Thursday, May 2, 2019

Global Impact: A "second heart" to strengthen our golden years

This is the fourth in a seven-week series looking at the stories in Waterloo's Global Impact Report.

Each year, millions of older adults fall resulting in injuries that lead to hospitalization and severe functional decline. Richard Hughson, a professor in Applied Health Sciences, has co-developed the Second Heart device to tackle the root cause of many falls — poor blood pressure regulation.

Hughson’s team at the Research Institute for Aging has uncovered that up to a third of older adults’ blood pressure does not recover quick enough when they stand-up. The Second Heart wraps around a person’s calf muscle and after each heartbeat, the device compresses to help drive blood into the brain.

Read more about fall prevention technology.

Launching Waterloo's largest alumni chapter

By Claire Mastrangelo.

Waterloo alumni celebrated a special milestone on Tuesday night with the launch of the new Toronto alumni chapter. Approximately 200 proud graduates filled the LoyaltyOne office in downtown Toronto to meet fellow alumni and fuel their Waterloo spirit.

The Toronto chapter is Waterloo’s first pan-University alumni group in the GTA, and the largest chapter that the University has launched to date.

"This is a momentous occasion,” said President Feridun Hamdullahpur, who attended the launch on Tuesday night. “The addition of this alumni chapter demonstrates that Waterloo pride extends far beyond our campus community. Our alumni connect us to the world and are true champions who thrive on opportunities to engage with the University and each other. We couldn’t ask for more enthusiastic partners as we continue to advance Waterloo’s reputation around the world.”

More than 50,000 alumni live in the GTA, making it the largest population of Waterloo graduates in any city worldwide. Toronto is the newest of 11 alumni chapters, with the renewed Hong Kong chapter having just launched in March. Others include Vancouver, San Francisco and London (UK), to name a few.

Led by alumni volunteers, the chapters offer a wide variety of activities for both graduates and students on co-op and exchange terms. Chapters organize everything from career panels to global Canada Day celebrations. They also help the University achieve its strategic goals by sharing success stories, connecting fellow alumni with Waterloo and supporting students in their professional growth.

President Feridun Hamdullahpur (centre) with chapter leaders Anne-Marie Marais (BES ’95, far left), Elizabeth Wong (BES ’11), Rohit Ramchandani (BSc ’04), Jos Alas (BSc ’14) and Crystal Cole (BA ’91). The executive also includes Don Tu (BASc ’17).

“I want to say a huge thank you to Toronto’s volunteer leadership team and the team in Advancement,” said Joanne Shoveller, Vice-President of Advancement. “This partnership is creating a dynamic alumni platform in Toronto that is going to showcase University of Waterloo expertise and talent in a way that no other place can.”

Learn more about the Toronto alumni chapter on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Waterloo hosts social impact roundtable

A Universities Canada initiative to understand the social impact of universities across the country makes a stop at Waterloo today.

The University of Waterloo will be hosting a Social Impact Roundtable featuring representatives from institutions in southern Ontario including Wilfrid Laurier University, McMaster University, Western University, affiliated institutions and community partners.

“The aim of this initiative is to gain a deeper understanding of social impact initiatives at member institutions, build tools to increase capacity and share knowledge, and develop a robust narrative on the role of universities in their communities,” says a note from Universities Canada.

Universities Canada defines ‘social impact’ as the positive outcomes of initiatives that tackle social, economic, environmental, and cultural challenges faced by people, organizations, and communities. This can include financial activities, physical spaces, relationships and partnerships, and the research and educational mandates of post-secondary institutions.

The objectives of these roundtable discussions include:

• Sharing success stories, opportunities and aspirations;
• Identifying strategies to maximize social impact;
• Connect university and community practitioners across sectors; and
• Raise awareness of university-community activities and partnerships.

The event, which runs from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., will be held at St. Paul’s University College.

In addition to the regional roundtables, the initiative involves institutional surveys.

Teaching and Learning Conference and other notes

The 11^th annual Teaching and Learning Conference takes place today. The event is hosting by the Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE) and will feature instructors who will share their research, teaching strategies, and much more in interactive workshops, panel discussions, and presentations.

The theme for this year's conference is "Teaching and Designing for Diverse Learners."

The event takes place in Federation Hall and the Science Teaching Complex today.

The Department of Fine Arts is presenting MFA Thesis Two, a showcase of two MFA candidates' work. The exhibition runs from May 2 to May 18.

In Gallery One is Zahra Baseri's "Tell All The Truth But Tell It Slant." 

"Tell All The Truth But Tell It Slant is the result of my research on the problematic nature of binary oppositions and their causal relationship with power dynamics," writes Baseri. "From the viewpoint of an Iranian living in the Diaspora, I create images, objects, and spaces that subtly speak to the collective phenomenological experience of a shared melancholia that those who self-identify as Iranian are undergoing."

The exhibition addresses "complex issues of the oppressive ruling system in Iran that continually and deliberately produces socio-political turmoil as a way to control its citizens." Baseri employs allegory and representation of culturally and historically significant imagery from Persian and Islamic art and architecture as a commentary on political and social issues. 

Baseri was born and brought up in Iran. She is a Waterloo MFA candidate and completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours Studio from the University of Manitoba, and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering in Iran. She has exhibited in Art Mur’s Fresh Paint / New Construction (2016, 2018), and BMO 1st Art! at Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Toronto, where she was provincial winner for Manitoba (2016). She was awarded a Shantz International Research Scholarship through the University of Waterloo, and worked with artist Ann Hamilton in Guimarães, Portugal during the summer of 2018. She was awarded an Ontario Graduate Scholarship for her thesis research. 

In Gallery Two is Paula McLean's "To Catch A Glimpse of Things."

To Catch A Glimpse of Things is an exploration into concretizing and prolonging ephemeral gestures. Through the repetition of ambiguous forms and recurring imagery of distorted, amorphous figures, an attempt is made to reconstruct the complex and fragmentary phenomenon of perception, and the way meaning is created retrospectively through the extraction and arrangement of disparate moments and details gathered from lived experience. Employing the mediums of painting, drawing and sculpture, the exhibition presents a body of work in which the process of reproducing, abstracting and translating distorted images into other variations, mirrors the universal activity of the meaning-making mind, a mind that analyzes, prioritizes, erases, or substitutes aspects of experience as a means of negotiating a perceptually fluid world.

McLean is a Waterloo MFA candidate who received a Bachelor of Fine Art in Studio Art with a specialization in painting from Concordia University in 2017. She has exhibited at the Propeller Gallery, Toronto; Art Mûr, Montreal; Glenhyrst Art Gallery of Brant; and Forest City Gallery, London. She was awarded a Shantz International Research Scholarship through the University of Waterloo, and worked with Ireland-based painter Ciarán Murphy in the summer of 2018. 

The exhibitions are free and open to the public. The opening reception takes place tonight from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. in the University of Waterloo Art Gallery in East Campus Hall.