During my recent visits to campus residences, students also shared their views on campus food services and restaurants. Below are the answers to their questions.

Improving food quality

We’re working with Food Services to improve value for quality when it comes to food services, as well as the overall quality of the products available.

In addition, since last fall, the University Centre’s Jazzy restaurant has expanded its services by offering breakfasts, lunch-time meals, dinners and weekend brunches at affordable prices.

Business hours

To meet the needs of students whose classes end after campus food outlets close down for the day, we’ve launched a pilot project that will see the outlet at 90 University remain open 24/7 until the end of the current session.

Menu variety

Menus are on a three-week cycle during the year to provide the University community with varied meal selections. More improvements are slated over the coming weeks, including some at the pasta counter.

Food Services online

Consult this site for regular updates on business hours and menus.

This past weekend, both our men’s and women’s basketball teams did us proud, playing their hearts out against very tough competition. I attended the women’s game on Saturday against the University of Windsor Lancers, and although the Lancers prevailed, our team mounted a valiant effort. The men’s match-up against  Carleton on Saturday night was even closer, as a great rivalry continued to build steam.

Our teams are both in the nationals next weekend, with the men playing at home on Saturday. I have to be out of the country, but will be following the games closely. I hope that many of you can attend on Saturday to cheer the Gee-Gee’s on!

March 8 is International Women’s Day. Check out Making History, Building Futures, a website we created to mark the 90th anniversary of women  beginning to attend the University of Ottawa.

Today’s numbers show that women are taking their rightful place as equal contributors to the success of this University. Women now account for 38% of our faculty (a percentage that has been growing steadily in recent years) and 61% of our administrative staff. At the undergraduate level, women make up 61% of the student population, and they represent 57% at the graduate level.

Our institution is committed to advancing gender equality, and I take this occasion to salute all those women who make uOttawa a place of distinction, of scholarly excellence and of innovative thinking.

The Board of Governors has instructed us to prepare and present a balanced budget for the 2010-2011 fiscal year (the University’s fiscal year runs from May 1 to April 30). This means of course, that our spending must equal revenues and no more.

Over the last several months, a Steering Committee led by Professor David Zussman met with faculties, services, student associations and campus unions to look for ways to reduce spending and increase revenues without compromising our key priority: namely, the quality of teaching and campus life for our students.

The Steering Committee reported in late January, and I circulated the report as soon as I received it, along with a request for comments by mid-February. We have now received many useful comments and suggestions — a sincere thanks to all of you who took the time and trouble to respond. I hope this week to meet with representatives of campus unions and student associations to hear their views in greater detail.

Together, we are going to have to determine the best way to balance the budget while meeting our responsibilities to our students. I have to tell you that the task is not easy. The only consolation is that we seem to be in much better shape than most other Canadian universities. This is a difficult time for postsecondary education in Canada, given that our most important sources of financing (namely governments) are facing sizable deficits of their own and are under considerable pressure to control or reduce spending.

My senior management team (which includes Deans from all the Faculties) are working very hard on this challenge. I will keep you posted on developments as they occur.

I spent last week in Japan, leading the Canadian contingent at a meeting of an international research network that focuses on neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. The University of Ottawa is a key member of the research network, which also includes outstanding scientists from the National Research Council, IBM Canada, and other high-tech companies in Canada and Germany. The principal researchers at the University of Ottawa are Dr. William Staines and Dr. Anthony Krantis of our Centre for Research in Biopharmaceuticals and Biotechnology (CRBB).

We met last week with Japanese government ministries, industry leaders and our research partners. We visited Shiga University of Medical Science and the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. At Shiga, I signed a Memorandum of Understanding between our two universities that provides, among other things, student mobility through exchanges. For the moment, the agreement applies only to medical students, but it may be broadened in the future to include nursing and other health sciences.

I was enormously impressed by the world-class quality of the work being done by Dr. Krantis and his colleagues at the CRBB. They are truly creating hope in the urgent struggle to find better methods of diagnosis and treatment for diseases of the brain. Given Canada’s current demographics (including your rapidly aging President…) it is projected that the burden of neurodegenerative disease in the coming years will be very substantial. It is all the more important that our scientists find better ways to detect and manage those diseases and eventually perhaps even to cure them.