Monday, May 29, 2017

Provostial committee calls for nominations

The Secretariat is preparing to constitute the nominating committee to identify the next Vice-President, Academic & Provost. As required by Policy 48, The Vice-President Academic & Provost, nominations are requested for the following seats on the nominating committee.

• A senator of professorial rank from each Faculty, elected by a vote within that Faculty. The names of the individuals eligible to stand for nomination are printed on the nomination form.
  • Faculty Senator Nomination Form
• Two regular faulty members, elected by and from the faculty-at-large of the University.
  • Faculty-at-large Nomination Form
• Two staff members, elected by and from the regular staff of the University.
  • Regular Staff Member Nomination Form

At least three nominators are required in each case. Completed nomination forms should be submitted to the Chief Returning Officer, Secretariat, Needles Hall, room 3060, by 3:00 p.m. on Friday, June 9.

Elections will follow if necessary.

Questions may be directed to Emily Schroeder, eschroeder@uwaterloo.ca, or you can consult the Secretariat’s website for more information.

The Keystone Picnic is only four days away

A message from the Office of Advancement.

Get your party on at the annual Keystone Picnic happening this Friday from 11:30 til 1:30 in the DC Quad.

Lunch will be served at 11:45 on a first-come, first-served basis. You’ll need to hand in your food ticket (emailed last week), which is also your ballot for a chance at some exciting door prizes. Speaking of prizes, don’t forget to enter the Trivia Contest for a chance to win dinner at Proof Kitchen + Lounge and a night’s stay at the Delta Hotel!

The always-popular dunk tank is back again this year, with a great lineup of colleagues who can’t wait to go swimming. More picnic details are here on the Keystone webpage.

Your donations and hours spent volunteering with the Keystone Campaign make such a strong impact on our campus community – thank you. See you Friday!

Event showcases Architecture projects

The School of Architecture has organized two events taking place this week that celebrate the presence of Waterloo Architecture at the Venice Biennale over the past decades.

The first event is the opening of an exhibition entitled "Waterloo Architecture in Venice: Before and Beyond the Biennale," that takes place tonight at 6:30 p.m. at the Design at Riverside Gallery at the School of Architecture in Cambridge.

"Selected from Waterloo exhibits and projects shown at the past five Architectural Biennales plus one intervention into the 2015 Art Biennale, the work assembled at Design at Riverside testifies to the breadth and critical depth of research the School of Architecture fosters," says a note from the School. "Rich with prototypes, tests, photographs but also shipping plans, Waterloo Architecture in Venice offers a glimpse into what it means to research, plan, build, ship and install an architectural exhibition some thousands of kilometres away, from the shore of the Grand River to the Venetian Lagoon."

On Thursday, June 1 at 6:30 p.m., seven Waterloo Architecture in Venice Faculty will participate in a panel discussion in the School of Architecture's Main Lecture Hall.

"Philip Beesley, Adrian Blackwell, Anne Bordeleau, Donald McKay, John McMinn, Lola Sheppard and Robert Jan van Pelt will discuss the life these exhibits have both before and after Venice, addressing the conceptual, material and discursive implications of these different Biennale projects," says a note from the event organizers.

Report calls for Canada to decarbonize

This is an excerpt of an article originally posted on the Faculty of Environment news site.

“If we're going to have any hope of reaching our commitments under the Paris Agreement or keeping warming below two degrees, then the de-escalation of fossil fuel consumption has to happen immediately.”

Department of Geography and Environmental Management professor and Canada Research Chair in Sustainability Governance and Innovation, Sarah Burch is one of the coordinating lead authors of a scholarly consensus report released today identifying the urgency, barriers and economic opportunities for Canada’s transition to a low-carbon future.  

Commissioned by Natural Resources Canada, Re-Energizing Canada: Pathways to a Low-Carbon Future represents the collective views of more than 70 university researchers from all 10 provinces on how Canada can make the low-carbon transition while remaining globally competitive.The authors identified social, political and organizational issues as the key barriers.

“Governance is crucial,” Burch stresses. “Low-carbon technological innovation is important, but the most pressing challenges are social and political. Unless we create the right incentives for people to use those technologies, unless we coordinate our efforts and communicate the benefits of this transition, we're just not going to get there.”

But the good news, according to the 60-page independent report, is that we can begin the process of transitioning using existing technology. And with government at all levels providing guidance, support and mobilization initiatives, Canada stands to win.

“With its uniquely vast endowment of renewable energy resources, Canada can seize the global low-carbon energy transition as an opportunity to build a major new economic engine for the country,” Burch says.

And from her perspective, the opportunities to make Canadian communities better through decarbonisation is the key message.

Read the rest of the article on the Environment news site.