Thursday, April 13, 2017

Athletics launches updated member portal

The Department of Athletics and Recreation, in partnership with IST, has rolled out an updated version of its Warrior registration website. 

"Students, faculty and staff that participate in our programming and services will now enjoy a more user/mobile friendly interface," says a news post on the Athletics website. "Member Portal 2 (MP2) by Fusion is designed to have a quicker response time when registering for a program, searching facility schedules or simply browsing program offerings." 
 
"MP2 also uses a responsive web design meaning the site will respond to a user's behavior and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation."

"Another key component of MP2 is a more prominent search option at the top, giving the user quicker access to what they are looking for."

MP2 is part of the Athletics department's initiative to provide better access to department information and improve user experiences. Earlier this year, Warrior Rec (also by Fusion) was launched to provide a quick reference platform of common activities for students.

For the full story, visit the Athletics and Recreation website.

Big Ideas Challenge winners announced

St. Paul’s GreenHouse held its Winter Social Impact Showcase recently, announcing the winners of the Big Ideas Challenge and the recipients of the Social Impact Fund, as well as celebrating the successes of past Social Impact Fund recipients such as Richard Yim of Landmine Boys and Tina Chan of PASS.

The Big Ideas Challenge is a social venture competition, with winners receiving GreenHouse Fellowships during the summer months. This year, five social enterprises received Fellowships totalling $9,500 and the possibility of accessing $15,000 more through the Social Impact Fund. They are: MapleKey, a modular sleeping pod service; Soleful, a technology to reduce falls among older adults; Cultured, a plant-based approach to culturing meat; SEED, an innovative approach to burial; and Arawelo, a cross-cultural women’s health platform.

Some ventures have been years in the making. Julia Hiscock, founder of MapleKey, began thinking about her idea when she saw homeless people choosing to sleep on the lawn of a shelter. Recognizing issues of privacy and dignity needed to be taken into account, Julia began looking at different shelter models. This summer, she hopes to develop a team and to get her product market-ready.

Similarly, Soleful began with a health hackathon at UWaterloo, and led to a capstone project for this team. Team member Dhruv Guliana says, “Our team is really excited about GreenHouse. We’re all engineering students so it will be very useful for us to develop business knowledge and market analysis and receive other kinds of mentorship. We’re also looking forward to networking opportunities – even at the Social Impact Showcase event, we made many meaningful contacts.”

The Cultured team is also looking forward to developing relationships at GreenHouse. “You can get money or space anywhere,” says team member Jawad Khan. “What’s unique about GreenHouse is the people. These are the kind of people we want to work with. We’re looking forward to the culture of GreenHouse, getting connected with their network and developing friendships and partnerships that will help us grow.”

Other winners at the Showcase included the recipients of the Social Impact Fund, which provides startup support to developing GreenHouse ventures. This term, Nicole Yang and Anna Chang were the recipients of $2,500 and $1,000 respectively. Nicole’s venture, rePUBLIC, aims to create more engaging public spaces through art installations paired with an app, and Anna’s venture, Midori, will investigate how to alleviate textile waste by repurposing used textiles into eco-friendly clothing.

- with files by Susan Fish

Student Service Transformation Project update

A message from the Student Services Transformation Needles Hall (SSTNH) Project Team

This month, the presidents of the Federation of Students and Graduate Student Association, Chris Lolas and Robert Bruce, sat down for a short interview about their involvement in the Student Service Transformation project and an overview of how the new centralized service will impact students.

Catch up with the student reps in the video above and visit the project website for more information. Chris Read will be back next month with more progress updates.

Long weekend closures and other notes

It's a short week this week with tomorrow being Good Friday, a statutory holiday.

Bunnies, Easter or otherwise, will have the run of campus this weekend as most services and operations will be closed for the long weekend.

• Retail Services outlets will be shuttered
• Most Food Services locations will be closed for the holiday weekend, with the exception of REVelation and the SLC Tim Hortons, which will be open over the weekend for students studying for and writing exams.
• The PAC and CIF will be closed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, but open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday. 
• The Dana Porter Library will be open from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. on Good Friday and the Davis Centre Library will be open 24 hours, with the circulation desks at both locations staffed from noon to 6:00 p.m. Check the Library's locations and hours page for more details.

The Turnkey Desk in the Student Life Centre will be open for business all weekend.

As always, even on holidays, the university police (ext. 22222, or 519-888-4911), and the central plant will monitor campus buildings (24-hour service and maintenance line, ext.33793).

President and Vice-Chancellor Feridun Hamdullahpur has been interviewed by WATCH magazine, the official publication of the Research + Technology Park. President Hamdullahpur is the first interviewee profiled in the magazine's new "Humans of the R+T Park" feature. Read the interview online or pick up a hard copy of the latest issue of WATCH magazine.