Monday, November 11, 2019

Waterloo remembers

The University of Waterloo community will join the rest of the country in pausing for a few moments today to remember Canada's war dead. 

The official date of the Remembrance Day commemoration is always November 11, the anniversary of the day in 1918 when the guns fell silent at the end of the First World War. 

Much of Remembrance Day's imagery is connected to that conflict, including the poppies, sold by the Royal Canadian Legion and worn on lapels, that recall the wildflowers that grow in the fields of Flanders, in north Belgium, as mentioned in the famous poem by Lt.-Col. John McCrae that is read at many Remembrance Day commemorations.

In accordance with the University's flag guidelines, flags will be lowered from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on campus today.

For those members of the University community looking to mark the occasion on campus, the University of Waterloo chaplains have organized an interfaith service in the Great Hall of the Student Life Centre beginning at 10:45 a.m. 

On the University's east campus, the Office of Research has organized a tribute beginning at 11:00 a.m. on the East Campus 5 patio at the rear entrance of the building. Office of Research staff member Katie Neil will play a trumpet rendition of the Last Post, followed by two minutes of silence.

Also, members of the University community are encouraged to visit the Dana Porter and Davis Centre libraries from November 11 to 15 and sign a Valentines for Vets postcard created with images from the Library's Special Collections & Archives. The cards will be delivered to veterans in long term care facilities across the country in time for Valentine’s Day. A new collection of rare and unique prisoner of war artifacts is open for research in the Library’s Special Collections & Archives. Learn more about the Cameron Clare Hill fonds (or check out the feature below).

CTV Kitchener has a listing of local ceremonies at cenotaphs around the region.

Rare POW artifacts liberated at the Library

A message from Special Collections & Archives.

University of Waterloo Special Collections & Archives has now made available an unparalleled collection of prisoners of war (POW) artifacts, donated by the family of Cameron Clare Hill of Kitchener. The Cameron Clare Hill fonds contains 153 items, including photographs and records, military gear, medals and more.

An Officer in the Royal Air Force, Cameron and his crew were forced to eject from their aircraft during raid to Tobruk, Libya. Cameron was captured by Axis forces on October 11, 1942, and held captive in POW camps in Libya, Italy, Austria, Prussia, Poland, and Germany, until liberated by British forces on May 2, 1945 during a westward march across Germany.

The collection houses a number of exceedingly rare items, including maps of POW camps, POW ‘dog tags’ and a unique example of trench art. The collection also includes a notebook, provided to POWs by the Red Cross to stave off boredom, that showcases Cameron’s beautiful illustrations, satirical commentary and bleak insights into POW life.

These, and many other items pertaining to the World Wars, are available for members of the public to view and touch at the Library’s Special Collections & Archives.

Career advising lands in CMH

A message from the Centre for Career Action.

Residence is more than a space where students live, it’s where they learn. And when you bring a team of Career Advisors into Claudette Millar Hall (CMH) in September, it all adds up to supporting student success.

A collaboration between Waterloo Residences/Living-Learning and the Centre for Career Action (CCA) gives students a jump start on preparing for their first co-op work term. Through a series of workshops held in the first three weeks of the term, the 4-stream Engineering Co-op pilot program offers students the opportunity to work on core elements of applying to co-op jobs alongside career advisors. CCA offers job search preparation to all students in the Tatham Centre, but this unique collaborative pilot program brings those services right to residence. In September, more than 450 students participated.

“This is a great example of how CCA and Waterloo Residences/Living-Learning are working together to create accessible programming for students - at the time that works for them, at the place that works best for them, with the resources that they need in that moment," said Jessie Snyder, Living-Learning Coordinator. She’s been organizing the co-op preparation workshop for the past two years.

The first of the three sessions, called #ItAllAddsUp, is a brief, experiential, career wellness-promoting activity. It involves working with a student one-on-one to create a word cloud or concept map of their current activities, areas of skill and knowledge development, and goals. Over the course of 10 to 15 minutes, the concept map takes shape and serves to summarize visually how everything the student has been doing and thinking about “add up” to the future personal successes they’re striving for.

Closely followed a few days later by a résumé writing clinic, students take the skills concept map they developed through #ItAllAddsUp and use it as a framework to build their résumé while Career Advisors are on-hand to answer questions. Finally, a mock interview clinic gives students a chance to prepare for their upcoming co-op application cycle. This final piece takes place in the Tatham Centre where students experience first-hand how interviews are conducted.

“I love seeing students progress over the course of the co-op preparation series,” said David Thiessen, a career advisor who works with undergraduate students at CCA. “As they begin to identify and articulate their skills and experience through #ItAllAddsUp, craft their first résumé, and develop through mock interviews, seeing student confidence grow throughout the three workshops is truly rewarding and an incredible resource for managing student wellness and success at the very beginning of the co-op process.”

Opportunities to engage in experiential forms of career education like this are particularly valuable for students who are unfamiliar with what they may encounter during the co-op recruitment process. Through this series of micro-experiences, individuals build confidence by reflecting on their level of preparedness and verbalizing any of their thoughts in a low-stakes, high-support social setting.

Student participation in #ItAllAddsUp has grown more than 95% since 2017, a trend that Snyder and Thiessen anticipate continuing. With that, so does the planning for further programming. “We have demonstrated that this model works. Let’s use it to extend reach to more students, and more services.” 

President's Town Hall tomorrow and other notes

The President's Town Hall meeting takes place tomorrow in Federation Hall at 10:30 a.m. President Feridun Hamdullahpur will deliver a presentation, followed by a Q&A session where people can ask questions from the floor, via the livestream dialogue window, or on social media by tweeting with the hashtag #UWth. Watch the livestream beginning at 10:30 a.m.

The first of two staff consultation sessions for the Office 365 employee email investigation will take place today at 9:30 a.m. in DC 1304.

"The purpose of the Office 365 employee email initiative is to investigate the feasibility of moving staff, faculty, graduate and post-doctoral student email  to the Office 365 (O365) cloud environment; and if it proves feasible, after consultation and feedback from the University of Waterloo community, to develop a recommendation for approval to proceed and an implementation plan," says a note from IST. "Members of project team will make a brief presentation, which will be followed by an opportunity to ask questions and discuss any component of the project." 

The objectives of the IST consultation sessions are: 

• to review the rationale for email in the cloud deployment;
• to obtain feedback so we can determine if we will proceed; and
• to identify any gaps or areas we would need to address if we proceed 

To learn more about the project and review the related project resources, please visit https://uwaterloo.ca/office-365-employee-email. The second session is scheduled for Tuesday, November 19, from 3:00-4:30 p.m. in DC 1304. 

The Stratford Campus of Interaction Design and Business is hosting a Master of Digital Experience Innovation (MEDI) Lunch and Learn aimed at students who are interested in learning more about the MDEI program. The Lunch and Learn is happening Wednesday, November 13 in the DC Fishbowl. Professor Linda Carson will be delivering a workshop on working in interdisciplinary teams, and students who attend will be provided with a free lunch.