Tuesday, November 22, 2016

President's Town Hall Meeting today

The President's Town Hall Meeting will take place today at 10:30 a.m. in Federation Hall - a new venue for the 2016 edition of the annual event.

The theme of this year's town hall meeting, which is held every fall term, is "Beyond Innovation" and will feature opening remarks by Vice-President, University Relations Sandra Banks and a presentation by President Feridun Hamdullahpur that will include his reflections on the University’s accomplishments this past year and opportunities in the year ahead.

The event will be livestreamed beginning at 10:30 a.m.

The centrepiece of the event is the question and answer period with the President, moderated by Vice-President Banks.

Members of the University community can share their thoughts and ideas in a number of ways:

• Questions can be sent in via e-mail to townhall@uwaterloo.ca;
• questions can be submitted using a form on the President's Town Hall website;
• questions can be sent in via Twitter both before and during the President's Town Hall Meeting by tweeting to @UWaterlooLIVE or by using the hashtag #uwth; and
• members of the audience can ask questions from the floor during the Town Hall.

The event will conclude with a complimentary light lunch, served in Fed Hall's Columbia Rooms at 12:00 p.m. 

There's still time to register to save your seat at the town hall and the luncheon event.

New look for the Waterloo homepage

Starting today you’ll notice something different on UWaterloo.ca and top-level institutional web pages, especially if you view the website on your phone.

The visual design has been updated to align with the University's refined brand guidelines. As part of the responsive web design project, the homepage and its related page are now more user-friendly on all devices.

We’ll continue to keep you updated about changes to other central websites and when you can expect to see them.

More broadly, you will begin to see new key messaging and visual tools and communications that can be used for all channels including websites, e-newsletters, print and digital advertising, social media, signage and other forms of communications.

The Hult Prize: a contest for a cause

What can Waterloo students do to restore the rights and dignity of 10 million refugees by 2022?

That’s the challenge being tackled at this year’s Hult Prize @ UWaterloo competition, hosted by the Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre. The Hult Prize is a global challenge sponsored annually by the Clinton Global Initiative, which calls on students to solve the planet’s greatest social problems through the development of innovative, sustainable startups. 

Over 50 Waterloo student teams have answered this year’s challenge question: “Reawakening human potential: build a sustainable, scalable startup enterprise which restores the rights and dignities of refugees.” On Thursday November 24, the top ten Waterloo teams will pitch their solutions to a panel of judges, for the chance to represent the University and compete for $1 million USD at the Hult Prize Regional Finals in Boston, London, San Francisco, Dubai, or Shanghai.

The judging panel brings expertise in refugee support and social enterprise. Judges for the finals are:

• Allyson Hewitt, JW McConnell Family Foundation Senior Fellow, Social Innovation at MaRS;
• Albert Lobe, Chair of the Board of Directors for the Mennonite Coalition for Refugee Support;
• Aleks Poldma, social entrepreneur and co-founder of Hydrated World.

The Hult Prize @ UWaterloo Finals will be held on Thursday November 24 from 1:00 p.m. to 3:30 pm in the Student Life Centre Great Hall. All are welcome to attend and hear the pitches.

Scholarship recipient a community-minded student

by Jane Kolb. A message from the Keystone Campaign

From humble beginnings in Enchant, Alberta, Tegan Odland had her sights set on big dreams. Knowing early on she wanted to attend one of the top schools in the country, Tegan made the trek to the University of Waterloo to visit and tour the campus, which cemented her desire to attend our prestigious University. Tegan, an Honours Science student, describes her first visit as feeling like home right when she arrived – she instantly knew this was where she would lay down roots so she could pursue her goal of becoming a pharmacist.

Tegan not only has excelled in her academic pursuits with the aspiration to apply to the School of Pharmacy after her second year, but she is also a seasoned varsity hockey player. The majority of her week is either spent studying, practicing on- and off-ice, or giving back to the community through the Team Up program which sees Tegan and team mates go out and provide mentorship and guidance to elementary school kids on the importance of teamwork. Needless to say Tegan is a busy student!

Tegan learnt of being the recipient of the Retirees’ Scholarship award while she was at home. As soon as she got word, she ran to her parents to share the good news and celebrate together. This scholarship will help to alleviate the financial pressure Tegan has to fund her education. Being such an engaged and contributing student, Tegan doesn’t have as much time to take on a part-time job, and thus this scholarship aids in allowing her to continue to do the great work she’s been doing.

When asked about how this scholarship will affect her, Tegan spoke of her ability to continue to set challenging academic goals to allow her to enter the Pharmacy program, as well as continue to play for the varsity hockey team. Further to this, she’s excited to continue to mentor elementary students, especially through the Reading with the Warriors program.

Tegan will continue to excel in her studies, as a team member of the Girls Hockey Team and give back to the community, in part because of the UW Retirees’ Scholarship award; something she is incredibly grateful for.

Croatian president visits campus; other notes

Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović visited the University of Waterloo yesterday to find out about Canada’s most innovative university and to tour the Institute for Quantum Computing.

President Grabar-Kitarović made the campus stop as part of a four-day visit to Canada.

President Grabar-Kitarović's visit to Canada began Saturday in Halifax with other stops in Toronto, Burlington and Norval, Ont. As part of her Waterloo Region innovation ecosystem stop in Kitchener, she also toured the University’s Velocity Garage.

Check out Storify for more details about the event.

Members of the University community are invited to attend an event organized by students in Recreation and Leisure Studies on Thursday, December 1. The students are part of REC 252: Therapeutic Recreation, Physical Disability and will be showcasing their “educate the community” visual research projects in the Student Life Centre from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

“Collective learning is an essential outcome for anyone preparing for today's professional life,” says a statement from the event organizers. “Through their involvement in the learning process focused on advocating for people with disabilities, the students in REC 252 have engaged in Visual Action Research Pedagogy.  As they have examined the topical issues together with classmates, facilitators, community members, their hope is to expand your knowledge or introduce complexity surrounding their topic. As a result of exposure to and knowledge of these issues, the goal is to make us all more engaged and active members of society and advocates for inclusion. Each group pursued their own objectives by educating themselves, educating their peers, and now educating the community.”

Topic areas include physical disability, visual impairments, hearing loss/deafness, acquired injuries and debilitating diseases.

The event takes place on Thursday, December 1 in the Student Life Centre.