Thursday, November 1, 2018

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• Take your kids to work on November 14
• Executive actions at Thrive Week and beyond
• Campus to welcome visitors to Fall Open House
• A successful Souper Thursday and other notes

Take your kids to work on November 14

Calling all employees with children in Grade 9: The University of Waterloo is participating in The Learning Partnership’s national Take Our Kids to Work Day on Wednesday, November 14.

Visiting students will have the chance to spend the day job shadowing a parent, friend, relative or volunteer host at the University to get a head start on their careers and explore career opportunities available to them.

Waterloo is a diverse workplace and a variety of workshops and hands on opportunities are scheduled to showcase our campus. We hope you’ll take part by bringing your Grade 9 student to work with you that day, and if you’re planning to participate, please register.  

For additional information please contact Jody Berringer.

Developed by The Learning Partnership in 1994, Take Our Kids to Work Day is an annual event that gives students the opportunity to discover a range of career possibilities and navigate their career interests. More than 200,000 students visit workplaces every year.

The event also gives businesses an opportunity to share knowledge and advice around education, career choices and relevant skills required in today’s workplace.

Executive actions at Thrive Week and beyond

President Feridun Hamdullahpur holds up a signed copy of the Okanagan Charter as CoSMH Chair John Hirdes looks on.

It’s Thursday, November 1. Do you know what your president is up to?

The snow is nearly in the air, but that only means a very active time for President Hamdullahpur is well underway. Here is a non-exhaustive list of the President’s recent activities on and off campus and a look ahead at what's on his calendar.

President Hamdullahpur continues to take part in the Strategic Plan’s consultation sessions. Recent sessions have focused on each of the University’s Faculties and graduate students. The President has had the chance to engage with hundreds of Waterloo community members to hear their vision and priorities for our University.

Canada’s future is a diverse one. With this in mind the President was invited to take part in a special fireside chat Tuesday, October 9 with RBC Capital Markets (RBCCM) Mosaic Canada group on how education needs to evolve to meet the demands of a rapidly changing work environment. President Hamdullahpur was joined by Jonathan Hunter, RBCCM’s Global Head, Fixed Income & Currencies, and John Stackhouse, Senior Vice-President, Office of the CEO at Royal Bank of Canada.

The President kicked off a day of health and wellness at the second annual Keeping Well at Work Day on Wednesday, October 10 by welcoming and encouraging the crowd of staff, faculty and students who took the time to explore healthy workplace practices. Later that day, President Hamdullahpur met with a delegation from the University of Grenoble Alpes, a leading research intensive university in France.

It was a busy Thursday, October 11 as President Hamdullahpur welcomed two federal cabinet ministers to campus. Government House Leader and Waterloo MPP, Bardish Chagger was on campus to share the announcement of $29+ million in NSERC Discovery Grants funding for research at Waterloo. Later that day, the President met with Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Min. Ahmed Hussen.

President Hamdullahpur welcomed a delegation from the University of Bordeaux on Friday, October 12 as our two institutions continued exploring more opportunities to expand our strong partnership across the Atlantic.

The University of Waterloo was well represented at the Fortune Global Forum with President Hamdullahpur being joined in Toronto by Nobel Laureate, Professor Donna Strickland, and Waterloo’s new chancellor and global business leader Dominic Barton. The two-day conference brought business and government leaders from across Canada and around the world to Toronto to discuss key issues shaping global business. 

The Student Mental Health Forum on October 24 marked an important date for the President and the entire University as we officially signed onto the Okanagan Charter. President Hamdullahpur, Committee on Student Mental Health (CoSMH) Chair John Hirdes and Director of Campus Wellness, Walter Mittelstaedt also provided updates on the implementation of the Student Mental Health Report’s 36 recommendations and answered questions from the audience.

It was an active 117^th Convocation on October 26-27 with more than 2,400 students receiving their degrees at the Fall ceremonies, the installation of our 11^th chancellor, Dominic Barton, and the investment of chancellor emeritus on Tom Jenkins.

The President started Monday, October 29 by welcoming the British High Commissioner to Canada, Susan le Jeune d'Allegeershecque to discuss UK-Canada relations. The day continued with Engineering 7’s official opening with the President speaking in front of an enthusiastic crowd at the Grand Opening celebration and at a Gala Dinner later that evening.

On Tuesday, October 30, President Hamdullahpur took part in the first University of Waterloo Board of Governors meeting of the school year as he discussed the current state of the University across many performance indicators and looking ahead at how to make further gains as an institution in the future.

What’s next?

As the Strategic Plan consultation process continues the President will be taking part in a number of consultations sessions, including events with faculty members and Alumni Council, plus issue paper specific sessions on topics such as Research Excellence.

The President will be traveling to New York City for a series of roundtable sessions and meetings with alumni from November 1-2 as he looks to engage with Waterloo’s many alumni in the area.

With Parliament back in session, the President will be traveling to Ottawa on November 6 for a series of meetings with government ministers and officials to strengthen the University of Waterloo’s message of innovation and impact in the nation’s capital.

President Hamdullahpur will be attending the 28^th Annual University of Waterloo Planning Alumni Dinner on November 8 in Toronto. The alumni dinner is always a highly anticipated event for the entire Toronto planning, development and real estate community.

Campus to welcome visitors to Fall Open House

On Saturday, November 3, thousands of prospective students and their families are expected to visit the University of Waterloo for Fall Open House.

The schedule of events includes campus tours from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., a Student Services Fair, and tours of residences and athletics facilities. A number of academic sessions and tours will be held within each faculty.

Future students and their families will have an opportunity to meet with professors, staff, and current students who can help them learn about what makes Waterloo unique.

Free parking is available, and a shuttle will be running all day to assist guests in reaching their varied destinations around campus.

A successful Souper Thursday and other notes

Jason Coolman, Associate Vice-President, Development & Alumni Relations; alumnus and Governor Karen Wilkinson; Roly Webster, Director of Athletics and Recreation, and Kurt MacMillan, the Federation of Students' Vice-President, Operations and Finance on Souper Thursday 2018.

On Thursday, October 25 the campus came together to support United Way at Souper Thursday. This second annual event raised just over $1,500 for United Way!

We had a fun afternoon full of delicious homemade soup, networking, and learning about the community resources United Way supports. We’d like to give a special thank you to all of our celebrity chefs, we couldn’t have done it without you.

Check out all of the photos from the lunch on Facebook and remember, it’s not too late to make your 2018 donation.

The 2019 Innovative Design for Accessibility (IDeA) student competition launches today. IDeA aims to inspire students to use their creativity to develop innovative, cost-effective and practical solutions to accessibility-related issues resulting in communities that are more accessible for persons with disabilities.

The objectives of the program are:

• to contribute to the creation of a culture of accessibility in Canada;
• to motivate students to think about accessibility issues and to include accessibility in their creation of social and technological innovations now and in the future; and
• to develop cost-effective, practical and innovative concepts, programs, initiatives or designs that address every day accessibility issues.

Students or student teams enrolled in any post-secondary undergraduate or graduate program at a Canadian university can submit a project for the competition. The prizes for the competition include prize money, a chance to present at the Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX) annual conference and invitations to join the IDeA alumni network.

The students or student teams who place first in each of the three streams will receive $5,000 and all-expense paid trip to Toronto to present at the CIX. The students or student teams who place second in each of the streams will receive $1,500. Students who place third in each of the streams will receive $1,000. All students or student teams who place in the competition will be invited to join the IDeA alumni network.

The competition closes April 30, 2019.

Housing’s Occupancy and Marketing Services team were among those who got into the Halloween spirit yesterday. Did you and your coworkers decorate your workspace or dress up yesterday? Send the Daily Bulletin a photo!