Wednesday, October 21, 2020

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• Celebrating our convocation award winners
• University provides update on anti-racism activities
• Speaking out against contract cheating
• Remembering Distinguished Professor Emeritus Arnold Ages
• Wednesday's notes

Celebrating our convocation award winners

As the University community counts down to its live virtual fall convocation ceremonies on Saturday, October 24, we recognize special award winners in each faculty who will be recognized for their outstanding accomplishments.

Faculty of Applied Health Sciences

Eric Thomas Hedge will be recognized with the Alumni Gold Medal in recognition of outstanding academic achievement in a master's program.

Amanda Rafka Raffoul will be named a University Finalist for Alumni Gold Medal at the doctoral level.

Faculty of Arts

Tianjia Huang will be awarded the Accounting Alumni Award for Excellence in Accounting, given to the student graduating from the Master of Accounting program, who has the highest marks in all required and elective accounting courses.

Houman Mehrabian will be recognized with the Amit and Meena Chakma Award for Exceptional Teaching by a Student, awarded to a graduating student who has had a formal teaching role at the University and shown intellectual vigour and strong communication.

Tanya Michelle Tomasin will receive the Renison University College - President's Special Award for Academic Achievement.

Katelynn Alida Folkerts and Melissa Meade will both be named University Finalist for the Alumni Gold Medal

Faculty of Engineering

Jason Lars Deglint and Linda Yunzhi Wang are University Finalists for the Alumni Gold Medal.

Faculty of Environment

Simar Kaur and Nichola Mercer will be recognized as University Finalists for the Alumni Gold Medal.

Faculty of Mathematics

Nashid Shahriar will be awarded the University of Waterloo Alumni Gold Medal in recognition of his outstanding academic achievement in a doctoral program.

Ishan Bansal will be recognized as University Finalist for Alumni Gold Medal.

Yuyu Duan will be named winner of the James D. Leslie Undergraduate Prize, awarded to a student who has achieved a first-class standing and has earned at least half of the credits for their undergraduate degree through online courses.

Nicholas Joseph Emile Richardson will be recognized with the K. D. Fryer Gold Medal, awarded to a graduating Faculty of Mathematics student who best exemplifies academic excellence and good citizenship.

Faculty of Science

Mohammad Roostaie andShawna Leigh-Ann Semple will be recognized asUniversity Finalists for the Alumni Gold Medal.

Congratulations to all of our special award winners. You can share a message of congratulations to our graduating students by engaging with our hashtag #UWaterlooGrad and leaving a note on one of the virtual message boards below:

• Applied Health Sciences
• Arts
• Engineering 
• Environment 
• Mathematics 
• Science 

University provides update on anti-racism activities

President Feridun Hamdullahpur and Vice-President, Research and International Charmaine Dean have provided the campus community with an update on the latest activities of the President’s Anti-Racism Taskforce, or PART.

Hamdullahpur and Dean have held additional discussions with BIPOC members of the community and have heard from more than 40 BIPOC individuals who have expressed interest in participating in anti-racism work.

"We have brought these individuals together to create a forum, called the Community Collaborative, for broad consultation on the initiation and development of PART," write the president and vice-president in a memo circulated to employees yesterday. "On September 29, we were pleased to host the first official meeting of this Community Collaborative. The meeting was an opportunity for members to share ideas and to discuss how our anti-racism work should be shaped."

"Our discussions with our Community Collaborative members have revealed six thematic areas for our anti-racism work, that will be considered by PART: 

1. Safety
2. Race, culture & ethnicity education
3. Campus representation (faculty, staff, students)
4. Professional and academic development & mentorship
5. Pedagogy & the psychological development of learners
6. Health and mental health strategy

"We encourage you to provide feedback on the proposed thematic areas above, and on our entire anti-racism efforts. It will be helpful to hear from you by Tuesday, October 27," the memo continues. "We have updated our anti-racism website to keep you informed on the consultations we have held over the last two months. We will be sharing a list of community members that are engaged in this work and we thank them for their time and commitment."

"We remain both grateful and inspired by the level of open engagement and dialogue that members of our community have demonstrated," write President Hamdullahpur and Vice-President Dean.

Speaking out against contract cheating

A message from the Office of Academic Integrity.

Today marks the 5^th Annual International Day of Action Against Contract Cheating. Institutions around the world, including the University of Waterloo, raise awareness by speaking out against contract cheating. 

Contract cheating is an academic offence occurring when someone else, such as a friend or online service, completes academic work on the student’s behalf.

Visit the Office of Academic Integrity website for academic integrity resources for students and for instructors and TAs, and follow us on Instagram @uwacademicintegrity or Twitter @WaterlooAI to hear our students speak out against contract cheating.

Remembering Distinguished Professor Emeritus Arnold Ages

The Department of French Studies has reported that Distinguished Professor Emeritus Arnold Ages died on Friday, October 9.

Ages studied French History at Carleton University and received his MA and PhD from Ohio State University in Romance Languages. He also studied at Jerusalem's Hebrew University. His research foci and areas of interest included 18^th century French Literature, Old French Literature, Contemporary French Literature, problems of biculturalism, the French Canadian, Hebrew language and culture, Jewish religion, Israel and Zionism.

Ages started working at the University of Waterloo in September 1963 and was promoted to associate professor in 1966. He was named a full professor in 1969.

Professor Ages was a regular contributor to The Jewish Tribune. He was also a longtime scholar-in-residence at Toronto’s Beth Tzedec Congregation.

In 2004 Ages was granted the title Distinguished Professor Emeritus.

A private memorial service has taken place.

Wednesday's notes

Here's what’s happening at the Centre for Career Action (CCA) this week:

Wednesday, October 21:

• Co-op 101 for 2A Planners, 2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. EST
• Résumé Tips: Thinking Like an Employer, 4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Thursday, October 22:

• How to Find a Job, 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
• Successfully Negotiating Job Offers, 2:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

You can view CCA’s full offering of virtual programming online. Students can register on WaterlooWorks.  

CCA virtual drop-in advising hours for October:

• Résumé, cover letter, and interview drop-ins for undergraduate and Masters students are offered 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. EST Monday - Friday and 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. EST, Monday to Thursday.
• Career Consult and work search drop-ins for undergraduate and Masters students are offered 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. EST, Monday to Friday
• Further Education drop-ins are offered 1:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. EST, Monday to Friday
• PhD and Postdoc drop-ins are offered 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. EST, Monday to Friday

Students can book all virtual drop-ins through WaterlooWorks. Online registration begins at 8:00 a.m. daily.

The Library is hosting an Open Education Resources Workshop onFriday, October 23, from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Zoom. This introductory workshop covers copyright, licensing, sourcing, and selection of OERs and participants will learn how to search for and ethically use open educational resources in their course materials.

Contact kblair@uwaterloo.ca or cpeters@uwaterloo.ca to register by October 21. 

There's a battle going on: the annual Warriors vs. Laurier Blood Donation Battle. From now until December, you can join your fellow Warriors by donating blood and helping Waterloo win the Blood Battle against Laurier for a second year in a row. Set up a profile or add the PFL code: UNIV960995 to your account if you have a blood.ca account already. If you have questions, you can contact WarriorsInfo@uwaterloo.ca for more information.