Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Prioritizing your mental health over the holidays

A message from Campus Wellness.

For many of us, the uncertainty of COVID-19 and the disruptions it has caused to daily life leads to increased anxiety and stress, especially as the holiday season approaches. As wonderful as the holiday season can be, it may be difficult for several reasons. Stress, isolation and feelings of loss are all common to experience this time of year. However, if these feelings are consuming your life and impacting your functioning, it is important that you reach out to available resources. 

Your feelings and thoughts can get into a cycle of worries which can amplify your feelings, causing you to feel even worse and making it difficult to see other perspectives. This cycle may lead to increased mental health challenges, and a reduced capacity to cope in healthy ways. For some, it may lead to an increase in substance use or lack of self-care.

Although physical distancing and isolation are viewed as the most effective way in slowing the spread of COVID-19, your vision of the holidays probably didn’t include virtual gatherings, outdoor visits, and masked shopping, making these measures challenging. Following the physical distance guidelines may be proving especially difficult for those already struggling with mental health concerns or isolation. Checking in with what you need now both physically and mentally and reaching out for support if you need it is more important than ever! 

We want to make sure that you focus on maintaining and fostering mental wellness over the holidays, so here are some tips to reduce stress over the holidays:

• Routines: It’s so important to continue your routines around exercise, sleep and self-care practices, which are the foundations for good mental health. Make sure you’re getting the proper nutrition and enjoying time in nature to help you relax.
• Boundaries: Set boundaries over the holidays to help manage your physical and mental health. Whether that means cancelling plans and skipping out on another holiday zoom call or making sure you are moderating your alcohol intake.
• Acknowledge your feelings: Make intentional space to feel the emotion or address it and remind yourself “I’m doing everything I can do in this situation.” Recognize that you are not alone in what you are experiencing as many others are struggling as well.
• Spend time with loved ones (virtually): Surround yourself with a support system that you are comfortable opening up to. Find creative ways to stay connected with others.
• Create new traditions: Think of ways to make the most of this holiday season and ways to create new traditions in these unique circumstances.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for help!

There are support resources available to you over the holidays if you’re in crisis, feeling unsafe, or worried you might hurt yourself or others?

• Contact someone you trust
• Go to the nearest hospital or safe place
• Call a local help line
• BounceBack is a free, guided self-help program that’s effective in helping people aged 15 and up who are experiencing mild-to-moderate anxiety or depression, or may be feeling low, stressed, worried, irritable or angry.
• Feeling Better Now is a resource to support you and your families through the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic.
• ConnexOntario provides free and confidential health services information for people experiencing problems with alcohol and drugs, mental illness or gambling by connecting them with services in their area. 
• Employee and Family Assistance Program: whether you need advice, counselling or treatment—we are here to lend you a hand and support your recovery. Together all is an anonymous peer-to-peer support community.

Resources to support students:

• Empower Me, Mental Health Resources  is available 23/7, 365 days in 22 countries worldwide. Counseling is available via phone, video, and in person.
• Good to Talk offers confidential support for post-secondary students via phone call or text

New copyright resources for instructors

The Copyright Advisory Committee has been working on improving awareness efforts for instructors, and beginning today, a pop-up notice about copyright will be added to LEARN.

"This pop-up informs you of the responsibility you share with the University and is intended to serve as a reminder that materials that are uploaded to LEARN must be copyright-cleared in some way, says the memo from University Librarian Beth Namachchivaya and General Counsel Nickola Voegelin, the committee co-chairs, that was circulated to instructors earlier this week. "The notice also provides a reminder of the guidance offered by the University, and the support services that are available."

The pop-up contains the following notification:

"Instructors and the University have a shared responsibility to ensure that copyright is respected when making use of materials in teaching. You may upload content to LEARN if the material falls into one of the following categories:"

• You own the copyright in the material (e.g., your course notes);
• The material was copied under a Copyright Act exception, such as the Fair Dealing or Educational Institutions exceptions;
• The material is subject to a Library licence that allows use in LEARN;
• Terms of Use of the source allows such use;
• The material is in the public domain (copyright protection usually expires 50 years after the death of the creator);
• The material has an open licence, such as a Creative Commons licence;
• The material is a very small amount, such as a quote; or
• You have received permission from the copyright holder for such use.

This pop-up will appear once per term for each instructor, disappearing after instructors acknowledge it by clicking the ‘Close’ button.

The Copyright @ Waterloo website contains a guide for instructors, a frequently asked questions page, and guidance on using the fair dealing exception. Online training is also available, synchronously through the listings on the Copyright @ Waterloo events page, and asynchronously through the Canadian Association of Research Libraries’ free, online Copyright modules designed for university instructors and staff.

Anyone with questions about copyright can reach out to copyright@uwaterloo.ca.

Government announces funding for facility renewal

On Friday, December 11, Mike Harris, Member of Provincial Parliament for Kitchener-Conestoga and Amy Fee, Member of Provincial Parliament for Kitchener South-Hespeler announced over $12 million in capital funding to Waterloo Region’s post-secondary institutions help address maintenance backlogs, undertake repairs and upgrades to facilities. The announcement was made outside at the University of Waterloo’s School of Pharmacy in downtown Kitchener with representatives from Waterloo Region’s post-secondary institutions.

As part of the annual Facilities Renewal Program (FRP), the province is providing $5,414,600 to the University of Waterloo, $3,005,800 to Conestoga College and $2,882,800 to Wilfrid Laurier and to help address the ongoing need for maintenance, repair, renovation or modernization of existing facilities. The 2020-21 FRP funding represents an increase of $1.6 million for the University of Waterloo, $2 million for Conestoga College, and $1.4 million for Wilfrid Laurier University when compared to last year.

These investments will be used by the University of Waterloo to undertake important repairs and upgrades such as replacing fire alarm systems, updating electrical and heating systems, repairing elevators, roofs and doors, and more.

“Thanks to these investments from the Government of Ontario, the University of Waterloo is able to continue the work of modernization and maintenance of our world-class academic and experiential learning spaces.” said Rob Esselment, Associate Vice-President, Government Relations, University of Waterloo. “These investments help our students and faculty carry out their important work focused on industry-focused research, work integrated learning and commercialization.”

Professor Pierre Filion retires after 35 years at Waterloo

By Professor Mark Seasons, School of Planning.

It is such a pleasure to write something about my friend and colleague, Pierre Filion. We go back a long way. Pierre and I both arrived on this campus in 1985, and now he’s retiring. He’ll be an emeritus professor starting in January. All this sank in for me last week when I was the guest speaker for the last class of his last course, PLAN 801.

After a couple years teaching at Queen’s, Pierre joined Waterloo and started his career in the Fall of that year. I arrived with my young family from Calgary to start my PhD in Planning at the same time. Pierre and I were both in PLAN 801, although we had quite different roles! It was an exciting and somewhat nerve-wracking time for both of us.

That’s 35 years ago – incredible, really. Pierre went on to become a distinguished, prolific, highly successful and much-admired scholar in planning and urban studies. His work is published in the best academic journals, and he’s a sought-after commentator in both French and English media. In short, he has made an impressive and important impact in our field and profession over the course of his long career.

Pierre is also a first-rate educator. He brings a wonderful passion to his lectures. He works hard to draw out the potential from his student colleagues. Pierre is known as a compassionate and supportive supervisor – a mentor, in the best sense of the word. He offers insights about planning theory and policy, and the world in which we operate, that the rest of us miss somehow. In short, he is interested – in his students, his research, and in the world around us. He’s a genuinely curious guy.

Pierre is a generous colleague – he’s always been interested in what the rest of us are thinking and doing, willing to contribute where and when he can to our work. His office door was always open for a chat about research, politics or life in general. Pierre has never been especially reserved with his opinions; you know where you stand with him in conversations.

Pierre has been a really important influence in my career and for so many others in the School over the years. So helpful on all counts and such a reasonable person. I know that my colleagues feel the same way. I suspect that Pierre won’t fade away in retirement; he’ll be around the place for a while, and I bet he’ll be as productive as he wants to be, on his own terms. We’re going to hear from him in future.

Thanks for everything, Pierre! Onward to the next stage!