Alumni

On March 6, 2020, Arts hosted its Three Minute Thesis (3MT) faculty-level heat and advanced Psychology PhD candidate Martin Turpin (first place winner and People's Choice winner) and Psychology master's student Sarena (second place winner) to the university-wide finals. While that university-wide final is now being held virtually, this doesn't mean our Arts graduate student competitors don't need your support. 

Serena McDiarmid, a PhD candidate in Psychology, has been recognized with the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship for her incredible research proposal titled “Supporting second language acquisition of Canada’s child refugees: a longitudinal study of risk and protective factors for language learning success.”

Janet Jones, a PhD candidate in Philosophy has been recognized for her wonderful dissertation work titled “It Probably Won’t Help Anyway: How Stigma Hurts Health Care Access for Persons with an Addiction” and is the recipient of the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship for her work.

When he was an undergraduate in Winnipeg, Harrison Oakes (MA ’16, PhD '20) witnessed the difficulty of promoting change for marginalized groups when he sat in on hearings for Manitoba’s proposed Bill 18. People argued that they couldn’t see how the legislation for anti-bullying to protect LGBTQ+ youth applied to all kids. Seven years later, Oakes’ doctoral research helps to answer that question.

The Faculty of Arts proudly celebrates all graduates (more than 1,400 of them!) who would have been walking across the stage to receive their diploma's this week. As part of our virtual spring 2020 convocation celebrations, we warmly congratulate the distinguished undergraduates receiving top performance awards. 

In our work and interactions, we need to be conscious of and proactively challenge white privilege and colonial structures. We need to continuously strive to create an equal, fair and welcoming learning environment for everyone.

Since the COVID-19 lockdown, the University of Waterloo has released a steady stream of media advisories with Waterloo experts on all aspects of the pandemic -- and many of these feature experts in the Faculty of Arts. Last week included a Q and A with Joel Blit on re-starting the economy, and this week includes a Q and A with Mikal Skuterud on labour data, CERB, and jobs.

As Italy plans to slowly ease the country’s seven-week lockdown, Arts alum Esmeralda da Conceicaoshares her experiences of living in the northern city of Bologna before and during the pandemic. "I would like Canadians reading this story to feel solidarity by uniting as a community." 

During this extraordinary time of physical distancing in our community, new measures have been established to shift academia to online delivery. One of the most important milestones for PhD students is their in-person dissertation defence, which represents the culmination of years of hard work and dedication to their research.

Graduate students from English, Fine Arts, History, Philosophy, Psychology, Theological Studies and Sociology convened Friday, March 6th for the annual Arts Three Minute Thesis (3MT) heat. Audience members learned about the engaging and illuminating graduate research happening in the Faculty of Arts firsthand from many of our impressive graduate students.