Friday, January 24, 2020

It's performance appraisal season

"Staff performance appraisal season is now upon us," says a note from Human Resources. "Please ensure that you review, document and discuss your performance for 2019 with your manager. Your performance appraisal should include a meaningful discussion that highlights your accomplishments in 2019 and goals for 2020."

Timelines

Human Resources has published dates and timelines for the performance appraisal process. While the below dates are the formal University dates, individual departments may have adopted variations of the timeline, except for the March 13 deadline. Please check with your manager to confirm your timeline.

Resources

Human Resources has the following informational resources available:

If you have any questions, please speak with your manager directly or contact your Human Resources Partner.

Remembering Distinguished Professor Emeritus Janos Aczel

The Department of Pure Mathematics has announced that Distinguished Professor Emeritus János Aczel died on January 1, 2020 at the age of 95.

Aczel joined the University of Waterloo in 1965 after holding positions at the University of Cologne, Lajos Kossuth University, University of Miskolc, and University of Szeged. His research focused on functional equations and their applications, with particular regard to the social and behavioural sciences.

He founded the journal Aequationes Mathematicae, first published in 1968, and remains its honorary editor-in-chief. Issues of the journal were dedicated to Aczél in 1999, 2005, and 2010, in honor of his 75th, 80th, and 85th birthdays. His career included over 300 articles and 10 books.

"He was a giant in his field and left a huge footprint in the Pure Mathematics Department and the Faculty of Mathematics generally," writes Distinguished Professor Emeritus Alan George. "He was one of the people of immense academic stature, along with Tutte, Sprott, Stanton, and several others, who gave the fledgling Faculty of Mathematics its legitimacy (and much more) during its early years."

Aczel was one of two Waterloo professors to be granted the distinction "Distinguished Professor" while an active faculty member.

"In addition to honorary degrees from Karlsruhe University, the University of Graz, Silesian University of Technology, University of Miskolc, and the University of Debrecen, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1971," says a tribute written on the Pure Mathematics website. "In 1990 he became a Foreign Fellow of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and in 2008 he became an honorary member of the Hamburg Mathematical Society, the oldest active mathematical society in the world. He was the 1988 winner of the Santiago Ramón y Cajal Medal and in 2004 he won the Kampé de Fériet Award of the annual Information Processing and Management of Uncertainty conference, "for his pioneering work on the theory of functional equations, with applications in many fields, such as information measures, index numbers, group decision making, aggregation, production functions, laws of science, theory of measurement and utility theory.""

“János was a man of service during his time at the University of Waterloo, both on campus and in the math community,” said David McKinnon, Chair of the Department of Pure Mathematics. “He chaired several committees, organized conferences and represented the university as an invited speaker around the world.”

A celebration of life will take place at the Capital Funeral Home and Cemetery in Nepean on Sunday, January 26 from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., and Aczel's family will be arranging a celebration on the University campus on Friday, April 17. RSVP to j.aczel2020@gmail.com.

Read the full tribute on the Pure Mathematics website.

Next week is Consent Week

A message from Human Rights, Equity and Inclusion.

Consent Week UW will take place from Monday, January 27 to Friday, January 31.

Consent Week is an opportunity for campus community members to engage in conversations, activities, and events focused on consent and healthy relationships. Our goals for the week are to:

• normalize dialogue about consent;
• increase the understanding of consent;
• allow the campus community to explore how to engage in healthy, positive relationships with one another; and
• highlight the services on and off campus that are available for support

There are free campus-wide events and workshops for students, faculty and staff including:

• Wen-Do Self-defence Workshops, 2-hour workshops for women-identifying and non-binary students (January 28, 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.), and staff and faculty (January 28, 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.), covering the fundamentals of self-defence through a feminist, anti-oppression analysis, the importance of using our voice, body weapons, kicks, blocks, a range of releases, and we will break down stereotypes about gender based violence.
• “What’s love got to do with it?” with Julie S. Lalonde (January 30, 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.), an evening talk, open to all campus community members that draws on Julie’s experience, years of advocacy with other survivors and academic research on the causes and enablers of stalking, this keynote will give participants concrete tools to challenge unhealthy relationship dynamics; in themselves and others.
• Consent Workshop with Sexual Assault Support Centre of Waterloo Region (SASC) (January 30, 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.), a 2-hour talk, open to all campus community members with SASC on what consent is, what barriers exist in creating a culture of consent, and how to apply consent practices in sexual and non-sexual contexts, participants will learn ways to incorporate consent into their daily practices.
• “What were you wearing?” Survivor Art Installation (January 31, 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.) an installation presented in partnership with SASC, provides a tangible response to one of our culture's most pervasive rape myths. Outfits featured have been recreated from the stories of student-survivors. If only ending sexual violence was as easy as changing our clothes, instead it requires all of us to evaluate what enabled us as individuals and as a society to ask, what were you wearing? in the first place.

Visit Consent Week UW for full listing of events and workshops and register today.