Thursday, January 7, 2016

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• All right stop, collaborate and listen: new ring road crossings in effect
• Human Resources updates campus on benefit plan changes
• Quilting project stitches stories of survival

All right stop, collaborate and listen: new ring road crossings in effect

New "stop for pedestrians" signs have been placed on the east side of Ring Road, answering the question of "who has the right of way on the Ring Road" seemingly once and for all. 

The installation of the new signs is the latest part of a Ring Road construction project initiated in August 2015 that includes accessible priority pedestrian crossovers at several points on the Ring Road's east side, and a fence separating campus from the ION light rail tracks.

The signs were recommended by the Ring Road Committee to "address safety concerns as vehicle traffic and pedestrians interact."

There are now six crossovers where vehicles must stop for pedestrians:

• Carl Pollock Hall at University Avenue;
• Carl Pollock Hall across from the University Shops Plaza;
• Engineering 3 across from Engineering 5;
• the Engineering road across from the front steps of Engineering 5;
• the Mathematics road across from Parking Lot B service road and the East Campus buildings; and

• north of the Police and Parking Services building, leading over to the East Campus buildings and Columbia Street. 

"Pedestrians and drivers need to be extra cautious as we get used to the new signs," writes Dan Anderson, director of the UW Police Service. 

UW police will be monitoring and enforcing the new rules.

Human Resources updates campus on benefit plan changes

Human Resources has sent an update to Waterloo employees outlining how the maxima for extended health and dental benefits has changed, effective January 1, 2016.

In addition, in keeping with the 2-year lag in the dental fee guide used to calculate eligible dental expenses, the 2014 guide will be used to determine eligible expenses commencing January 1, 2016.

What these changes mean is that the amount available for reimbursement has increased to the new maxima. “For example, the coverage for paramedical practitioners (e.g. physiotherapy) has an annual reimbursement maximum of $649, instead of $635 per year,” says the HR memo.

The maxima has also increased for the out-of-pocket cap. Eligible paramedical and prescription drug expenses are shared between the University and its employees, with the University providing 80 per cent reimbursement until the out-of-pocket cap is reached, with 100 per cent reimbursement then applying up to the benefit maxima, updated as follows:

*Subject to the annual maxima and dispensing fee maxima; note that expenses for out of country, ambulance, dental and private duty nursing do not apply to the out-of-pocket cap nor do any pharmacist fees charged over the prescription drug dispensing fee cap.

Please visit the Human Resources website for further information.

Quilting project stitches stories of survival

The MSCU Centre for Peace Advancement is hosting a reception next week to launch an exhibit entitled As the Women Sew: Community Quilts of Mamupján, Colombia.

For the Colombian coastal community of Mampuján, displaced from their land by a paramilitary group in 2000, quilting has become a way of recovering their past in order to weave a better future. First started as a trauma healing project, it quickly grew to encompass the entire community as women gathered together to talk about the pain they had suffered during their displacement.

The women of Mampuján decided to sew the history of their Afro-Colombian community, from life in Africa, to slavery, to agriculture, to displacement and recovery, in a series of tapestries.

For Juana Alicia Ruiz, the project leader, this decision and subsequent learning about their history, was transformational:  “We learned that violence is cyclical. We, in the present, were not the only ones that had been victims. Rather, our ancestors had arrived in Colombia as victims of this violence, and their own displacement from Africa. So we started to tell all of this story, because by telling it, we could work to stop the cycle of violence.”

Moving from individual healing to collective recovery and advocating for their rights have become important steps for Mampuján in changing cycles of violence and creating a better future for their community. In November of 2015, the women of Mampuján won the Colombian National Peace Prize in recognition of their effort.

The exhibit displays four of the many quilts created by this group, and was made possible by the collaboration of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Colombia and Fundación Puntos de Encuentro. It also includes ten photographs by MCC worker Anna Vogt that document what life now looks like for those who once lived in Old Mamupján.

An opening reception will take place in the MSCU Centre for Peace Advancement's Grebel Gallery on the fourth floor on Tuesday, January 12 at 7:00 p.m. and will include an array of Colombian fare and firsthand accounts of the quilting project by special guests from the MCC.

The exhibition will run until April 2016.