Daily News

January 26, 2001

Thanks for helping us celebrate the Daily New's first birthday. Here's a sampling of comments and best wishes received: “The Daily News has been a . . .

January 26, 2001

Provost Harvey Weingarten will meet the McMaster community next Friday, Feb. 2 to discuss and answer questions about issues raised in his State of the Academy address presented on Wednesday. "I have been approached by more than a handful of people who attended the State of the Academy talk expressing disappointment that there was no opportunity to ask questions, or to discuss some of the issues raised during the presentation," said Weingarten. "This is very encouraging as it suggests that the presentation was sufficiently informative or entertaining to retain people's interest and attention." The question and answer session pertaining to the State of the Academy address will be in HSC-1A1 from 2:45 p.m. to 4 p.m. Weingarten will have his slides from the presentation available. "I look forward to seeing you there," said Weingarten, provost and vice-president academic. A story summarizing Weingarten's presentation from Wednesday, Jan. 24 is posted on the Daily News. The headline is "Campus must embrace change to manage growth, meet challenges". (End of story)

January 25, 2001

McMaster must embrace change, while recognizing the challenges now are to manage growth, not cope with downsizing, provost Harvey Weingarten says. In his fifth annual State of the Academy address given yesterday (Jan. 24), Weingarten said success in an era of growth requires different strategies and actions than in periods of downsizing like the mid-1990s when the provincial government made dramatic funding cuts to universities. Weingarten said the University needs to change for several reasons: * increased student enrolment due to the "double cohort" Class of 2003; * increased faculty retirements; * different student expectations; * competition from non-traditional education providers; and * the increased complexity of the university environment. Full-time undergraduate enrolment in 1980 was about 10,000, he said, but by 2003 it is projected to be almost 15,500. This increase in the student population will be coupled with an increase in faculty retirements: by 2011, about 250 of the 1,000 full-time faculty will reach retirement age. Weingarten said the University has been in the hire a "prof-a-week" mode for the last two years and must continue to do so to replenish the faculty complement. In 1999, 76 faculty were hired and 57 were hired last year. McMaster is conducting 107 active faculty searches now.

January 25, 2001

The President's Awards demonstrate the value McMaster attaches to its educational function and recognize those who, through innovation and commitment, have significantly enhanced the quality . . .

January 24, 2001

The Daily News celebrates its first year of operation today! Want to celebrate with us? Send a birthday greeting.

January 24, 2001

In the Jan. 20 issue of the Hamilton Spectator, education reporter Christine Cox outlines McMaster's plans to establish a guaranteed salary for PhD students. To . . .

January 23, 2001

Researchers at McMaster will receive more than $1.5-million for seven research projects funded under the Canada Foundation for Innovation's New Opportunities Program. The new funding was announced yesterday by CFI president David Strangway. For details about McMaster's awards,

January 23, 2001

"Self-Service Technology (SST) Use by Business-to-Business: Drivers of Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction." By Erica Ainsworth, Business. Supervisor: Ashish Pujari. "Paleo-histomorphometry: Methodology and Application to Age-at-Death Estimation in Archaeological Bone Samples." By Patrick Beauchesne, Social Sciences. Supervisor: Shelley Saunders. "Feminists Reading Sade: Beauvoir, Carter, Benjamin, and the Intersubjective Meaning of His Work." Robin Chamberlain, Humanities. Supervisor: Joseph Adamson. "Directing Actions at Visual Illusions: Planning, Control, and Memory." By Cheryl Glazebrook, Social Sciences. Supervisor: Digby Elliott. "Duopolies with Advance Production and Posted Prices or Market Clearing Prices." By David Goodwin, Social Sciences. Supervisor: Stuart Mestelman. "Use of Free Samples in Interactive Advertising." By Alexander Grey, Business. Supervisor: Maureen Hupfer. "Community Morality and the Charter: A Defense of Judicial Review." By Sarah Halsted, Humanities. Supervisor: William Waluchow. "Identifying and Interpreting Glass Artifacts in Archaeology: Expedient Tool Technology at a NorthWest Coast Tsimshian Site." By Irena Jurakic, Social Sciences. Supervisor: Andrew Martindale. "Social Capital, Social Cohesion, Gender, Health and Lower Income Neighbourhoods in Hamilton." By Shoshannah Levitt, Social Sciences. Supervisor: Tina Moffatt. "Annotating Bertrand Russell's Papers on China." By Andrea Pasztor, Humanities. Supervisor: Nicholas Griffin.

January 22, 2001

The Michael G. DeGroote School of Business is one of the top 100 business schools in the world, according to the Financial Times MBA 2001 survey published today. The school ranked 80th overall and placed sixth out of nine among Canadian schools ranked. This is the first year McMaster participated in the survey. The School of Business exhibited a strong showing when the data is broken down: * McMaster placed first among the Canadian entries in the "placement success" category with a score of 93 per cent. The "placement success" category is defined as the percentage of 1997 alumni that gained employment with the help of career advice; * As well, 43 per cent of the school's students were female when the study was conducted, another first-place ranking. * The school placed second among the Canadian universities in the international mobility category. It is defined as a rating system that measures the school with the most internationally mobile alumni based on the movements of 1997 graduates.

January 22, 2001

The 2001 Friends of Distinction awards were presented at halftime of the men's basketball game during Marauder Weekend Jan. 19-21. Presented annually, these awards honour . . .

January 22, 2001

The McMaster Museum of Art begins the new year with “Sanctified/Soul Art,” an exhibition of paintings, sculpture, photographs and altarpieces by Vancouver-based, Hamilton-born artist Jan . . .

January 21, 2001

The move by the McMaster Centre for Dance to offer dance classes that focus on popular culture is proving to be a very successful one, given the attendance at several recent performances. Shows presented by a variety of McMaster dancers, at Robinson Memorial Theatre and at Hamilton Place, were staged in front of full houses, a sign that dance is alive and well in Hamilton. Over 275 people attended the end-of-term Amalgam dance production shown in Robinson Memorial Theatre on Dec. 2 and 3. They enjoyed a diverse program featuring the McMaster Dancers, the McMaster Hip Hop Dance Company, the Jedi Ninja Crew & Affiliates (break dancing) and the Inner City Ballet. And last week the dance club's Centre Stage show, featuring belly to ballet and beginners and experts, resulted in two sold-out shows at Hamilton Place. "There are about a dozen 12-year-olds from the Westdale area taking hip hop, and we had one 11-year-old taking break classes."

January 19, 2001

Oceans cover 80 per cent of the Earth's surface, but we know surprisingly little about how oceans influence world weather patterns. McMaster geologist Mike Risk expects to fathom some answers through a new research project that will study deep-sea corals. "The corals are like the Rosetta stones of the sea," says Risk. "They are an untapped record of weather patterns that stretch back hundreds of years. Revealing the climatic records will bring new accuracy to the science of weather forecasting and will also create a new bank of information about how the oceans process carbon dioxide, which is a key factor in global warming." "The reason the present climate models don't work as well as they should is that most of the observations are on land, and most of the action, the driving force of climate change, is in the ocean. We need to know more about what happens in the deep sea, and the corals provide a clear record of what has happened over the centuries. Comparing the coral data to recorded weather patterns will provide new insight into past weather patterns and future climate modelling."

January 19, 2001

University provost and vice-president academic Harvey Weingarten presents his 2001 State of the Academy address " Whither McMaster? Managing Our Growth for 2003 -- The Double Cohort Year" today (Jan. 24) from 12:30 p.m. to 1:20 p.m.in HSC-1A1. McMaster is planning to receive a double cohort of students who will graduate from Ontario high schools in the year 2003. This double cohort is part of a larger demographic increase in the number of 18-24 year-old students seeking admission to university. The provost will talk about why the way we do things at McMaster must change, the direction of these changes, and the capacity of McMaster to change sufficiently, to meet the challenges of the double cohort. Success stories that should make one optimistic about McMaster's future will be provided. All members of the University and Hamilton communities are welcome. In previous talks, the provost has discussed the academic duties of the professoriate and issues relating to institutional renewal. His 1999 talk on the professoriate is located at www.mcmaster.ca/newsevents/state99.htm and his 2000 talk on institutional renewal was distributed to faculty and staff in the summer. (END OF STORY)

January 18, 2001

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/MarvinRyder.jpg” caption=”Marvin Ryder”]Marvin Ryder, assistant vice-president, information services & technology, will chair the new board of directors for the Hamilton Health Sciences Corporation . . .

January 17, 2001

The Centre for Leadership in Learning invites applications for grants in support of projects designed to improve the quality of students' learning at McMaster. Eligibility: McMaster instructors, teaching assistants, students, or departments may apply, singly or in groups. Criteria: 1. The key criterion for these grants is that the project should improve the quality of students' learning. The project should deal with an identified learning problem and the application should describe the evidence that led the applicant to decide that this was the problem. 2. Projects involving applied educational research are acceptable. This is defined as research whose purpose is to determine how students in a particular class or course can learn more or more effectively. It does not extend to theoretical studies. 3. The CLL does not fund projects that involve normal instructional tasks such as updating course content, preparing bibliographies, etc. 4. The grant fund is intended to provide seed money and not to support ongoing expenses. Preference will be given to projects that receive tangible support from the department or faculty and, as far as possible, are assured of continuing support. Application Procedure: Applications for grants up to $1,000 may be submitted at any time. The completed application form should be submitted to the Centre for Leadership in Learning, GSB-217. A response will be provided within two weeks. The deadline for the next round of applications for grants of over $1,000 is Feb. 28, 2001.

January 17, 2001

The McMaster Courier is moving to a monthly publication schedule effective Jan. 15. The decision to change to a monthly format from its current bi-weekly . . .

January 16, 2001

Since 1998, a small group of McMaster faculty members from across numerous disciplines have been meeting on a regular basis to discuss topics and issues . . .

January 16, 2001

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Kit_Michelle_Kathy.jpg”]It's a fact of life in the entertainment industry – no schmooze, you lose. So, humanities students jumped at the chance to do . . .

January 16, 2001

The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) is calling on the provincial government to provide more funding to ease a pressing faculty shortage at Ontario universities. "Ontario needs 15,000 more professors in order to meet student demand for higher education," said Henry Jacek, OCUFA president and a professor of political science at McMaster. "And we need to hire now or face a worsening faculty shortage crisis." OCUFA released a research paper this week, titled "Less Isn't More: Ontario's Faculty Shortage Crisis", that highlights the faculty shortage problem. The group is also hosting a one-day conference Jan. 26 that will examine the crisis. "The government has known for years that the number of faculty at Ontario universities is far below what is needed to deal with the growing demand for higher education. We are now faced with a faculty shortage crisis. And while the government uses the rhetoric of investing in students', it has not provided the funding needed to hire faculty who are critical to student learning and to maintaining a world-class system of excellence in education in the province," said Jacek.