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Critical Tech Talk Popup - The Last Best Place on the Internet: Wikipedia's Role in an AI World

Elizabeth Rogers — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 13:56:11 +0000

Critical Tech Talk Popup - The Last Best Place on the Internet: Wikipedia's Role in an AI World Elizabeth Rogers Mon, 2026-06-08 - 09:56

Join the Critical Media Lab for this virtual Critical Tech Talk which kicks off a series of three Wikipedia Edit-a-thons (Spring 2026, Fall 2026, and Winter 2027). No experience is necessary, just an interest in open content and wiki-editing. Attendees are welcome to register and join only the Critical Tech Talk or sign up for the edit-a-thon as well. The edit-a-thon is facilitated by Wikimedia Canada administrator and 2024 Wikimedian of the Year, Hannah Clover. Coffee will be provided.

About the Critical Tech Talk

Wikipedia, the world's largest online encyclopedia, has long been a major reference resource for many. With more and more people utilizing AI summaries and large language models like ChatGPT, where does Wikipedia fit in? This talk will explore Wikipedia's current place in the digital landscape as well as its relationship with automation and LLMs.

When: 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Where: MC 2065 and Online via Zoom (Hybrid event)

About the Edit-a-thon

This first workshop will focus on introducing Wikipedia editing (no experience necessary). Participants will collectively edit one existing article in an effort to improve the world’s most comprehensive free online encyclopedia. Participants are asked to bring their own computing devices for editing and may also optionally bring secondary research they'd like to refer to when editing. This workshop (and the subsequent series) is open to all students, faculty, and staff.

When: 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Where: ECH 1205 (In-person only)

About the speakers

Chelsea Chiovelli is a librarian by trade and holds both a Master of Library and Information Studies and a Bachelor of Science in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology from the University of Alberta. Following a grad school assignment, Chelsea began contributing to Wikipedia in 2023. While working at the University of Alberta Library, she gained an appreciation for the intersections between libraries, free knowledge, and the Wikimedia Movement that was further compounded after attending Wikimania 2023. In her role as Program Officer, Chelsea hopes to engage institutions and communities to promote free knowledge as well as support Wikimedians across Canada.

Hannah Clover is an avid Wikipedian based in Hamilton, Ontario. She began editing Wikipedia articles in high school, leading to her first one being featured on the main page’s “Did You Know?” section. Hannah has performed extensive product testing regarding the mobile editing experience, and started a research project where she interviewed more than 300 Wikipedians about their motivations in contributing to the website. In 2023, she became an administrator at Wikimedia Canada and in 2024, was recognized as the youngest ever Wikimedian of the Year. Hannah is now on a mission to facilitate Wikipedia edit-a-thons at various institutions all across Ontario.

About the respondent

Mélika S. Hashemi is a PhD student in English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo. Her current research-creation practice engages with copper, using a metallurgical approach to forge techno-alchemical analogy-metaphors for our data-driven world. Mélika is the co-curator of In Search of a Loss of Self (with Soheila Esfahani), co-author of O Lone Traveller (with Shirin Fahimi), and course author of Digital Spirituality (University of Waterloo). Most recently, she was a Rungh Wikipedia Scholar through the Critical Media Lab.

Moderator:

Dr. Marcel O'Gorman, University Research Chair, professor of English, and founding director of the Critical Media Lab (CML), University of Waterloo. Professor O'Gorman leads collaborative design projects and teaches courses and workshops in critical media studies and responsible innovation. He has published widely about the impacts of technology on society, and he has an international portfolio of exhibitions and performances.

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2026 Arts Awards for Excellence in Service, Teaching and Research!

Elizabeth Rogers — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 20:20:04 +0000

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2026 Arts Awards for Excellence in Service, Teaching and Research! Elizabeth Rogers Tue, 2026-06-02 - 16:20

Dean Alexie Tcheuyap and the Arts Honours and Awards committee are very pleased to share the results of the 2026 Arts Awards for Excellence in Service, Teaching, and Research. The committee received many nominations demonstrating the outstanding contributions of faculty and staff – congratulations to all on being recommended for this distinction by colleagues!

The 2026 Arts Awards will be presented this Fall at our annual Celebration of Arts event.

Join us in congratulating this year's recipients of the Arts Awards!

Excellence in Service

Tanraj Dulai, Undergraduate Student
Jennifer Whitson, Sociology & Legal Studies
Scarlett van Berkel, French Studies
Wendy Philpott, Dean of Arts Office

The Arts Award for Excellence in Service recognizes a high-impact initiative that goes substantially beyond the usual standard of excellence that benefits an individual’s unit or peers, the Faculty of Arts, or the broader university community, and/or a record of exemplary service within the last five years.

Excellence in Teaching

Daniel Smilek, Psychology
Nancy Vanden Bosch, School of Accounting and Finance

The Arts Award for Excellence in Teaching recognizes exemplary teaching within the last five years over different levels and course sizes, new and varied approaches related to course development, structure and delivery; and/or mentoring colleagues and graduate students that promotes better teaching.

Excellence in Research

Alexander Lanoszka, Political Science
Galen Watts, Sociology & Legal Studies
Igor Grossmann, Psychology
Shana MacDonald, Communication Arts

The Arts Award for Excellence in Research recognizes exemplary research within the last five years in comparison to peers at the same career stage; quantity and quality of research contributions in the context of the discipline; grant success; disciplinary or interdisciplinary impact; leadership in research teams, networks/centres; and/or impact in communicating research findings to non-academic audiences.

2026 Lupina Foundation Postdoctoral Research Showcase

Elizabeth Rogers — Thu, 28 May 2026 13:25:24 +0000

2026 Lupina Foundation Postdoctoral Research Showcase Elizabeth Rogers Thu, 2026-05-28 - 09:25

Please join this special Faculty of Arts research presentation featuring our current Lupina Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellows. Now in its fifth year, this postdoctoral program is generously sponsored by the Lupina Foundation and supports the best and brightest researchers addressing the social determinants of health.

Meet the speakers

Dr. Trent N. Cash, Lupina Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 2025-27

Every year, millions of Canadians make complex medical decisions that require them to balance the pros and cons of multiple courses of action. To make good decisions and communicate their preferences to others, decision makers must understand their own decision-making processes. In this talk, I will share data from a series of studies exploring the accuracy of decision makers’ beliefs about how they make health-relevant decisions, such as which doctor to visit or which medication to take. I will then demonstrate that decision makers’ beliefs about their health decision-making processes are easily shifted. I will conclude with a discussion of how generative AI may be used to help decision makers develop a better understanding of how they make health-relevant decisions.

Dr. Rotem Paz, Lupina Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 2025-27

Dr. Rotem Paz focuses on the contribution of autobiographical memories to self-schemas and mental health. Drawing on research at the intersection of cognitive neuroscience and clinical psychology, this talk presents a memory-based framework for understanding how autobiographical experiences construct, and can reconstruct, our core beliefs about ourselves. Using the brain as a prediction machine as its guiding metaphor, it introduces the SCIL model of schema change and presents a research program targeting self-schemas in the context of social anxiety and loneliness across various populations.

Dr. Krystle Shore, Lupina Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 2024-25 and 2025-26

Canada's long-term care (LTC) sector has invested heavily in AI-powered electronic health record (EHR) systems as a response to persistent care challenges, but whether these technologies meaningfully address those challenges remains an open question. Drawing on vendor marketing, government policy, and LTC staff perspectives, this project examines how EHR systems are rationalized and how they operate in practice. My findings suggest these systems misalign with the realities of frontline LTC work and underminine caregivers' capacity for person-centered care decisions. The result is a performative crisis response that introduces new forms of algorithmic control over an already-strained workforce—one composed overwhelmingly of women, many of them racialized and in precarious employment—with direct consequences for the quality of care received by Canada's aging population.

Register

New multidisciplinary school directors appointed

Wendy Philpott — Wed, 20 May 2026 16:08:31 +0000

New multidisciplinary school directors appointed Wendy Philpott Wed, 2026-05-20 - 12:08

Dean Alexie Tcheuyap is very pleased to announce the inaugural directors of the two new multidisciplinary schools in the Faculty of Arts.

Dr. Jay Dolmage will serve as the Director of the School of Critical and Creative Humanities, effective July 1, 2026 for a four-year term.

Dr. Ian Milligan will serve as Director of the School of Social, Political and Historical Research, effective July 1, 2026 for a four-year term

“These appointments mark an important and exciting milestone toward the restructuring of Arts as six schools,” said Dean Tcheuyap. “Arts is ready to shine even more brightly and embrace new opportunities for our students.”

Dolmage and Milligan were elected in accordance with Policy 40 (The Department Chair or School Director) process. Following strong support shown in the ballots completed by faculty and staff in each of the new schools, the director nominating committees made their recommendation to the Provost for approval.

Jay Dolmage has served as Chair of the Department of English Language and Literature since July 2022 and previously held Associate Chair, Undergraduate and Associate Chair, UCR in English. His scholarship brings together rhetoric, writing, disability studies, and critical pedagogy. He is the founding editor of Canadian Journal of Disability Studies and is committed to disability rights in his scholarship, service, and teaching. Domage’s books include Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education (2017) and Disability Rhetoric (2014).

Ian Milligan has served as Associate Vice-President, Research Oversight and Analysis in the Office of Research since January 2022. His primary research focus is on how historians can use web archives, as well as the impact of digital sources on historical practice more generally. His books include Averting the Digital Dark Age (2024), The Transformation of Historical Research in the Digital Age (2022), History in the Age of Abundance (2019), and Rebel Youth (2014). Milligan was principal investigator of the Archives Unleashed project between 2017 and 2023, developing sustainable open-source infrastructure for the Internet Archive.

The role of director in the new schools is a significant and challenging endeavour in leading multiple disciplines and programs, notes the Dean. “But there are also exciting intersections and collaborations across each school’s research and teaching activities. I see these intersections — existing and potential — as a vital part of our Faculty’s evolution in response to the needs of our students and society.”

The School of Critical and Creative Humanities will include six current departments: Communication Arts, English Language & Literature, Fine Arts, French Studies, Germanic & Slavic Studies, and Spanish & Latin American Studies.

The School of Social, Political, and Historical Research will include seven current departments: Anthropology, Classical Studies, History, Philosophy, Political Science, Religious Studies, and Sociology & Legal Studies.

"I have strong confidence in the commitment of Dr. Milligan and Dr. Dolmage to collegial governance, exercised in close collaboration with members of their respective schools," said the Dean. "In their final presentations as candidates, each articulated a leadership approach grounded in transparency and consultation.

"Both candidates also underscored the importance of respecting the distinct disciplinary strengths within their schools, while expressing a clear intention to advance interdisciplinary engagement. This balanced approach aligns closely with a key priority of both the Faculty and the University."

The current chairs of Psychology and Economics will become directors, effective July 1, 2026: Lutz Bosch, Director of the School of Economics; Evan Risko, Director of the School of Psychology.

The existing schools will continue to be led by current directors: Blake Phillips, Director of the School of Accounting and Finance; Jessica Thompson, Director of the Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business.

Faculty of Arts AI Forum

Wendy Philpott — Sat, 09 May 2026 20:24:14 +0000

Faculty of Arts AI Forum Wendy Philpott Sat, 2026-05-09 - 16:24

Purpose

The Arts AI Forum gives the Faculty of Arts community an opportunity to exchange views, learn from others, and generate new ideas and projects regarding Generative AI. This is also a place for the Arts AI Task Force to consult with the community as it develops Faculty-wide AI initiatives.

The Forum is open to all faculty, staff, and administrators in the Arts — no registration required.

Agenda

9:45 am – 10:00 a.m. — Coffee and pastries

10:00 am - 10:15 a.m. — Welcome and updates from the Arts AI Task Force

10:15 – 11:00 a.m. — “Arts AI in Context” 4 x 8-10-minute presentations

Uzma Rehman and Allison Chenier, Arts Teaching Fellows: “Arts Faculty Voices on AI and Teaching: Survey Results and Reflections”
Aimee Morrison, Department of English: “A ‘Handmade' Approach to Teaching AI”
Sabrina Tam, 4th-year Arts and Business student: “Navigating an AI-Focused Workforce as an Arts Student”
Britt Anderson: “How GenAI Is Streamlining my Teaching Tasks”

11:00 - 11:30 a.m. — Open discussion

Questions? Contact Dr. Marcel O’Gorman, Chair of the Arts AI Task Force.

Boredom research mobilized in a popular French CBC documentary

Wendy Philpott — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 15:20:12 +0000

Boredom research mobilized in a popular French CBC documentary Wendy Philpott Wed, 2026-04-29 - 11:20

In early 2025 Chantal Trudel, a PhD candidate in Psychology, co-published a paper with Drs. James Danckert and Evan Risko along with researchers from other institutions on boredom titled Boredom signals deviation from a cognitive homeostatic set point. It was part of a significant body of research from the Danckert Lab on the meaning and purpose of boredom.

One year later, that research was covered and made accessible for broad audiences in a documentary film produced by Radio-Canada’s popular television program Découverte titled L’ennui : ami ou ennemi? À quoi sert-il et comment peut-il nous transformer? (Boredom: friend or foe? What purpose does it serve and how can it transform us?).

The documentary first aired on Découverte's March 15, 2026 episode, and just a month later had more than 50K views on YouTube.

View "L’ennui : ami ou ennemi? À quoi sert-il et comment peut-il nous transformer? | Découverte" on YouTube

From the YouTube video description: “Is boredom a necessary evil? What if it were a warning signal to motivate us to act and refocus our attention? Researchers at the University of Waterloo in Ontario are investigating this curious subject.”

Making research findings accessible

“After reading our paper last year, a journalist from Découverte contacted me to assess the feasibility of a documentary,” said Trudel. “That spring I was attending a conference in Montreal, so we agreed to meet and began filming then.”

In June 2025, the crew came to Waterloo’s campus for a full day of filming in the Danckert Lab and other spaces within the PAS building – featuring Trudel, Danckert and other psychology students. Trudel also played a major part in facilitating the documentary, including coordinating the show’s producers with Waterloo staff to make the formal arrangements necessary for media to come to campus for filming.

“Our research is publicly funded, so it is imperative to make our findings accessible to broader audiences in both official languages,” said Trudel. “Découverte has been popularizing science since 1988. I grew up watching it on television! Now on various streaming platforms, over a million people watch it every week. Being featured on such a well-known francophone science program gave us a fantastic opportunity to interface with all Canadians, but also to reach international viewers. This kind of impact is exciting.”

The Découverte production offers a perfect example of knowledge mobilization—together, the Waterloo psychology scholars and the CBC documentary crew turned research into an engaging and creative illustration of how boredom serves us as a call to action.

Credit: Radio Canada Découverte. The photo above is a still image from the documentary showing Chantal Trudel; this news story's preview photo shows journalist André Bernard speaking with Dr. James Danckert.

Randy Harris named University Professor for impacts across rhetoric, linguistics, cognitive neuroscience, and AI

Elizabeth Rogers — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 13:12:06 +0000

Randy Harris named University Professor for impacts across rhetoric, linguistics, cognitive neuroscience, and AI Elizabeth Rogers Wed, 2026-04-22 - 09:12

Congratulations to Dr. Randy Allen Harris on being named University Professor, a prestigious designation that “recognizes exceptional scholarly achievement and international pre-eminence in a particular field or fields of knowledge”. Harris, a professor of English Language and Literature cross-appointed to Computer Science, is noted for the enthusiasm of his research and teaching. His departmental bio describes him as “toiling joyfully” throughout his career.

Harris has expressed his gratitude for the designation by spreading the honour around. “This recognition is both very gratifying and very humbling,” he says. “But there's no way I could have made the progress I have made, or had near as much fun, without the support of my colleagues at all levels—department, faculty, and university—or the inspiration of my students.”

Working at the intersections of rhetoric, linguistics, cognitive neuroscience, and AI (Large Language Models), this interdisciplinary scholar is internationally recognized as a pre-eminent linguist and rhetorician, a leading figure in Rhetoric of Science and Computational Rhetoric and a pioneer in the field of voice interaction design. He is Director of The Rhetoricon Database Project.

“I've mostly just moved around in various scholarly fields, bringing them together in ways that seemed promising,” Harris notes, “managing to hit gold a few times. My current work is the most exciting of all. Linguistics and rhetoric have often travelled separate roads, but cognitive neuroscience explains how they intersect. In turn, rhetoric and linguistics explain the relation between language and thought. Understanding human thought has never been more important, as the differences between humans and machines seem superficially to be blurring more each day."”

photo credit: Alexander Jacobi

In addition to holding the University Professor designation, Harris was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) in 2023, the highest honour an individual can achieve in the Arts, Social Sciences and Sciences. He has also received an Arts Award for Excellence in Research (2023), the University Award of Excellence in Graduate Supervision (2019), and several Outstanding Performance Awards (2006, 2019 and 2023). His grants as Principal Investigator total over a million dollars. In 2021, he received a Cooperative Education and Experiential Learning Employer Impact Award, Research category, for his Rhetoricon project.

Throughout his career, Harris has published eight books, including the forthcoming Figures and Constructions, as well as 62 journal articles (including four in 2025 alone), not to mention eight technical reports, 39 reviews, and 130 conference presentations, guest lectures, invited talks, keynotes, and plenaries. He has organized four international conferences, with a fifth one coming next month, Figuring Constructions, Constructing Figures.

“I am absolutely delighted to see Dr. Harris named University Professor,” said Dean Alexie Tcheuyap. “The breadth and impact of his research are unmistakable and stand as a shining example of the Faculty of Arts at Waterloo. His career powerfully demonstrates the remarkable possibilities and enduring strengths of interdisciplinary scholarship.”

The Gaza Doctrine: Implications for International Law and the future of the Middle East

Wendy Philpott — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 19:44:21 +0000

The Gaza Doctrine: Implications for International Law and the future of the Middle East Wendy Philpott Tue, 2026-04-07 - 15:44

The Faculty of Arts is honoured to present guest speaker Neve Gordon from the School of Law at Queen Mary University of London.

About the talk

In this talk, Neve Gordon introduces what he calls the “Gaza Doctrine,” a concept he uses to describe a pattern of modern warfare characterized by mass civilian displacement, significant civilian casualties, and extensive destruction of civilian infrastructure.

He examines how, in the context of the violence in Gaza, Israel frames its military operations as lawful actions targeting Hamas, and how international law is invoked in that justification. Gordon further argues that similar patterns may be emerging in other conflicts in the Middle East, and raises broader questions about the role of European countries and Canada in shaping or enabling evolving norms of international warfare where "might makes right".

About the speaker

Neve Gordon joined the School of Law at Queen Mary University of London after teaching for seventeen years at Ben-Gurion University in Israel. He is the author of Israel’s Occupation (University of California Press, 2008) and co-author of The Human Right to Dominate (Oxford University Press, 2015), Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire (University of California Press, 2020, published in paperback in 2026 with a new preface and epilogue). He is a Fellow of the British Academy of Social Sciences, a panel member of the Gaza Tribunal and a board member of the International State Crime Initiative.

Details and proceedings

Registration is required for in-person and online attendance. For those attending in-person, proof of registration is required at the reception area.

Doors open: 6:30 p.m.
Lecture and moderated Q & A: 7:00 to 8:20 p.m.
Reception for the in-person audience: 8:30 to 9:00 p.m.

Paid visitor parking is available in Lot M across from Federation Hall. More parking information.

This lecture is made possible through the generosity of alumni and friends. We extend sincere appreciation to the donors who contributed to the Foundation for Palestinian Studies Fund.

Register

Watch past recordings from our Palestinian Lectures series on YouTube.

Dr. Martin Cooke named Associate Vice-President, Academic

Wendy Philpott — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 16:52:32 +0000

Dr. Martin Cooke named Associate Vice-President, Academic Wendy Philpott Mon, 2026-03-30 - 12:52

Arts leadership excellence continues to shine in the University’s top administrative roles.

Effective July 1, Dr. David DeVidi (Philosophy) completes seven years as Associate Vice-President, Academic and Dr. Martin Cooke (Sociology & Legal Studies/School of Public Health Sciences) steps into that role after serving as Assistant Vice-President, Leadership and Strategic Initiatives. Read on for the Provost’s announcement originally published in the Daily Bulletin.

"I am pleased to announce that Martin Cooke has been appointed Associate Vice-President, Academic effective July 1, 2026," wrote interim Vice-President, Academic and Provost Tom Duever in a memo sent to Executive Council on Friday.

"Since 2023, Martin has served in the role of Assistant Vice-President, Leadership and Strategic Initiatives within the Office of the Vice-President, Academic. In this role, he has played a central part in convening the Academic Leadership Program and in shaping the University’s strategic direction through his contributions as a member of the leadership group of the Academic Innovation Working Group and the Global Futures Fund Steering Committee," Duever writes. "Martin also provides key advice and support to the Vice-President, Academic on a wide range of strategic and cross-portfolio initiatives."

"In both his current position and his previous role as Associate Dean, Students within the Faculty of Arts, Martin has demonstrated thoughtful, collaborative, and principled leadership. He brings deep institutional knowledge, a strong commitment to academic excellence, and extensive experience in advancing the University’s academic mission through partnership and engagement."

"I would like to thank David DeVidi for his dedicated and thoughtful leadership, and for his outstanding service as the Vice-President, Academic since 2019," the provost's memo continues. "I would also like to thank the members of the Associate Vice-President, Academic Advisory Nominating Committee. Please join me in thanking David for his service and congratulating Martin on this appointment."

Explore Political Science research in your library

Elizabeth Rogers — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 19:24:50 +0000

Explore Political Science research in your library Elizabeth Rogers Tue, 2026-03-17 - 15:24

Join us in the lobby of Dana Porter Library for a showcase of ongoing graduate student political science research.

This poster session highlights emerging scholarship from the PSCI 601 class (Research and Writing in Political Science) and leverages the Library as a hub for research connections, interdisciplinary dialogue, and knowledge mobilization. All members of the academic community—undergraduates, graduate students, staff, and faculty are invited to engage with the presenters and learn about current political science inquiry.