Thursday, April 5, 2018

Annual staff conference kicks off today

The annual Waterloo Staff Conference will be taking place on campus today and tomorrow. The two-day event features world-class keynotes as well as workshops, designed by Waterloo staff members, that help to develop personal and professional growth and further creates a robust, vibrant, and engaged community. 

This morning's opening keynote features Cheryl Pounder, Olympic gold medal athlete from the Canadian women’s hockey team. Cheryl’s message is that “It’s always about the journey,” an idea she seeks to instill in every audience she engages. Believing that learning from our successes, as well as our failures, is the key to staying on the path toward excellence, Cheryl focuses on the importance for both the individual and team to challenge each other from within. Focus, determination, respect and perseverance are integral in believing and achieving.

Following Pounder will be Dr. Greg Wells, scientist, broadcaster, author, coach, and athlete. Wells has dedicated his career to understanding human performance and how the human body responds to extreme conditions. He is an Associate Professor of Kinesiology at the University of Toronto and an Associate Scientist in Translational Medicine at the Hospital for Sick Children. Greg’s passion is to battle a world health crisis being caused by three main factors: poor sleep, lack of physical activity, and poor nutrition. His answer to the world’s health challenge is therefore simple: We need to eat better, move better and sleep better. Using simple techniques, attendees will learn that they that can make incredible differences in their lives in several easy ways.

A special mini-keynote session also takes place today featuring Tareq Hadhad, founder of Peace by Chocolate, who will share his story in a follow-up to the conference's 2016 special session on the Syrian refugee crisis and the documentary film, Salam Neighbor. Tareq and his family are now focused on job creation, utilizing a network of Syrian refugees from across Nova Scotia to help with distribution and support the local economy. The plan is to expand across Canada, offering other newcomers job opportunities. As Tareq says, “There are thousands of successes around the country. The responsibility that we have now is to share the positive things that Syrians are doing. If you offer the newcomers a welcoming arm, kindness and support, they can succeed faster.”

If you missed out on your chance to register for the event, limited registration of open workshops will be available on the days of the conference at the registration desk in the Don Craig Atrium in the School of Accounting & Finance or at the Science Teaching Complex.

Employees will be honoured at 25-50 year dinner

Waterloo staff and faculty celebrating employment milestones will be honoured at a dinner later this month.

As part of a suite of changes to the way that the University celebrates its longtime employees, the 25 Year Club event has evolved into a 25-50 year Dinner, and will be attended by those celebrating 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50 years of service at the University.

Those employees joining the 25-Year Club, who started working at Waterloo in 1993, are:

William Anderson, Mary Bland, Marion Brown, Claudio Canizares, Rita Cherkewski, William Chesney, Richard Cook, Edward Danhousen, Wendy Fritz, Tadeusz Gorecki, Anwarul Hasan, Penelope Haxell, Dan Hergott, Douglas Hirst, Peter Huck, Amir Khandani, Stephen Mann, William Power, Cathy Stein, and Weihua Zhuang.

Employees celebrating 30 years, who began their careers at the University in 1988, are:

Alexandra Oros, Andrea Chappell, Annette Dietrich, Barbara Yantha, Bosco Leung, Bruce Greenberg, Catherine Taylor, Cheryl Petrie, Christina Yee, Christine Roth, Clare Mitchell, Dag Balzer, Daniel Stashuk, Debbie Dietrich, Eric Soulis, Wayne Brodland, Gary Molson, George Labahn, Gerald Underhill, Gordon Wachveitl, Gregory Frowd, Helia Raposo, James Merli, Janusz Pawliszyn, Jill Tomasson Goodwin, John Quaiser, Karen Ertel, Karen Anderson, Kathleen Bloom, Kathryn Hare, Kelly Wilter-Draves, Kumaraswamy Ponnambalam, Laurie Strome, Mary Ann Robinson, Matthew Erickson, Melissa Baxter, Michael Koekritz, Neil McManus, Neime Cahit, Palmina De Leo, Philip Knipe, Prabhakar Ragde, Rick Zalagenas, Ronald Neill, Sandra Shantz, Scott Davis, Stephan Lambert, Terence Ridgway, Vlasta Suliman, Wendy Reid, and William Cowan.

Employees who have reached the 35-year milestone, having started working at Waterloo in 1983, are:

Christina Roberts, David Kibble, Gordon Cormack, Jefim Boritz, Paul Ludwig, Paul Calamai, Shirley Springall, and Trien Nguyen.

40-year veterans of the University who started working here in 1978 include:

Sherry Bell, Liviu Cananau, James Davidson, Kenneth Davidson, Vic DiCiccio, Gabrielle Huber, Verna Keller, Diane McKelvie, Gabriel Moreira, Cindy Rempel, Luigina Sorbara, Cameron Stewart, and Janet Vaughan.

The lone employee celebrating 45 years at the University this year, after joining in 1973, is Ian McKenzie, adjunct associate professor and Associate Chair Undergraduate Studies, Aviation and Geomatics Programs in Geography.

And this year, celebrating a half-century with the University since joining its ranks 50 years ago in 1968, is Professor John North of English Language and Literature.

The event takes place on Monday, April 23 from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. in Federation Hall's Main Hall.

Learn about the staff international experience fund at info session

Adam Wlad was implementing an enhanced student information system when he received a Staff International Experience Fund grant to travel the UK in the Fall of 2017. He was able to meet peers at schools that were in the midst of implementing a similar system and others who had previously completed such an implementation. Listening to their experiences and sharing Waterloo’s practices opened his eyes to surprising differences and similarities which have helped him to improve Waterloo’s implementation procedures and systems support.

Katherine Lithgow of the Centre for Teaching Excellence used SIEF funding to go to Australia to share her expertise in supporting Waterloo’s world-famous experiential education programming and to learn how Australian schools embed and enhance competencies and assessment of work-integrated learning into curriculum.

Come and hear Adam and Katherine share their SIEF stories and experiences at an information session on Wednesday, April 11 from noon to 1:00 p.m. in EC5-1111 (Enterprise Theatre). The session will also include information about how to apply for the SIEF this year. Light refreshments (coffee and cookies) will be provided.

You can also follow Monica Vesely’s experience on Twitter (@WaterlooINT) as she’s currently visiting schools in the UK and Holland. Find details about the SIEF including deadlines on the Waterloo International website.

Thursday's notes

The University of Waterloo’s Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing (CEMC) is hosting the Canadian Team Mathematics Contest today, a challenging, collaboration-based contest that welcomes over two hundred of this country’s promising high school students who have gathered to compete at Waterloo, accompanied by their teachers. They will come from as far east as New Brunswick and as far west as British Columbia. Hundreds of other students will be participating at their own schools around their world.

Each team will be given a set of problems and asked to collaboratively solve them in a short period of time. Since the students range in age and grade, part of a team’s strategy is to assess each team member’s strengths and tackle the problems accordingly. In the high-energy Relay event, each team member answers a different challenging question in turn. The catch is that the answer to one team member’s question must be received, and correct, in order for the next team member to complete their question. The CTMC gives students the experience of working together on challenging mathematics problems, because after all, there is strength in numbers.

Can you improve your contact lens comfort without touching your eyes? Help us find out! The Centre for Ocular Research & Education (formerly the CCLR) is currently seeking study participants for a study that investigates the use of a new nasal device in reducing symptoms of contact lens discomfort. Receive up to $165 for 6 hours of your time. All study products will be provided. For more information visit our website at https://cclr.ca/current-studies/soft-contact-lenses/coriander/. Have a question? Send an email to corestudies@uwaterloo.ca or call 519-888-4742 and mention the CORIANDER study.

The Fine Arts Department is hosting An Evening of Interaction and Live Performance featuring student works from the FINE 204 Wearable Media and FINE 392 Performance Art classes today from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. in East Campus Hall 1237 and other venues in an around the building.

With the Student Life Centre's food court and dining area closed for construction, the Campus Bubble and Wasabi Sushi locations are also shuttered, according to a note from the Federation of Students. However, you will still be able to get your Wasabi Sushi at International News if you so desire.

Plant Operations has announced that there will be a utility shutdown affecting labs in the Science Teaching Complex from Thursday, April 5 to Thursday, April 19. HVAC systems, including heating, ventilation, and A/C, will be offline during that time as new ductwork is installed.

Human Resources is reporting that staff member MaryAnn Britnell died on March 28. Britnell started her career at the University in August 1984 and worked as an Accounting Analyst in the Finance department. A visitation will take place today from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Erb & Good Funeral Home in Waterloo, with a memorial service to follow in the funeral home's chapel at 1:00 p.m. She is survived by her spouse Doug.