Daily Bulletin, Monday, March 24
Chris Redmond
[1][University of Waterloo]
DAILY BULLETIN
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Monday, March 24, 2003
* _Water symposium is under way_
* _Some advice about facing exams_
* _Truck vs. truck vs. truck on Columbia_
* _Some follow-ups and corrections_
* _Events of today and the week_
Editor: Chris Redmond cred...@uwaterloo.ca
_[6]Today is World Tuberculosis Day _
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Robot talks philosophy on stage tonight
The Cognitive Science Club will present Tom Sgouros's newest work,
entitled "Judy, or What Is It Like To Be A Robot?", tonight at 8:00 in
the Humanities Theatre. Admission is $5.
Dubbed "Rhode Island's leading performance artist" by the _Providence
Journal_, [7]Tom Sgouros has been lauded for his sharp wit and his
forte for creating intriguing theatre from unlikely subjects. Adding
new dimension to the term "solo performer", "Judy, or What Is It Like
To Be A Robot?" features Sgouros joined by his trusty robot Judy for a
live "solo dialogue". Described as "My Dinner With Android", Sgouros
and his robotic friend explore such themes as free will, stage magic,
imagination, and how you explain a chair to someone who can't sit down.
Over the past 10 years, Sgouros's innovative work has been flooring
critics across the East Coast. He began his solo performance career in
a very different venue as a tight rope-walker and silent clown. In
1990, drawing on experience as a writer and producer of documentary
films, he began performing a series of solo theater pieces --
monologues accompanied by video, sound, animated machines and props.
Since then he has written and performed seven solo shows. All of these
shows have premiered at Providence's Perishable Theatre. He and his
shows have toured all over the Eastern US, including limited runs in
New York and Boston. Tonight's performance is his Canadian premiere.
Water symposium is under way _-- from the UW media relations office_
The Canadian Water Network, headquartered at UW, is hosting [8]a
national symposium this week to bring together top Canadian
researchers, private industry, non-governmental organizations and
government departments to address critical water issues.
The event in Saint John, New Brunswick, will be held from Sunday
through Thursday. Called "Connecting Water Resources 2003," it's the
first national forum for CWN. Participants will include many of the
leaders on the front lines of research, water-related industry
sectors, government representatives from municipal to federal levels
(including five different federal departments), and non-governmental
organizations.
"This symposium provides an exciting chance to bring together in one
forum many important and relevant viewpoints on addressing Canada's
water concerns," said CWN board chair Bill Borland.
Grahame Farquhar, associate director of the CWN and a UW civil
engineering professor, added: "The symposium will provide a unique
opportunity to experience first-hand what is happening in
water-related research across Canada."
Keynote speakers today are Jim Irving, president of J.D. Irving, who
will talk about Forest Management and Aquatic Habitat Conservation;
Kim Jardine, New Brunswick minister of the environment and local
government; and Bob McDonald, science journalist and host of CBC
Radio's Quirks and Quarks.
Co-sponsors of the event are Environment Canada; Health Canada,
Natural Resources Canada; Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada; Fisheries
and Oceans Canada; the National Water Research Institute; New
Brunswick Environment and Local Government; City of Saint John, N.B.,
J.D. Irving, Limited; and the BC Centre for Disease Control.
Contributing partners are Zenon; Trojan Technologies; MWH Soft, Inc.;
and John Meunier/USFilter.
CWN involves more than 100 top investigators and collaborators from 30
research institutions across Canada along with partners from both the
private and public sector and several international organizations.
Research is underway on 28 projects within seven key theme areas:
policy and governance; water resources management; wastewater
management; water and public health; safe drinking water;
infrastructure; and groundwater and sediment: protection and
redemption.
The network was established through the Canadian government's Networks
of Centres of Excellence program.
[Rahman]
_Engineering student_ Shaz Rahman is getting ready to take part in the
Weekend to End Breast Cancer, scheduled for September: "Participants
are required to walk 60 kilometres over a two-day period. also, all
participants are required to raise a minimum of $2,000 in order to
participate." She'd like sponsors, who can sign up through [9]the
project's web site.
Some advice about facing exams
What should I actually be _doing_ when I'm studying?
How do I study for multiple choice exams?
How am I going to find 24 hours of study time for five exams? . . .
How can I cram efficiently? . . . How can I cover all the material and
not forget it all before the exam? . . . What if I'm so anxious I
can't study at all?
Those are the kinds of questions students have, exactly two weeks
before the beginning of winter term exams on April 7. They're also the
kinds of questions that study skills counsellors in UW's counselling
services answer all the time.
"As soon as the [10]final exam schedule is available," says Jeanette
Gascho in counselling, "we're available to meet with students for half
an hour and help them create a final exam study schedule. An
individually tailored schedule can take into account other assignments
due and the particular challenges unique to each student.
"Once students work through the process once, they're usually able to
do this themselves next time around. The emphasis is on breaking the
material into chunks, scheduling review time, and planning ahead. It's
a huge anxiety-reducer to know that you have a plan that's realistic
for you."
Now, here's her answer to one of those key questions: what should a
student actually be doing in the hours that are labelled "studying"?
"Practice taking the information out of your head in the same way
you'll be asked to do this on an exam. Use the same skill when
studying: if the exam format is calculations, don't spend your study
time reading theory -- spend it doing calculations. If it's an essay
exam, spend your study time making essay outlines, etc. For multiple
choice exams, there's a recommended approach for studying which helps
you practice working with the material and a test-taking approach that
cuts down on rationalizing."
Truck vs. truck vs. truck on Columbia
A green pickup truck belonging to UW's plant operations department is
"probably a writeoff" after a Friday morning collision, says Tom
Galloway, director of custodial and grounds services.
He said a member of the grounds crew was making a left turn from the
main campus onto Columbia Street about 6:45 a.m. and was "broadsided"
by another truck that was coming east on Columbia and apparently ran a
red light. The UW vehicle was knocked into two more trucks that were
waiting at the red in the westbound lanes.
"The driver is fine," Galloway said after the man was checked out at
K-W Hospital. Ironically, he was within minutes of finishing the last
night shift of this winter -- the grounds crew is back on a
daytime-only schedule as of today.
All four vehicles were towed away from the incident. Sergeant Wayne
Shortt of the UW police said the driver of the eastbound truck was
taken into custody by Waterloo Regional Police.
Some follow-ups and corrections
In [11]Friday's Daily Bulletin I referred to the recently created Park
Reilly Fund, "an endowment in memory of one of UW's first chemical
engineering faculty members". The words unfortunately -- but [Reilly]
wrongly -- implied that [12]Park M. Reilly _(right)_ was a name out of
the past, which is very much not the case. They also gave the
impression that he had been an earlier arrival at UW than he actually
was. "I came only in 1967," he reminded me on Friday. And although he
retired ("nominally") in 1988, _he's frequently on campus_ and is
still supervising a graduate student. As for the endowment, not in
memory but in honour, Reilly says he feels "a great deal of
satisfaction . . . I consider it a very great compliment that the
thing is set up during my lifetime!"
Also in Friday's Daily Bulletin, many readers will have seen the wrong
web link (URL) for the _Canadian Innovation Centre_, which is actually
to be found at [13]innovationcentre.ca. The centre -- originally a UW
project, but independent for some years now -- does assessments of the
commercial potential of new inventions.
Earlier in the week, describing UW's proposed budget for the coming
year, I referred to "top-up" money for two categories of scholarship
for graduate students. What I said was accurate as it concerns
scholarships from the federal granting councils: UW will be providing
extra funds to make it more attractive for the winners of those
scholarships, some of the country's top grad students, to choose
Waterloo. But it was less accurate as regards _Ontario Graduate
Scholarships_. What's happening there is not so much "top-up" as the
provision of funds from UW's central budget to make the compulsory
"matching" of government funds. "If an OGS holder's award is not
matched by the university, the student is not eligible for the
Ministry portion of the award," explains Sue Bray of the graduate
studies office. Currently that matching money has to be scratched up
from faculty and department budgets, and some units [14]have been
finding it tough to raise the money. To make sure UW doesn't miss out
on any OGS awards, the funding will now be provided from the central
budget.
[Against a taupe wall]
_Up against the wall:_ An exhibition of work by Marc Bauer-Maison --
"Harbingers of Spring: Watercolours and Prints" -- continues through
April 4 in the Renison College chapel lounge gallery. The exhibition
features 30 original watercolours and prints. Most of them feature
botanical and floral subjects and birds, with some landscapes.
Bauer-Maison, educated in France and with recent exhibitions in Paris
and in Canada, draws upon a rich experience of architectural drawing,
painting and photography. His current work suggests influences as
diverse as European and Chinese landscape painting, "the latter
reflected," a critic says, "in the delicacy of the fleeting object,
the transparency of watercolour, the calming presence of the unpainted
surface and the grace of the calligraphic flourish." His photographic
impressions of Ontario lakes and watercolours of botanical and floral
subjects were shown at earlier exhibitions at Renison in 1996 and
1998.
Events of today and the week
The UW _senate will meet today_ (4:30, Needles Hall room 3004) and
will be asked to approve the aforesaid university budget for 2003-04.
Also on the agenda: an update on last summer's famous agreement with
Microsoft Canada, an announcement of this year's Distinguished Teacher
Award winners, and approval of admission requirements for September 2004.
"It's TechWeek at TechWorx in the Student Life Centre," writes Noemia
Fernandes of the retail services department. "Company reps from will
be on hand from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily to answer customer questions
and showcase new products from their company's product line. Today,
get more information about _networking your home_. Our D-Link
representative will be on hand to discuss both wired and wireless
options available from TechWorx."
And here's a note from arts student Felix Yip: "On March 24-26, a
fellow student photographer, Chris Inch and myself will be hosting
[15]a photo exhibition call HOLGA Mania. The exhibition deals with the
theme of student life and we are using Holga, a _plastic medium format
toy camera_." The show will run from 10 to 6 today through Thursday,
with an opening event today at 5 p.m., all in the multipurpose room of
the Student Life Centre.
Marita Chidichimo of the department of _applied mathematics_ is the
noon-hour speaker today at the Kitchener Public Library main branch
downtown. Her topic: "Quantum Theory".
Several end-of-term concerts by UW music ensembles are scheduled for
this week, starting with a performance tonight by the _instrumental
chamber ensembles_. They'll play starting at 7 p.m. in the Conrad
Grebel University College chapel; admission is free.
Doug Payne of the information systems and technology department
announces that tomorrow morning and Thursday morning, "we will be
changing our external network connections for general Internet and
CA*net, respectively. These changes will occur between 07:00 and 08:00
in the morning. Outages are expected to be short, but could be as long
as 15 to 20 minutes if problems occur. We'll make every effort to keep
them as short as possible. Once the changes are complete, _our
Internet circuit will be increased_ to 40MBps from approximately
29Mbps, and our CA*net circuit will also be increased to 40Mbps from
approximately 6Mbps. Both circuits will move from an ATM connection
provided by ONet to an Ethernet connection via FibreTech and Hydro One
Telecom. These changes are interim measures to bridge the time between
the demise of ONet at the end of April and our pending connection to
the new provincial ORION network that's still under construction."
An information meeting about UW's new _Master of Business,
Entrepreneurship and Technology_ program will be held tomorrow at 4:30
in Davis Centre room 1304.
The UW _bookstore will be closed_ this Friday, Saturday and Monday for
renovations.
CAR
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[16]Communications and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1
(519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
www.bulletin.uwaterloo.ca | [17]Friday's Bulletin
Copyright ) 2003 University of Waterloo
References
1. http://www.uwaterloo.ca/
2. http://www.bulletin.uwaterloo.ca/2003/mar/21fr.html
3. http://www.bulletin.uwaterloo.ca/previous.html
4. http://www.bulletin.uwaterloo.ca/bulsearch.html
5. http://www.bulletin.uwaterloo.ca/aboutus.html
6. http://www.stoptb.org/world.tb.day/
7. http://sgouros.com/
8. http://www.cwn-rce-symposium.org/
9. http://www.endcancer.ca/
10. http://www.quest.uwaterloo.ca/undergraduate/finalexams.html
11. http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/bulletin/2003/mar/20th.html
12. http://cape.uwaterloo.ca/dept/personnel/reilly.htm
13. http://www.innovationcentre.ca/
14. http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/bulletin/2002/jun/13th.html
15. http://www.chrisinch.com/holga
16. http://www.communications.uwaterloo.ca/
17. http://www.bulletin.uwaterloo.ca/2003/mar/21fr.html