Stratford has produced Romeo and Juliet eight times, and McGee (right) has taken detailed looks at actual costumes -- many of them still exist in the Festival's warehouses -- and production documents such as costume drawings and fabric swatches.

This term's engineering play will be a spinoff of Shakespeare's classic: "Romeo, You Idiot". Performances are set for March 26-28.
Says the article: "In addition, he has researched reviews and feature articles that talk about Juliet, particularly focusing on the issue of Juliet as the embodiment of beauty. 'Romeo says, "I never saw true beauty until this night." That's typical of romantic love, which reduces various forms of beauty to one, singular object of a man's gaze. Juliet's beauty is a special kind; given the imagery of the play, we associate Juliet with youthfulness, delicacy and light.' He notes that the actresses playing Juliet, when interviewed, expressed fear they were not young enough for the role (Juliet is a few weeks shy of 14) and several spoke of not being beautiful enough. . . .

"McGee is working on a conference paper about his research, which will include other interesting connections, from the politics of Quebec actress Louise Marleau's appearance as Juliet in 1968 to how costume establishes the characterization of Juliet's mother, Lady Capulet."

Other Waterloo-Stratford connections that are discussed in Teahen's article:

  • The design of the Theatre of the Arts, built for UW in 1961 and modelled on Stratford's then-daring Festival Theatre.

  • The International Conference on Elizabethan Theatre, which has been held at UW repeatedly and involved scholarly discussions at Waterloo and excursions to Stratford.

  • UW faculty members' work for Stratford publications and special events, and visits to the UW drama department by Stratford actors and experts.

  • Waterloo graduates, in drama and other fields, who are now part of the Stratford company, including Alec Cooper, master electrician at Stratford, whose UW degree is in biology.

    CAR


    Communications and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
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