Thursday, February 20, 2020

WUSA hires first ever all-female executive team

The incoming WUSA executive team. From left: Alana Guevara (VP Operations & Finance), Megan Town (VP Education), Abbie Simpson (President) and Nada Abouelnaga (VP Student Life). 

The Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association (WUSA) has announced in a press release that an all-female executive team will take office, beginning May 1, 2020. In early February, undergraduate students cast their votes for the 2020-21 incoming Executive, Students’ Council and Waterloo Senate. For the first time in the history of WUSA (including when they operated as Federation of Students), an all-female executive team was voted in.   

Among their other priorities, the new team collectively ran on a platform of mental health advocacy and student engagement, hoping to bring more collaboration to WUSA’s internal and external operations.

“I feel it’s important that our gender identities don’t come in the way of our experiences, qualifications and passion for serving students,” said Vice President-elect Nada Abouelnaga.

According to the press release, Amanda FitzPatrick, current VP Student Life, remembers hoping for change after last year’s election. She felt the results showed a lack of diversity and respect for racialized and otherwise marginalized candidates. She now looks to the future with hope as this slate of powerful and qualified women prepare to take office. FitzPatrick is optimistic, “this will inspire more students to get involved in advocacy and governance, as for the first time ever they can see that succeeding is possible.” 

Stories of institutional racism and abuse brought to light

This is an excerpt of an article originally published on Waterloo Stories.

The Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children (NSHCC) was established in 1921 as a welfare institution for African Nova Scotian children in need of care. Operating for more than 70 years, the home was a site of institutional abuse. When former residents began to come forward in 1998 to speak about their experiences of harm, they were met with denials and silence by authorities. It would be more than a decade before their voices were properly heard.

Today, a team of Waterloo researchers, along with researchers from several other universities and community stakeholders, are working with former residents to shed light on the history of the home in order to build a more just future.

Tony Smith, who arrived at the home as a five-year-old in the 1960s, co-founded Victims of Institutional Child Exploitation Society (VOICES) with Tracy Dorrington-Skinner (sent to the home at age six) and Gerry Morrison (sent there as a two-year old). Their “journey to light,” as they refer to their activism, along with efforts by other former residents, led to an eventual settlement, a public apology from the premier, and in 2015 the launch of Nova Scotia’s five-year Restorative Inquiry into the NSHCC.

One of the missions of the inquiry was to support the public, especially high school students, in understanding the experiences of former residents as a means of reconciliation between African Nova Scotians and others. This is where Waterloo scholars are playing a role.

Kristina Llewellyn, professor of Social Development Studies and an expert in oral history and education, leads the Digital Oral Histories for Reconciliation (DOHR) project. Now in its third year, the multidisciplinary, community-driven partnership is contributing to Nova Scotia’s Grade 11 Canadian history curriculum using an approach called restorative learning. A goal of the DOHR project is to develop students’ historical understanding of the home, as an example of systemic racism, and a key feature of the learning process is virtual reality (VR) storytelling.

However, it is not VR as a first-person gaming experience nor as an empathy-making tool. “We’re doing VR differently,” Llewellyn says. “We don’t want to put the students experiencing the VR stories in the shoes of the children harmed in the home. Instead, we’re focused on relationships; designing the VR experience to give a sense of connection to the stories, to the people telling the stories, and to the history of harm in a way that would create a sense of responsibility toward making things better today.”

Rather than witnessing explicit scenes of abuse, the VR users move through renderings of the home’s interior spaces — a dormitory, a basement, the hallway outside a bathroom — hearing ambient sound and, most important, listening to Smith, Dorrington-Skinner and Morrison narrate their childhood experiences.

Read the full article.

School of Planning remembers Saul Herzog and Thursday's notes

The School of Planning, Faculty of Environment is very saddened to share that retired Professor of Design Saul Herzog passed away on February 12. Saul retired from the School of Planning in 1996, but continued to be an active participant in many social events at the University. He was always engaging and insightful; a valued member of our community he will be missed. A celebration of life for Saul will be held on March 15 at 2:00 p.m. 

There are a few events coming up at the Centre for Career Action (CCA): 

• For undergraduate students: How NOT to waste the next decade of your life, March 3, 5:00-7:00 p.m. Professor Larry Smith, Director of the Problem Lab, author and TED speaker, talks about valuable lessons on creating the career you've always wanted.
• CCA drop-in advising hours for February: Students can drop-in for résumé, cover letter and interview support from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. in the Tatham Centre, Monday through Friday.

See the Career Centre Events Calendar on WaterlooWorks for all upcoming student and employee workshops.

The Centre For Teaching Excellence has announced that registration is now open for the 12^th annual University of Waterloo Teaching and Learning Conference taking place on April 29, 2020. Last yearm over 400 faculty members, staff, and students gathered to learn around the theme of inclusivity and diversity in learning and teaching. The 2020 conference theme is Learning through Assessment. Kay Sambell, Professor of Higher Education Pedagogy at Edinburgh Napier University, and Sally Brown, Emerita Professor at Leeds Beckett University, will be the keynote speakers. Tamara Maciel (Program Director, School of Anatomy) and Associate Professor Geoff Hayes (Department of History) from Waterloo will each recreate a successful instructional approach in the Igniting Our Practice plenary session, which showcases some of the excellent teaching being done on campus.