Campus Life
The next time you wake up to a raging blizzard, reach for your radio before reaching for your snow shovel (or an extra quilt, or a cup of cocoa). Memorial relies on local radio stations to get the news out when classes are cancelled due to inclement weather. When a class has to be cancelled on the St. John's campus — for a storm or any other reason — professors should contact departmental offices, which should then contact the Division of University Relations at 737-8665. University Relations uses a code when informing radio stations of class cancellations so that bogus information won't be accepted. In St. John's, the decision to close or cancel all classes in wintry weather is made in consultation with Memorial's president. Some factors which influence the decision are whether the City of St. John's has declared a state of emergency and whether public transportation is still operating. If bad weather results in classes being cancelled at Memorial — including the Marine Institute — the information is provided to St. John's radio stations CHMR FM at Memorial, VOCM/ VOFM, CBC Radio, OZ FM, and Q Radio/KIXX Country. Students at Memorial's St. John's campus can also listen to these stations to find out about classes cancelled for other reasons. When stormy weather strikes Sir Wilfred Grenfell College in Corner Brook — though class cancellations for this reason are rare — Dennis Waterman, director of Administration and Finance, makes the call, in consultation with the nearby College of the North Atlantic. When in doubt, SWGC students should tune in to Corner Brook radio stations CFCB, KIXX Country, or CBC Radio.
MI folks raise funds for Canadian Cancer Society Volunteers from the Marine Institute were hustling and bustling during November as visions of Christmas tree decorations danced in their heads. MI folks spent countless hours hand-making decorations for their tree in the Canadian's Cancer Society's Festival of Trees event. All decorations were crafted to represent images of partnerships. The hard work of volunteers resulted in a donation of $750 when the tree was auctioned in early December.
When thinking about people at the Marine Institute, Barry Hanlon frequently comes to mind. Barry is often the first person to greet visitors to the hill; and he's regularly seen on main campus, bringing packages here and there while spreading his devious cheer. Barry Hanlon works within Technical Services at the Marine Institute. Unofficially, he's jack, um, Barry of all trades. Barry has been with the Marine Institute for 15 years. In addition to his daily routine of managing the MI mail, and helping to keep MI facilities organized, he's gained quite a reputation with special events. He has the innate ability to scrounge, beg and borrow from unsuspecting victims all over town to get the items he needs to add perfection to these events. For Barry, the highlight of special events is meeting the participants. "MI is the location for a lot of conferences, seminars and forums. Many of them are international in focus," Barry told The Communicator. "I really enjoy meeting the delegates from around the world." To keep relevant in his role as shipper/receiver, Barry recently completed courses related to the regulation and transportation of dangerous goods. The courses were delivered by the International Air Transport Association air transport), and Occupational Heath and Safety (ground transport). As well as being vice president of MI's support staff local for NAPE, president of MI's social club, and MI's fire marshall, Barry is involved with a number of committees: occupational health and safety, labour management, and the Board of Regents' sub-committee on pensions. Outside the office, Barry keeps quite busy. He's a volunteer with Canadian Blood Services, Big Brothers - Big Sisters Association of St. John's, and the Canadian Cancer Society. He also likes to bowl, go to movies and read novels.
E-mail addresses at Grenfell have changed For those of you who are wondering, Grenfell College has indeed gone through a name change with respect to e-mail addresses. The Department of Computing and Communications has not removed the extension beothuk —– it still works and will continue to work in the foreseeable future. "What we have done at the present time is added an entry for just swgc.mun.ca as well," says Randy Rowsell, director of Computing and Communications. "Any new accounts will just have swgc.mun.ca created. Any existing as of September will have both. What we have done is asked people to start using only swgc.mun.ca for correspondence in the future so that eventually we can eliminate beothuk totally, maybe in a year or two when everybody has the new address out to their contacts." Mr. Rowsell said the reasons for changing the address were very simple. The change reduces the length of the e-mail address, adds a measure of security by not including the mail server name within the address, and makes moving mail function to another server easier in the event of a component failure.
…… Dear Campus Community: On behalf of myself and my sister's family, I would like to thank the university community for their generosity in supporting the fund-raisers recently held on campus to raise money for my 13-year-old niece, Michelle Dinn. Michelle has made two trips to the Sick Children's Hospital in Toronto, for assessment and surgery for a brain tumor. In January 2000, she will again be returning to Toronto for an extended period to undergo intensive treatment. I would also like to thank Roxanne Rideout Scott, Student Affairs and Services, for her hard work in organizing these fund-raisers. Sincerely, Cathy Murphy
The new tax rates listed below will come into effect with the Jan. 13, 2000, payroll. Employees who were at the maximum pensionable earnings for Canada Pension Plan (CPP) will see their 2000 contribution increase by $143.40 to $1,329.90. The maximum premium Employment Insurance for 2000 has dropped $58.50 to $936.00. Employees who had reached the maximum CPP and EI premiums in 1999 will notice that with this first pay of 2000, these deductions have started again and will continue until their maximum contributions have been reached.
The university administration and the Memorial University Faculty Association commenced bargaining on Oct. 4, 1999. Both sides presented a fairly extensive list of proposed changes to the 1996-99 collective agreement. To date, 16 bargaining sessions have been held and two articles have been completed. In addition, there are a good number of individual clauses within other articles on which agreement has been reached. Neither side has presented a proposal yet on salaries. In mid-December, bargaining moves to Grenfell College where some issues particular to Grenfell will be discussed. The tone of the negotiations thus far has been positive.
In May 1999 the university approved a policy allowing for the recognition of prior Memorial and provincial government service for vacation entitlement. Some 150 applications were received within the first two weeks of the policy being announced. Each application requires an audit of the personal file. In some cases an employee can have 20 separate contracts of employment, each of which must be evaluated against the policy criteria. The applications are being processed in the order in which they were received and as time permits. Employees will be notified as their application is assessed.
Y2K and your desktop PC The purpose of this article is to provide you with a brief background on the Y2K issue as it relates to your desktop PC, point you to a source of further information, and to recommend an action plan to assist you in resolving any issues that could arise in January 2000. Most governments, institutions, businesses and corporations have been focused on their Y2K issues for a number of years. This activity has created an acceptable level of comfort that our major infrastructures such as the banking, hydro and telephone sectors will be unaffected. Of course, it would be foolhardy to suggest there will be absolutely no disruptions, but most believe that these disruptions will be minor in nature, especially in North America. Similarly, at Memorial, there has been a rigorous effort to address the problem. In March 1998 a coordinating group was formed to oversee Memorial's efforts. The group, comprised of representatives from all areas of the university, established a process to assess the scope of the Y2K issues at Memorial. The results of this assessment permitted the group to focus on critical systems and to track the status of all of Memorial's Y2K issues. The group has now moved to the issue of contingency planning. Memorial's efforts can be viewed in detail at www.mun.ca/year2000 . This comprehensive Web site has gained recognition from other institutions in Canada and is an invaluable reference for Memorial's desktop PC users. There is good news and bad news for the desktop PC user. The good news is that a majority of personal computers have minor Y2K issues and that they can be resolved easily and without significant cost. The bad news is that a majority of personal computers will require some corrective action to function properly after Jan. 1, 2000, especially Windows-based personal computers. There are problems in two categories: hardware and software. The hardware issue relates to the retention of the current date and time in your personal computer. Most personal computers in operation today (estimated to be 99.9 per cent) will retain a year 2000 date but will not make the transition from Dec. 31, 1999 to Jan. 1, 2000 properly. These computers will require a one-time date setting after Jan. 1, 2000. Software applications, including the operating system, are likely to have Y2K issues, usually minor, that will require a software "patch" or update. Memorial's Web site (URL noted above) contains a comprehensive list of the software patches for the most common software applications. The University of California, Berkley has created an excellent source of information at http://y2k.berkeley.edu:7040/computers/fixpcs/. So what are the specific actions that a desktop PC user should undertake? The following list is not exhaustive, but should prepare you for Y2K.
Best wishes for the new year. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||