Friday, June 12, 2020

Waterloo students awarded prestigious Governor General's Gold Medal

By Angelica Sanchez.

(This article was originally published in Waterloo Stories.)

The University of Waterloo is proud to announce that two of its students will receive one of Canada’s highest honours in academia — the Governor General’s Gold Medal.

For highest standing in a doctoral program, Psychology PhD student Harrison Oakes (MA ’16) with the Faculty of Arts is recognized for his accomplishments in the research on social environments that stigmatize concealable identities. Former master’s student Joanne Marie Fitzgibbons (MES ’19) with the Faculty of Environment is being celebrated for her explorations in the process and politics of planning for urban resilience.

Harrison Oakes

Recognized for his interdisciplinary research on identity suspicion, Harrison Oakes highlights that social environments that stigmatize concealable identities (e.g., mental illness, being gay) oppress both people with the stigmatized identity and people with the contrasting non-stigmatized identity. For example, Oakes’ findings have demonstrated that in homophobic environments, people suspect even straight-identifying students with stereotypically straight interests of hiding a stigmatized sexual identity. As a result, students in these environments are expected to conceal behaviours and interests associated with the stigmatized identity to avoid having their identity questioned by their peers.

Oakes has a broad range of research experience, spanning work in identity perception, moral psychology, reasoning about social conflicts and identity expression on dating apps. Much of his research has been published in leading journals, including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Oakes has also received multiple awards for his scholarly work, including the prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship.

Oakes draws inspiration from his own experiences of homophobic bullying to drive his years of work as an advocate for anti-bullying curricula in schools. He uses his strong passion to use research to promote more inclusive communities and inspire social change.

[Editor's note: Read more about how Oake's research reveals how homophobia can affect everyone]

Joanne Marie Fitzgibbons

Having graduated with a Master of Environmental Studies (Planning) in fall 2019, Joanne Marie Fitzgibbons’ (MES ’19) list of accomplishments continues to grow. Her Master's thesis explored how urban planning for resilient and sustainable cities can be more equitable and just.

Fitzgibbons’ findings have led to the conclusion that urban planners can build resilience in a way that is equitable and inclusive, when city planners deliberately consider issues of redistribution and recognition, as well as participate during both strategic development and implementation stages.

This summer, Fitzgibbons is doing an internship with the City of Vancouver's Board of Parks and Recreation, while being enrolled in the Resource, Environment and Sustainability PhD program at the University of British Columbia.

Governor General’s Gold Medal

Created in 1873 by Canada’s third Governor General Lord Dufferin, the Governor General’s Gold Medal is an award given out annually to students from different institutions who achieve the highest level of academic scholarship for their cohort at their institution. The award is divided into four categories ranging from bronze at the secondary school level to gold at the graduate level.

Waterloo awarded for creativity on international stage

By Jude Doble, Office of Advancement

This week, the Council for Advancement of Education (CASE) announced three strong wins for Waterloo projects. This is an annual competition with hundreds of submissions from universities and colleges around the world. 

Congratulations to:

• Faculty of Environment undergraduate recruitment for winning SILVER in Best Design|Speciality Pieces for Living Our Values: Sustainable Swag from Waterloo's Faculty of Environment
• University Relations for winning BRONZE in Video|General Information Video – Short for the Beyond Purpose video featuring alumnus Richard Yim (MBET ’17)
• University Relations for winning GOLD in Video|News and Research Videos for the Beyond Prediction – Polygone: We’re drinking our clothes video featuring alumnus Lauren Smith (MES ’17)

Additionally, another Waterloo project was recognized by CASE in the 2020 District II Accolades. A team of alumni, students and groups across campus in Videos Promoting Intercultural Understanding for the I am African and I am Caribbean videos.

These recognitions build on the Waterloo awards received from the Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education (CCAE), CASE’s Canadian counterpart. Hats off to our creative colleagues who help to showcase Waterloo’s creativity and strategy on the international stage.

Ask an online expert: I'm developing an online course - where do I start?

Moyo Studio / E+ / Getty Images

By Katelin Hamilton, Senior Online Learning Assistant

This is the first article in a series by the Centre for Extended Learning

While the task of transforming an in-person course to an online environment may seem daunting, there are many resources available to support this transition, including the Templates for Remote Teaching developed by Gillian Dabrowski, Julia Burke, and Nick Szyngiel from the Centre for Extended Learning.

The Templates for Remote Teaching LEARN site provides a sample course structure that can be freely used for all Fall 2020 courses. It includes a variety of resources, including a standard Fall Remote Teaching Syllabus, sample formats for assignment and content pages, as well as significant guidance on online content creation and LEARN how-to documents.

This resource is designed to be easy to use – instructors can self register for the course on LEARN, import the templates into their own courses and easily edit and update them to meet their course needs. These templates go beyond providing a starting point for instructors. They’re designed to save time by being easy to update while also enhancing content delivery by making the student experience consistent and clear.

Multiple instructors from across faculties have used these templates in designing their Spring term courses. Lecturer Keith Delaney (Earth and Environmental Sciences) said the most important thing for other instructors to know is that the templates exist! He found the templates saved time, perhaps days or even weeks of work. As the structure of the course was already built-in, Dr. Delaney found the move to remote teaching to be less stressful than starting from scratch. He said, “the Templates really helped. There’s no doubt about it.”

If you are interested in using these templates, self-register for “Templates for Remote Teaching” in LEARN.

If you need further support, it is available! Contact learnhelp@uwaterloo.ca for assistance using these templates or remoteteaching@uwaterloo.ca for assistance in setting up complex assignments (e.g. group work, student presentations, e-portfolios, and peer review).

And don’t forget there are also many great resources on the Keep Learning website.

Spotted (and striped): Good Buddies outdoors

On this beautiful Friday, the Daily Bulletin team hopes these Good Buddies will inspire you to get outside this weekend.

Alison Boyd, senior director in Alumni Relations, made a rare spotting last weekend. "I took this picture of an American White Pelican that I spotted on Columbia Lake on Sunday June 7 around 3:30 p.m." she writes. "According to the Waterloo Region Birds Facebook group this is a rare sighting - white pelican’s haven’t been in Waterloo Region in a very long time."

"Gio is an off-the-track thoroughbred who has been a riding horse for several years and excels at dressage. He is very sociable – and loves his mint," writes Recreation and Leisure Studies associate professor Steven E. Mock.

"I was working on my patio Tuesday afternoon when a committee of four approached me. I grabbed my laptop and made good my escape, since I always try to avoid meetings and this one looked likely to turn out badly," writes Terry Labach, systems integration specialist in Information Security Services. "These young ones have obviously not received the memo that they are nocturnal."