NDP leader Howard Hampton meets media and supporters in the SLC yesterday morning.

NDP leader brings campaign to SLC

Howard Hampton, leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party, was on the stump in UW's Student Life Centre yesterday, promising tuition fee relief for university and college students as he campaigned toward the October 10 provincial election.

Hampton outlined points of the NDP platform, including items such as right-to-know environmental legislation, a raise in the minimum wage to $10, and a promised reduction in tuition fees. These policies would be part of the price demanded for NDP support in the event of a minority government, he said. The NDP are in third place in the race, well back of the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives.

Targeting PC leader John Tory, Hampton singled him out for allegedly not mentioning the word "tuition" in the Conservative platform. Media were following Hampton on the campaign trail in Waterloo. Later in the day he was scheduled to visit the University of Toronto.

A few dozen students were in the SLC during Hampton's visit, going about their work or lounging. Hampton was surrounded by a number of his student supporters while he spoke to the NDP's election promises.

The twists of the election and its possible outcome were a discussion topic at the monthly meeting of UW's senate last week when both president David Johnston and provost Amit Chakma referred to the parties' platforms, including the NDP's promise to cut tuition fees. They noted that the fee policy is a particular concern because if the NDP hold the balance of power in a minority government situation, it "would likely mean a tuition freeze," said Chakma.

Frozen or rolled-back tuition rates would "not keep up with inflation", he said. And with no substitute funding source evident, that could mean a loss of up to $15 million a year, said Bob Truman, director of institutional planning and analysis.

Meanwhile, among other things, the Conservatives are proposing $600 million in funding increases for higher education by the year 2012, and the Liberals are promising an $800 million spending increase by the same year. Outlines of the Liberal and Conservative policies are on their party websites.

The Council of Ontario Universities is calling on the new government, whichever party forms it, to make direct grants to students (so they can pay the fees the universities charge) rather that reducing fees and potentially leaving universities to deal with serious shortfalls. COU is also proposing "investments" to increase the number of student spaces in the province, improve student-faculty ratios and advance research and development through more opportunities for graduate students, Johnston told the senate meeting.

COU has been organizing the chairs of boards of governors as well as third-party advocates to write to party leaders and raise education issues with the candidates and the media. Johnston summarized a recently released COU study in which plans for more post-secondary education funding found very little "resonance" with the Ontario public, which seems more concerned with health care in the province.

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New site focuses UW 'accountability'

Enrolment numbers and budgets ... plans for the coming decade ... agendas and membership lists for the board and senate ... performance indicators and other statistics ... “accountability agreements” with the Ontario government ... they’re all part of a new UW web site, launched this week.

The title is “Public Accountability”, and there will be a permanent link from the UW home page to the new site.

“It is our conviction,” writes UW president David Johnston in introducing the page, “that publicly supported institutions such as the University of Waterloo should have transparency and accountability as top priorities, both in decision-making and in performance evaluation.”

It also includes a message from Brookfield executive Robert Harding, the chair of the UW board of governors. “Openness and transparency are hallmarks of successful universities,” he writes, “and early on in its history the University of Waterloo established a tradition of demonstrating accountability to all stakeholders.

“We started by giving our internal stakeholders a voice — the University of Waterloo was the first higher education institution in Canada to include faculty, staff and students on its governing bodies. We then opened the meetings of our Board of Governors to the public to ensure that the community was included in our decision-making process.

“This web site is a way to make it easier for members of the public to find the information that forms the basis for our decisions and strategic direction and the measures by which we hold ourselves accountable.”

The accountability web site doesn’t actually include any material that’s new, apart from the introductory letters, says Kelley Teahen, associate director of communications and public affairs, who worked on the site in cooperation with the university’s office of institutional analysis and planning.

But, she adds, it provides easy access to things that have been scattered across the university’s many web sites — some of them provided by the IA&P office, some by CPA, some by the university secretariat, some by the registrar’s office, and so on.

A key link goes to the annual performance indicators report prepared by IA&P, offering a wide range of data about students, faculty, research, staff, co-operative education, resources, and fundraising. Another shows figures from the most recent National Survey of Student Engagement, with data and ratings by UW students. And there’s the UW contribution to the Common University Dataset Ontario, which includes information on degrees, enrolment by program, library collections, transfer admissions, admission procedures, and instructional faculty and class size, among other items.

Says the president: “The University of Waterloo has a long tradition of providing information to the public, government, students and parents, and this website is intended to act as an important clearinghouse for our public accountability.”

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Visiting speakers, and other notes

First of all, I'd better mention today's reading by science fiction author William Gibson (left), which starts at 7 p.m. in the Festival Room, South Campus Hall. Admission is free, and I'm guessing there will be a good crowd. One indication of Gibson's popularity: when yesterday's Daily Bulletin made a one-letter mistake in referring to one of his books, I received a little barrage of e-mail complaints. One faculty member who spoke up noted that I couldn't use his name, "because I want to keep my geekiness low-key". And here I had been trying to stay low-key about my own (ungeeky?) ignorance of Gibson's work — which led me to accept, unquestioningly, a news release that contained a typographical error and called his 1984 book Necromancer. In fact it's Neuromancer.

Going head-to-head with Gibson (7 p.m., Theatre of the Arts) is Carl Wieman, winner of a Nobel Prize for physics and now head of an initiative to improve science teaching. Another high-profile speaker is scheduled for tomorrow, namely Michael Kirby — academic, politician, and principal author of a 2002 report on Canada's health care system produced by the Senate Social Affairs Committee. On Thursday night, the Arriscraft lecture series in UW's school of architecture gets going for this year.

And Saturday brings soldier and peacekeeper Lewis MacKenzie, the headline speaker for the busy Homecoming weekend. It appears that I've been advertising the regular $10 price for tickets to hear MacKenzie, neglecting to mention that $2 tickets are available for UW students. Online ordering through the Homecoming web site ended as of yesterday, and the remaining tickets at both prices are now available only at the Humanities box office. The lecture is scheduled for 4:30 in the Humanities Theatre, which lets the Homecoming crowds fit it in after "Family and Culture Day" but before the "closing gala" of the day's East Asian Festival. Or, after the fun run, the "cakewalk" and the football game, but before Homefest in the Bombshelter pub. Or . . . well, anyway, there's a lot to do on Homecoming weekend, with the details all set out, naturally, online.

As the name suggests, Homecoming will also bring many reunions of UW alumni, including a special gathering on Saturday night for those who indulged as journalists on Waterloo's many newspapers over the decades. A reunion of Engineering Society leaders, 1957-2007, is also planned, as is a gathering of music alumni. Engineering graduates of 1962, 1967, 1972, 1977 and 1982 are particularly invited to come home at Homecoming, and a note from Carl Pollock Hall indicates that "all faculty who have taught engineers" are specially welcome to attend.

"Understanding the Learner" — which would certainly seem like a valuable skill for teachers — is the topic of a workshop that's scheduled to be held tomorrow by the Centre for Teaching Excellence, aimed at both faculty members and graduate students who are enrolled in the Certificate in University Teaching program. "In this half-day workshop," the CTE web site explains, "key theories of learning and a variety of learning styles will be presented and discussed. Participants will identify their own unique learning styles and explore how these characteristics affect their approaches to teaching." If you're not registered in it by now, however, don't get your hopes up: it's full. "The workshops fill up within 1 to 2 hours of my sending notices to the CUT participants," says Darlene Radicioni, writing from the CTE's new CUT office in the Dana Porter Library. She notes that "Understanding the Learner" will be offered again November 6, and in subsequent terms.

And . . . an announcement went out yesterday for the fifth annual WatITis, or Waterloo Information Technology and Information Systems, conference, to be held on Tuesday, December 4, right after the end of fall term classes. "This one-day conference will again bring you and your colleagues from across campus face-to-face to exchange knowledge and experience," the memo says. Multiple sessions will be held, dealing with many aspects of computing under the headings of Teaching, Research, Institutional Support and General Interest. Staff who work in those fields are being invited to submit proposals for presentations, which should go to the program committee chair, Vic Neglia (right) of arts computing. There's just one slightly odd note: the memo indicates that "Our theme this year is Life After Fifty," but a reliable source has it that the birthday Neglia is celebrating today isn't 50 but a whole different landmark number.

CAR

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