Friday, November 27, 2015

A postcard from the President

Greetings from Jakarta, Indonesia.

For the last week or so, several University of Waterloo colleagues and I have been on a very productive trip throughout Asia. Our goal, similar to last year, is to steward our outstanding partnerships in the region and explore new opportunities as well.

At the start of the trip, we attended — and I addressed — the Cyberport Wearable Technology Forum in Hong Kong. We also had the pleasure of catching up with President Mathieson of the University of Hong Kong. As you know, Waterloo has been actively developing our presence in Hong Kong, including through a recently established academic agreement with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Later I delivered a keynote to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. Titled “The Innovation University: A Vision and Mission for the 21st Century”, my talk focused on our unique model of ‘additive education’ and how it can help economies like Canada’s and Hong Kong’s develop leading-edge technology and human talent for the 21^st century.

As I travelled from Hong Kong, to Singapore, and then to Indonesia, it was fantastic to connect with many University of Waterloo alumni. This photo was taken during an excellent alumni event in Hong Kong, one of several opportunities we had to reconnect with our global UWaterloo alumni family. Let me extend a big thank-you to everyone involved in planning and executing on the trip throughout Asia this year. It’s an important region for the global economy and for the University of Waterloo, and our presence and partnerships there are key to Waterloo’s future success. Thanks one and all.

What I’m struck by this month is how Waterloo is engaged in so many areas of high global relevance and importance.

Another example of this is how we have an excellent opportunity to help lead the gender equity agenda both in Canada and around the world.

I wrote an op-ed for the Waterloo Region Record this month, about how Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s appointment of a gender-equal cabinet represents a great opportunity for Canada to become an “equity superpower”.

As Waterloo helps to lead the way through our HeForShe IMPACT 10x10x10 initiative, this is a very positive signal for Canada to send both to Canadians here at home and to people around the world. Let’s keep advancing this important agenda in the months and years to come. Remember, you can check in for periodical HeForShe updates on my website.

Here at home we had a very full month of celebrations and acknowledgements, from our Velocity expansion creating the largest free incubator in North America, to the Grand Opening of the Volunteer Centre on Campus, to our “Years of Service” reception for long-serving staff members, to our groundbreaking ceremony for Waterloo’s phenomenal new Engineering 7 building.

I can’t possibly do justice to every exciting event we had on campus this month so I won’t attempt to do so – but please do follow me on Twitter to keep an eye on all the UWaterloo events I have the privilege of participating in.

On that note, let me round out this month’s column by thanking everyone who organized and attended our annual President’s Town Hall on November 3 at Hagey Hall. As promised, we’re in the process of pulling together answers for all those questions we didn’t have a chance to get to during the event itself. (That’s what happens when you have such an excellent discussion!) We’ll post them to my website and Tweet out a heads up when they’re available. Thanks to those several hundred of you who joined me for what was a great and energizing conversation. See you again next year.

With my best wishes for a terrific weekend,

Feridun

United Way: Building community on campus and beyond

A message from the University of Waterloo's United Way Campaign team.

The University of Waterloo United Way campaign ends up being more about just raising money for a great cause. We saw it enhance the great community we already have at the University of Waterloo – we also saw it inspire creativity. 

Take for example, St. Paul’s University College. They brilliantly conceived a dare challenge for the United Way. Principal Graham Brown, Director of Operations Lindsay Restagno, Manager of Finance & Administration Mike Steinmann and Alumni Relations Officer Stephen Loo agreed to certain dares. Then they placed change jars at the front desk and asked people to vote by placing money in the jar for the person’s dare that you wanted to see completed. 

Principal Brown won – although I think the real winner of this challenge was the audience who got to see the one-minute Gangnam Style dance routine at the monthly Community Dinner with residents, staff and faculty. 

This was a fantastic idea, and obviously a lot of fun. It was a chance to strengthen the relationships at St. Paul’s, while helping the larger community. Start thinking about some of the fun ideas you could use next year to build community on campus with students, within your department, or even across campus. We have a few ideas in our Volunteer Toolkit, but we’d love to creativity across campus to build an even better toolkit. 

And really, you don’t even have to wait until next year – many groups on campus run community-building activities throughout the year to raise funds for the United Way. 

CECA introduces new strategic initiatives position

Kerry Mahoney, Director of Centre for Career Action and Director, International within CECA, is moving into a new half-time role, according to an announcement from Co-operative Education and Career Action.

Effective January 1, 2016,  Mahoney will focus on strategic initiatives including co-op consulting/projects like the READI actuarial project in Indonesia, and developing relationships and partnerships to create more co-op and graduating international opportunities for students via consulates, alumni and institutional partners.

"Over her tenure at the helm of Waterloo’s Centre for Career Action, Mahoney has been instrumental in building a national reputation for innovation and leadership in career programming and defining services for all segments of Waterloo students (undergraduate and graduate), as well as our alumni and employees," says the CECA announcement. "We are confident that Kerry’s ambassadorship and leadership over her almost 29 years in CECA will be invaluable in her new role, which is a great strategic asset for the department and for the University to build our brand, enhance our reputation world-wide and create more international opportunities for our students."

The role of Director, Centre for Career Action will be posted in the near future and as of January 1^st Jennifer Woodside will be Acting Director until the role is filled. She will report to CECA's Executive Director. Shabnam Ivkovic, international team manager will also report to the Executive Director on an interim basis. 

Fee arrangement deadline and other Friday facts

The due date for students to become “Fees Arranged” for next term without a late fee is December 10.

Students can view their bill for Winter 2016 by logging into Quest, going to Student Centre, then clicking Finances> Account Inquiry.

There are two ways to become Fees Arranged:

• Payment in full
• Payment by Promissory Note

Scholarships, bursaries and awards will not be deducted from a student’s “Balance Owing” unless they have become “Fees Arranged” for the term, nor will government student loans and grants be released. 

If students are not Fees Arranged by January 31, they will be un-enrolled and will lose access to their assignments, exams and course material available through LEARN.

For more information, send an email to studentaccounts@uwaterloo.ca or visit The Finance – Student Accounts website.

There will be a Bookstore Concourse Sale on December 1^st and 2^nd from 9:30 to 4:30 in South Campus Hall.

Over 1,000 new titles have been ordered in a wide range of popular genres, including Holiday, Kids, Mystery, Science, History, Academic books and much more.

If you missed the October sale, need to do some holiday shopping or simply just want a good deal on a great book, make sure you stop in to the Bookstore Concourse Sale.

Human Resources is reporting that retiree Ingeborg Wessels died November 24. Ingeborg began working at Waterloo in November 1976 as a Housekeeper in Village One.  She retired in June 1992.