Summer 2018 issue

» Doug Peers, Dean of Arts

With the new student orientation just two weeks over the horizon, I find myself in the all too familiar and depressing situation of wondering what happened to the summer, even though I always look forward to the start of the new academic year.

There are new students and new faculty to welcome, the rolling out of the Arts First program, which made me the envy of my fellow deans at our national meeting, and I am near giddy at the thought of a functioning (usually) elevator in the Hub. Our enrolments for the fall look good (especially from international students), our colleagues have done very well in recent research competitions, and Senate has approved the creation of a new school, the renaming of a department, and a new constitution for the Faculty

But I can’t help but look at the To-Do list on my desk that is silently admonishing me. It has been thirty years since I first took up an academic appointment and I still overestimate what I can manage to do in the summer. The fence still needs fixing, an annoying leak in the roof continues to baffle me, I am overdue on a book review and a manuscript assessment, and that brilliant article on Hemorrhoids, Colonial Medicine and the Indian Cavalry I have been planning to write remains a figment of my overambitious and perhaps overactive imagination. I do however have the title: “Piles of Troubles and Troubles with Piles: Penetrating Insights into Proctology and the Indian Cavalry – Hard Facts and the Real History from Below.” I did manage to get in a week in my happy place (aka the British Library where not even the sweaty conditions of the London Underground in heatwave dampened my enthusiasm at finding yet more 19^th century courts martial to ponder), and saw some great plays at Stratford.

The big challenge this summer was getting everything in place for the launch of Arts First. I am grateful to all the faculty and staff who stepped up to the challenge and worked so hard to recruit in short order so many promising new colleagues and assist in helping them get their footing here on campus. We continue to look to develop new programs and courses that build upon not only our longstanding strengths at Waterloo but also tap into the new possibilities opened up by the many new hires across the Faculty.

» Arts communications

It was a running joke for over a year — because it wasn't running at all.

As you know, the Hagey Hall Hub opened for the start of the new school year in 2016, minus a working elevator. In the many months that followed, the fate of the great glass elevator remained a mystery.

Until Arts Convocation this June, that is. In what can now be considered a case of "famous last words", our dean called out the infamous elevator in his address to students.

“I have also been hoping — perhaps unreasonably — that the elevator in the Hagey Hub would be working by the time you graduated. Sadly, the latter hope has not been realized,” Doug Peers joked. “Please bear in mind that I am a historian, not an engineer, and there is very little I can personally bring to the situation."

We're still not sure how it happened, but the elevator was up and running the next day. (A special thank you to Plant Operations and the elevator experts!) Let's hope for smooth running with plenty of ups and downs in the Hub this fall term.

Just in case you need proof: