News

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. 

The Master of Public Service (MPS) program hosted the second annual Policy Datafest last week with more than 70 graduate students digging into public datasets to extract meaningful narratives and recommend policies for positive change.

Deforestation is changing the way monkeys communicate in their natural habitat, according to a new study led by Laura Bolt, an adjunct professor in the Department of Anthropology. The research offers the first evidence in animal communication scholarship of differences in vocal behaviours in response to different types of forest edge areas, particularly areas changed by human activity.

The research of Professor Geoffrey Fong affects populations and helps save lives worldwide. In recognition of his research leadership over 17 years, Professor Fong has been awarded the 2019 Medal of Honour by the Health Research Foundation (HRF) of Innovative Medicines Canada – the foremost Canadian health research award celebrating the best and brightest minds and discoveries in the Canadian life sciences sector

Indigenous languages are critically endangered throughout the world. This is more than a loss of words: Indigenous languages embody sets of relationships and ways of being in the world that are powerful, transformative, and sometimes very funny. The Songs in the Key of Cree performance highlights the global importance of Indigenous languages.

Serendipity and scholarly expertise came together this fall to solve a puzzle about two giants of the English literary canon. “It’s like if you discovered that Milton was a woman – it would be unavoidable to address that in future studies,” says Katherine Acheson, a professor of English who edited Early Modern English Marginalia, the collection that led to the discovery of how Milton met Shakespeare.

Stephanie and Joseph Mancini’s response to unemployment and poverty has enabled decades of community development and empowerment for people in downtown Kitchener. Recognized in 2014 with the Benemerenti Medal, a Papal honour, and in 2016 with the Order of Canada, the Mancini's will now receive the highest honour conferred by the University of Waterloo, honorary doctorates in recognition of their outstanding service to society, at the Faculty of Arts convocation ceremony on Saturday, October 26, 2019.