To: Graduate students
From: Vivek Goel, President and Vice-Chancellor and James W.E. Rush, Vice-President, Academic & Provost.
Subject: We’re putting a credit on your student account
Whether you are a student local to Waterloo, from other areas across Ontario and Canada, or have travelled from another country to join us – your experience of Waterloo isn’t what you hoped it would be due to the impacts of COVID-19. Thank you for persevering with us through these difficult times.
We are preparing to return to in-person learning on February 7. This means that most of you will be learning in classrooms and labs on one of our four campuses very soon.
We’re so thankful that so many of you have taken the needed actions to be ready to come back to campus including providing your proof of vaccination. This is the most important thing we can all do to limit the impact of COVID-19.
We know that the latest lockdown to allow our community to deal with Omicron has created challenging situations for many of you to navigate. As a small gesture to partially cover incremental costs related to the pandemic, we’re adding a credit of $125 on your student account ($37.50 if you are a part-time student). To be eligible for this credit, you must have the registered status “Fees Arranged” on Quest by February 7 or be on a co-op work term for winter 2022.
You can expect to see the amount appear on your Quest account by March 3. More information will be available on the Student Financial Services website shortly.
The impacts of COVID-19 may have also affected your mental health and your studies. Please know there are a variety of supports and resources available to you and there’s no shame in asking for help. Check out our resources for mental health and explore these study and learning strategies on our website.
We are also announcing two additional University closure days to give our community a break. The closure days are Tuesday, February 22, and Tuesday, October 11.
We acknowledge that these are relatively small benefits we are giving everyone in recognition of the difficulty that COVID-19 has brought us all. You have our commitment that we will continue to listen to your feedback and find more ways in which we can support you to keep learning and charting new futures for the world.
We look forward to seeing you on campus on February 7.