Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Today is Mental Health Wellness Day

Are you seeing orange?

Today is Mental Health Wellness Day, and students, staff and faculty are wearing their orange mental health wellness t-shirts to let the campus community know that the University of Waterloo is a safe place to talk about mental health issues.

The campus community has set aside this day to raise awareness about mental health, and to highlight that the university is a caring community with a number of resources available on campus.

If you’re wearing your orange t-shirt and can make it to the SLC atrium for 10:30 a.m., the mental health wellness committee would like to invite you to drop by for a group photo.

Additionally, The Recreation and Leisure Wellness Team will be hosting the second annual Spin for Mental Health event at the SLC, which will be running continuously between 11:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.

Share photos of the orange wave today on Instagram and Twitter using the #uw4mentalhealth hashtag.

President's Town Hall set for November 3

Tuesday, November 3 marks the return of the President's Town Hall Meeting.

At the meeting, entitled “Defining Innovation,” President Feridun Hamdullahpur will reflect on the University’s accomplishments this past year and will talk about the year ahead.

The event will be held in the Humanities Theatre at 10:30 a.m.

Members of the University community are invited to share their thoughts and ideas about where Waterloo is heading in an interactive dialogue. Much of the event is given over to a question and answer session with the president.

Questions can be sent in via email, via a question submission form on the President’s Town Hall website, and on Twitter both before and during the President's Town Hall Meeting, by sending tweets to @UWaterlooLIVE or by using the hashtag #uwth.

The President's Town Hall will conclude with a complimentary light lunch, served in the atrium of the School of Accounting and Finance at 12:00 p.m. 

Please register to save your seat at the town hall and the luncheon event.

Faculty leaders named for #HeForShe initiative

by Diana Parry. This article was originally posted on the Office of the President's website.

Earlier this year, the University of Waterloo announced its involvement in the United Nation Women’s HeForShe campaign and specifically, the IMPACT 10x10x10 framework.  

The HeForShe campaign is a global effort that invites men and boys to work with women and girls, as equal partners, to address gender equity. We are making good progress in our three IMPACT commitments to boost girls’ participation in STEM experiences, to enhance female faculty representation, and to advance women into positions that lead the university.

Part of achieving our first commitment includes action from across our campus to ensure that our efforts line up with the challenges and priorities that exist in each Faculty. In support of this goal, each of our Deans is appointing a point person(s) who will solicit input from students, faculty, staff, and alumni around gender equity concerns, issues, and challenges within each Faculty.

I am thrilled to announce the following faculty members are appointed as the first leaders for Faculty-specific HeForShe IMPACT initiatives:  

Faculty of Arts – Heather Smyth and David Moscovitch

Faculty of Applied Health Sciences - Corey Johnson

Faculty of Environment - Michael Drescher

Faculty of Engineering –Stacey Scott

Faculty of Science – David R. Rose

Faculty of Math - Joanne Atlee

The Provost is allocating up to $5,000 per Faculty per year for five years to facilitate events such as workshops, panel discussions, or clubs to address these concerns– a financial commitment of $150,000.

In addition to the Faculty leaders, the Affiliated and Federated Institutions of Waterloo are appointing the following leaders:

St. Jerome's University - David Seljak

Renison University College - Sharon Roberts

St. Paul's University College - Mavis Fenn

If you would like more information about this, or any of the other exciting initiatives currently underway related to the HeForShe IMPACT 10x10x10 framework at the University of Waterloo, I encourage you to get in touch with me by phone at 519-888-4567 ext. 33468 or email atdcparry@uwaterloo.ca.

For questions relating to equity more generally, contact Mahejabeen Ebrahim, the University Waterloo’s Director of Equity.

A Dialogue on "Cure"

by Katie Damphouse.

Join us today, Tuesday October 20 at 4:00 p.m. to hear Eli Clare speak on A Dialogue on “Cure”. 

Eli will guide us in a conversation that challenges the medical model of disability with its focus on “cure” and the drive to “repair” people deemed broken.

A renowned writer, speaker, scholar, and poet, Eli Clare focuses on the intersections of gender, race, class, sexuality and disability. Eli’s most recent work, Brilliant Imperfections: Grappling with the Cure, is a compilation of memoir, storytelling, history, and political thinking around definitions of “cure”. “Eli shakes up what is understood as intuitive and inevitable in the drive to “repair” people deemed broken and/or abnormal.”

Eli is an ideal speaker to address Waterloo’s culture of innovation by urging us to carefully consider the ways that technological, medical and social progress play out across marginalized bodies. Exploring these concepts is important for the Waterloo community, as students, teachers, staff and academics, and as respected contributors of social progress.  This interactive talk will ask us to carefully consider how we position ourselves, our research, and our social justice commitments in relation to the monolithic notion of “cure.”

This event is proudly hosted by the Status of Women and Equity Committee. Special thanks to sponsorship from the UW Staff Association, The Equity Office, Dean of Arts Office, Sexuality, Marriage, and Family Studies, Women’s Studies; St. Jerome’s University.

The event is being held at Federation Hall from 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. with a reception to follow. Everyone is welcome! We encourage staff, students, faculty and anyone in the community to attend.  The event is free and does not require registration.