Daily News

posted on April 3: Board of Governors election for non-teaching staff seat begins today

An online election for a non-teaching staff representative on the Board of Governors begins today (Wednesday, April 3) at 9 a.m. and continues until 4:30 p.m., Friday, April 5. The elected member will serve a term from July 1, 2002 to June 30, 2005. Three members of the non-teaching staff have been nominated: Barbara Campbell, departmental manager, computing & information services; James McAndrew, reactor technologist, McMaster nuclear reactor; Dale Schenk, director, Centre for Continuing Education. Risumis for each candidate may be viewed at the Board of Governors election Web site at http://www.mcmaster.ca/bog/elections. Online voting is available at http://www.mcmaster.ca/bog/elections from any personal computer with internet access. Eligible voters who do not have access to the Web site may vote in the Board of Governors office (Room 115, University Hall), or in one of the following locations: Room B106, Gilmour Hall (staff lounge) Room B109, Kenneth Taylor Hall (staff lounge) Room 2238, Burke Science Building (staff lounge) Room 273, A.N. Bourns Science Building (staff lounge) Room B101B, Commons Building (Hospitality Services)--between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. All locations, except the Commons building, require a pass, code or key for entry. Any questions regarding the election or voting process may be directed to the Board of Governors office at ext. 24370. (End of story)

posted on April 4: New Canada Research Chairs study nanostructured materials, bioinformatics

Nanotechnology and bioinformatics will be the focus of research by McMaster's two newest Canada Research Chairs. The two new chairholders, Gianluigi A. Botton and Brian Golding, bring McMaster's total of Canada Research Chairs to 30. Botton, an associate professor in the Faculty of Engineering, is the Canada Research Chair in Electron Microscopy of Nanostructured Materials. Botton will use TEM/EELS technology to achieve three goals: improve techniques to detect signals from few atomic layers at interfaces and nanostructures; develop models to describe the analytical data in terms of structure and bonding changes; and describe the relationships between the observations and the properties of the materials. Golding, a biology professor in the Faculty of Science, is the Canada Research Chair in Bioinformatics. Bioinformatics is a new, multi-disciplinary field combining biology, computer science and mathematics to analyze data generated by genomics and to extract knowledge from it. The long-term objectives of Golding's research program are to determine the patterns and mechanisms of molecular evolution and influences of the natural processes of mutation, gene transfer, and selection on sequence evolution. The federal government allocatted $900 million to the Canada Research Chairs program in 2000 to help Canadian universities attract and retain the best researchers and achieve excellence in natural sciences and engineering, health sciences, social sciences and the humanities. The goal is to have 2,000 chairholders in place by 2005. To date, 532 chairholders have been awarded. Sixty of the chairholders represent a "brain gain" as they have either come to Canada from the U.S. or overseas or returned home to pursue their research. (End of story)

posted on April 1: Faculty ratify new three-year agreement

Faculty at McMaster have ratified a new three-year contract. Of those members who voted, 98 per cent were in favour of the salary and compensation package which provides annual wage increases of three per cent in each year of the agreement. The current agreement expires on June 30. The agreement was ratified by McMaster's 768 tenured faculty on March 28. The audited vote results were released today. The agreement runs from July 1, 2002 to June 30, 2005. Acting University President Peter Sutherland said the contract provides stability and predictability for the University and its faculty and students. McMaster University Faculty Association president Tom Davison is pleased with the ballot results. "Our remuneration committee thought this was an excellent agreement for our members and the result shows the members agreed. We've improved salaries across the board and adjusted the Career/Progress Merit system to make it a better mechanism to reward individual faculty excellence. It's a good deal for the University, too, in that it provides a basis for planning through the period of the double cohort and higher enrolments generally."