Monday, June 6, 2016

Be here for a good time at the Canada Day celebration

This is the latest in a series of #UWCommunity stories that feature Waterloo in the community.

Friday, July 1 marks the 32^nd annual University of Waterloo Canada Day Celebration in partnership with our Federation of Students. We’re building another exceptional event to thank our community for its support, and hope to see upwards of 60,000 regional residents on campus, sharing their national and warrior pride.

The University is excited to announce that popular children’s musical duo, Splash’N Boots will light up the afternoon with engaging performances on the TVOKids Stage hosted by the beloved Kara. Outstanding Canadian talent will headline our evening concert on the OpenText Stage, featuring 19 year-old breakout artist Francesco Yates and classic rock icons Trooper. Joining our national acts will be regional favourites KW Glee, and Country 106.7 morning show hosts Mike Farwell and Jennifer Campbell, will return for a second year to MC the event.

Families are welcome to explore a number of free and interactive activities: from face painting and arts and crafts, to inflatable obstacle courses, and turban tying, there's guaranteed fun for everyone. Get snapped in our Canada Day photo booth, turn yourself into a cartoon with our caricaturist, and even cool off on the University of Waterloo Engineering Society water slide.

Everyone is invited to indulge in delicious festival fare from a variety of local food vendors, including summer classics like ice cream and cotton candy, or try something new from our community’s diverse multicultural offerings. Adults can also relax and enjoy a refreshing break in our beer garden.

The University of Waterloo is proud to host Waterloo Region’s flagship Canada Day Celebration. Join us on Friday, July 1 at Columbia Lake Fields and share your national pride with the #uwcommunity!

Word to the wise: wisdom can be situational, researcher says

While we may think some people are consistently wise, we actually demonstrate different levels of wisdom from one situation to the next, and factors such as whether we are alone or with friends can affect it, according to new Waterloo research.

The study defines wise reasoning as a combination of such abilities as intellectual humility, consideration of others’ perspective and looking for compromise. The work appears in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

“This research does not dismiss that there is a personality component to wisdom, but that’s not the whole picture,” said Professor Igor Grossmann, from the Department of Psychology and lead author of the paper. “Situations in daily life affect our personality and ability to reason wisely.”

The observation that wise reasoning varies dramatically across situations in daily life suggests that while it fluctuates, wisdom may not be as rare as we think. Further, for different individuals, only certain situations may promote this quality.

“There are many examples where people known for their critical acumen or expertise in ethics seem to fall prey to lack of such acumen or morals. The present findings suggest that those examples are not an anomaly,” said Grossmann. “We cannot always be at the top of our game in terms of wisdom-related tendencies, and it can be dangerous to generalize based on whether people show wisdom in their personal life or when teaching others in the classroom.”

By examining conditions and situations under which people may or may not show wisdom in their lives, researchers and practitioners may learn more about situations promoting wisdom in daily life and recreating those situations.

For the next stage of this work, Grossmann and his team are preparing a tool to assess wisdom according to the situation. They have plans to conduct the first-ever longitudinal study aiming at teaching people to reason wisely in their own lives.

Board of Governors meets tomorrow

The University of Waterloo's Board of Governors meets tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. in NH 3407. Among the agenda items:

• A motion to approve an increase in the Federation of Students fee from $54.67 to $56.62 per term effective September 2016;
• A motion to increase the U-Pass component of the Federation of Students Administered Fees by 4.99 percent, or about $4.05;

In addition, the Board will consider a recommendation that the Independent Studies Student Society Fee, assessed and collected each term from all full-time undergraduate Independent Studies students, be discontinued effective Fall term 2016. The fee is $25.00 per term. According to supplementary information provided in the Board package, the society has become inactive and the program is being phased out. The Federation of Students approved to discontinue the fee at its recent board meeting.

Pending Board's approval, the dental, health, and U-Pass components of the Graduate Student Association Administered Fees will also be increased effective September 2016, with the following increases: the U-Pass component increases by $4.05 or 4.99 percent; the dental component goes up by $3 per term, or 3.8 percent, and the health component increases by $7 per term, or by 12.7 percent.

The Board will also be asked to grant four easements to the Region of Waterloo for the LRT system, as well as a utility easement to Kitchener Wilmot Hydro along the Victoria Street frontage of the Health Sciences Campus in downtown Kitchener.

Board will vote on a motion to approve the formation of a Responsible Investing Working Group of the Board of Governors, and to approve the terms of reference for the group.

The Pension and Benefits Committee will ask the Board to approve a pension actuarial valuation report as at 1 January 2016, recognizing that the report will not be filed with the Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO).  "An actuarial valuation report is required to be filed at least every three years; however, the committee commissions a report on an annual basis for its planning and the University’s budgeting purposes," says the committee's report. "The 1 January 2016 report shows that the registered pension plan (the “Registered Plan”) is in a deficit position; however, the going concern deficit position has improved since the 1 January 2015 as well as since the 1 January 2014 report. The University continues to make additional contributions to meet the unfunded liability."

In addition to a number of reports that the Board will receive for information, the two University-wide Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Finalists Elise Vist of Arts and Gah-Jone Won of Science, will give their presentations.

Duelling golf tournaments and other notes

If campus seems a bit deserted today it might be because folks are hitting the links at two separate golf tournaments.

The 16^th annual President's Golf Tournament, presented by Pebble, is taking place at the picturesque Westmount Golf Club in Kitchener. Aimed at alumni, businesses, and friends of the University, all proceeds from the tournament go towards the Athletics Excellence and Awards Fund, which provides for University of Waterloo student-athletes and teams to compete at major championship competitions.

Also taking place today is the Matthews Golf Classic at the Grand Valley Golf Course. The annual event, now in its 26^th year, is open to all staff, faculty, students, retirees, alumni, contractors and invited guests. The tournament's mission is to foster greater connections within the University of Waterloo community.

The UW Gamelan Ensemble will be holding a concert on Wednesday, June 8 at 7:30 p.m. in the Theatre of the Arts.

"On the island of Bali, Indonesia the idea of community and the spirit of interaction are highly valued and extend to music-making," says a note from Conrad Grebel. "Being an aural/oral tradition, repertoire—from ritual pieces to modern compositions, instrumental or dance—is learned through imitation and repetition, by listening and watching (i.e., without the use of notation). Students experience this communal process of creating a unified sound on a gamelan semara dana (one of several types of gamelan found in Bali) consisting of gongs, metallophones, drums, and flutes." 

The event is free and open to the public.