Warrior All-Canadian Chris Ray crashes the Ryerson net in a mid-November game at the Columbia Icefield, while teammate Andy Smith looks on. (Photo by Carl Pawlowski.) The men's hockey squad are now ranked in the top ten across Canada, and will take a five-game winning streak into their last league game of 2010, against the Brock Badgers tonight in St. Catharines. (Meanwhile, the women's hockey team are 3-11-1 on the season, and play home games this weekend against Brock and Guelph; both games will be streamed online.)

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Looking for ‘distinguished’ teachers

Students (and others) are being urged, now that the fall term is at an end, to pay tribute to teachers who are way out of the ordinary. The nomination deadlines for this year's main teaching awards come in February, and the Centre for Teaching Excellence, which manages the process, is suggesting that right now is a good time for students and colleagues to get things rolling and nominate those they think are deserving.

The nomination deadline for the Distinguished Teacher Award is February 4. For the Amit and Meena Chakma Awards for Exceptional Teaching by a Student, it’s a week later, February 11.

It takes ten nominators to bring up a professor or other instructor for consideration by the DTA selection committee. But the CTE stresses that it's not the number of signatures on some petition that matters, it's the quality of information provided about why an individual's teaching is worthy of an award.

The ten nominators have to include at least five present or past students of the instructor. Nominations should come, says the CTE web site, in "a typed or legible handwritten letter". Background information can range from letters written by colleagues, to "descriptions of teaching innovations".

Distinguished Teacher Awards have been given at UW for more than three decades. The honour includes a certificate, presented at Convocation, and a grant to be used for future teaching activities. Four awards are generally given each year, "in recognition of continued record of excellence in teaching at the University of Waterloo".

The award, the official criteria say, "is open to all those who teach students at the University of Waterloo and is not limited just to those holding faculty appointments. The Selection Committee will look for evidence of intellectual vigour and communication skills in the interpretation and presentation of subject matter, along with evidence of educational impact beyond the classroom.

“The teacher's human quality and concern for and sensitivity to the needs of students are obvious criteria. The Selection Committee will look for a clear indication that the nominee has favourable and lasting influence on students and, where relevant, on colleagues. Evidence of successful innovation in teaching or publications/presentations on teaching and learning would support a nomination, but it is also clear that excellence in teaching does not necessarily require either.

"Members of the University community are urged to renominate candidates who have not won an award in previous years and who continue to show excellence in teaching performance. It only takes one nomination letter in the current year to make a whole file of accumulated past support admissible. Of course, new evidence is always desirable.”

As for the Chakma award — aimed at honouring teaching assistants and students in similar roles — the process is very similar. Says the CTE web site: "Nominations should consist of detailed statements making the case for the award. A complete nomination consists of at least five signatures from present or past students of the nominees and from past and present faculty supervisors of the nominee. A minimum of three of the signatures must be present or past students."

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With Respect to Time, the engineering jazz band, will play its end-of-term charity concert Saturday at 7:00 in the Humanities Theatre. Tickets are $10 at the Engineering Society office or at the door, and proceeds go to Habitat for Humanity. The five-year-old band plays regularly "at campus events ranging from Frosh Week celebrations to formal faculty dinners", its web site says.

Notes with exactly the right pitch

It's going to be a fairly musical weekend, as the Engineering Jazz Band concert, noted above, is just one of the events planned. The a cappella group The Water Boys is giving its end-of-term concert Monday night (details in the "When and where" column at right) but will warm up the vocal cords sooner than that, making a special appearance in Waterloo Park just after 6:00 Saturday night for the opening celebration of the Wonders of Winter festival of lights. (News from the chorus's manager, Johnny Trinh: "The Water Boys just passed the first rounds of the international competition for college a cappella. It means we're going to Penn State University to compete in the next rounds.") End-of-term performances for the music ensembles based at Conrad Grebel University College are also starting this weekend, with the Chamber Choir tonight and the UW Choir on Saturday (again, see "When and where").

The Waterloo Regional Police Service announced yesterday morning that they've made an arrest in connection with the sexual assault earlier this week on Hazel Street, a stone's throw from the Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University campuses. "On December 1," said a police statement, "a 25 year old Kitchener man was arrested in relation to an investigation into a sexual assault on Hazel Street in Waterloo on November 30, 2010. He has been charged with sexual assault with a weapon and uttering threats. The accused is being held for a bail hearing. The investigators would like to thank the public and the media for their assistance in this investigation." As of yesterday, the name of the accused hadn't been made public.

A note arrives from Thomas Freddo, director of the school of optometry: "I am currently attending the American Academy of Optometry meeting in San Francisco. This is a meeting of over 4,000 optometrists and vision scientists from around the world. Each year, the Academy selects a very limited number of more than a thousand research presentations to be featured in a press conference for local and national media. This year one of the ten selected to be featured in the press conference was a presentation by three UW School of Optometry faculty. The title of this talk was 'The Prevalence of Binocular Vision Anomalies in the Elderly'. The three faculty involved were Susan Leat, Elizabeth Irving and Patricia Hrynchak."

The schedule of paydays for 2011 is now available on the human resources web site. There are separate schedules of monthly pay (for faculty and most staff) and biweekly pay (for unionized and "casual" employees). One date of particular interest: the monthly pay for January will come a day earlier than the customary "last Friday of the month", as payday will be Thursday, January 27. That day falls exactly five weeks after December's payday, which has already been moved from "the last Friday", during the Christmas and New Year's holiday break, to Thursday, December 23. Biweekly paydays in the next while are December 17, December 31 and January 14, all Fridays as usual.

A project led by a Waterloo faculty member has been recognized for excellence in innovation. The Professional and Organizational Network in Higher Education, the association for teaching centres such as Waterloo's Centre for Teaching Excellence, selected the ELIXR program as the top innovation for 2010 in the category of Faculty Development Using Technology. The program was initiated in 2006 by Tom Carey, then a management sciences professor and Waterloo associate vice-president. The ELIXR partnership created more than 100 digital media case stories of innovative faculty teaching, to accelerate the adoption of exemplary teaching methods. The program was a collaboration of 35 American institutions and 4 Canadian universities, supported by the U.S. Department of Education, the Inukshuk Internet Learning Program and the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. Carey, who retired from Waterloo on September 1, continues to lead faculty collaborations to enhance teaching and learning across institutions and systems in Canada and the U.S.

Finally . . . as everybody probably knows by now, the university will be closed December 24 through January 3, with only the most basic of services available on campus over that time. The Daily Bulletins of December 22 and 23 will highlight closing and opening hours for university departments and satellite campuses, along with any events and special arrangements over the Christmas and New Year's period. I'd appreciate receiving all such information from departments as early as possible, so I can organize it and present it clearly. The e-mail address, as always, is bulletin@ uwaterloo.ca.

CAR

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