Thursday, October 24, 2019

Order up: Food Services launches mobile take-out app

The lines at Brubakers in the SLC are infamously long, and UW Food Services realized something needed to be done. They worked for the past 18 months to help solve this issue, and now there's an app for that.

“We are excited to be offering a solution for the campus community to skip the lines and get their food when they are ready.” Director Lee Elkas says, “Being one of the first Canadian universities to launch a mobile ordering app is a goal we strived for and are so proud to have accomplished.”  

What does this mean for the University community? You now have the ability to pre-order your food from Quesada, Shawarma Hub, Pita Pit, Pizza Pizza and Subway and pick it up at a designated window in the Student Life Centre. 

Everyone is able to use their Visa or Mastercard to pay, while students have the added benefit of using their Watcard.  

With the app completely launched and accepting orders, Food Services is seeing the use of it growing every day and look forward to expanding it to other locations in the future.  To learn more about the app, check out this page.

Interdisciplinarity, academic programming task force seeks members

The University of Waterloo is seeking members to establish a task force on interdisciplinary, inter-faculty research, academic programming and training.

"Interdisciplinary research, academic programming and training have helped lay Waterloo’s foundation for an environment of disruption and innovation," wrote President Feridun Hamdullahpur in a memo circulated to faculty and staff yesterday. "Interdisciplinarity is vital to our brand of innovation because it can lead to new ways of thinking, opportunities to discover unexpected solutions and identifying unique and applicable technologies that would not be possible without combined knowledge in several areas of expertise."

"Finding ways to bolster interdisciplinary working at Waterloo was a key theme of the feedback we received during the consultations on our new strategic plan. With this in mind, the Vice-President, Academic and Provost and the Vice-President, Research and International are seeking members to establish a task force on interdisciplinary, inter-faculty research, academic programming and training."

Under the joint leadership of Jean Andrey, dean of environment and Bernard Duncker, associate vice-president, interdisciplinary research, this task force will recommend changes that will enhance excellence and innovation in our approach to interdisciplinarity.

The final committee will consist of approximately 12 members, including:

• leadership from undergraduate and graduate studies,
• representation from the student community, 
• as well as four to six at-large members that span our diverse research and learning communities.

Faculty and staff are invited to self-nominate to serve on the task force by submitting a short expression of interest (no more than a paragraph) to Angela Olano (aolano@uwaterloo.ca) by October 29, 2019. 

The task force will consider and provide recommendations in five areas:

1. Explore opportunities to create cross-faculty interdisciplinary research teams that leverage disciplinary strengths to address major problems of societal importance requiring a multidisciplinary approach;
2. Explore opportunities to enhance connections between inter-faculty interdisciplinary research, academic programming and training priorities and consider opportunities to address barriers to pursuing such connections;
3. Explore opportunities for diversified research experiences for graduate and undergraduate students including research co-op and participation in interdisciplinary research teams; consider opportunities for flexibility in graduate programs;
4. Establish a method for differentiating between centres and institutes of different sizes and scope; consider the effectiveness of current evaluation criteria for performance of interdisciplinary centres and institutes, and for interdisciplinary initiatives generally; and
5. Consider operational efficiencies for interdisciplinary units, including the exploration of linking task-specific professional business support across interdisciplinary units; consider strategies to address other major operation issues identified within the strategic planning consultations (to be provided).

The task force's outcomes will be shared with the University community as the implementation process for the University’s strategic plan is developed.

"Thank you in advance for your interest and I look forward to your feedback and participation in this important initiative," the president's memo concludes.

Retirement news from CEL

A message from the Centre for Extended Learning (CEL).

CEL is sharing with campus news of the upcoming retirement of one of our long-standing colleagues: Sue Haché has been with CEL for 37 years, and over her career has seen tremendous change and growth. She’s seen the passage of 4 different directors, 5 different assistant directors, 3 department title changes, and 3 building moves. Within the ‘Correspondence’ department, Sue started off with the mailing of course materials, and proceeded to working in the reception area, course notes, and will be retiring as an Instructional Digital Media Developer within CEL’s Course Production team.

Sue shared that the one common denominator throughout all the change and growth was the people who worked in Correspondence/Distance Education/CEL. We all had/have the desire and determination to make learning a better experience for our students, and she feels she’s been very lucky to have worked with some amazing people, including incredible mentors who gave her the courage to find her place in all of the growth, and has formed lifelong friendships through those connections. She has enjoyed being able to spend every day being creative and because of that, the years have flown by.

While CEL has benefitted from the contributions Sue has made over these years, it’s especially rewarding to consider the thousands of students her work has touched over the course of her career. Please join us in congratulating Sue and wishing her well as she moves on to this most exciting of life achievements – deciding when and what she will do each day forward!

Sue’s last day in the office will be Wednesday, October 30.

Thursday's notes: it's public lectures all the way down

The latest entry in the CrySP Speaker Series on Privacy features Stefan Saroiu of Microsoft Research, who will deliver a lecture entitled “Are We Susceptible to Rowhammer? An End-to-End Methodology for Cloud Providers,” today at 11:00 a.m. in DC 1302. What's a Rowhammer, you might ask? According to the talk's abstract, Rowhammer attacks are a recent attack vector that can compromise privacy at large scales because it can bypass all hardware isolation protection abstractions, including SGX, hypervisor, or process isolation. 

Saroiu is a researcher in the Mobility and Networking Research group at Microsoft Research (MSR) in Redmond. Stefan's research interests span many aspects of systems and networks although his most recent work focuses on systems security. 

As part of the Water Institute's ongoing WaterTalks lecture series, Professor Kathryn Furlong will deliver remarks entitled "Water’s big infrastructure: From debt-led development to financialization" today at 2:30 p.m. in DC 1302. 

"This talk explores economies of water’s big infrastructure, from debt-led development to financialization," says the talk's abstract. "Interest in infrastructure financialization has grown with concern about financialization more broadly, coming to dominate discussions on economies of infrastructure."

Furlong is an associate professor in the Department of Geography at the Université de Montréal and holds the Canada Research Chair in Water and Urbanization. Her research focuses on political ecologies of infrastructure and urban service provision, particularly water.

Later today, the Philosophy department and the Waterloo Indigenous Student Centre will be co-hosting a public lecture by Dr. Kyle Whyte, the Brian Rudrick Visiting Scholar in Philosophy, entitled "Not Done Critiquing Wilderness Areas, National Parks & Public Lands."

"Lands and waters protected for the sake of recreation and biodiversity conservation have troubling origins in colonialism and capitalism, whether sponsored by the United States or other nations or corporations globally," says the talk's abstract. "Yet critical awareness of such history has not generated acceptable environmental justice solutions for Indigenous peoples, people of color, and other groups who have been disenfranchised from these places."

Whyte is a professor, Timnick chair, and environmental activist at Michigan State University. His work focuses on problems and possibilities facing Indigenous peoples regarding climate change, environmental justice, and food sovereignty.

The event takes place at 7:00 p.m. in HH 1102. All are welcome to a reception after the talk. RSVP to a2prior@uwaterloo.ca.

Finally, there's still time to join the conversation about economic reconciliation and empowerment for Indigenous communities. JP Gladu, president and CEO of the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business (CCAB) and Chancellor of St. Paul's University, will deliver the 2019 Stanley Knowles Humanitarian Service Lecture on Wednesday, October 30 entitled “Economic Reconciliation- For all Canadians”. This is a free public lecture, but registration is required.