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Waterloo reappoints Dominic Barton as Chancellor
The University of Waterloo is reappointing Dominic Barton, a globally renowned business strategist and executive who is serving as Canada’s ambassador to China, to a second term as chancellor.
Since his original appointment in 2018, Barton has championed the University’s commitment to innovation, equity and economic development, and has heightened the global reach of both the institution and the nation on the world stage.
Barton is a former managing partner at international consulting firm McKinsey and Co., where he provided strategic advice to national leaders, government and corporations. He will begin his second three-year term as the University’s 11th chancellor on July 1, 2021.
“Dominic Barton is an important and influential champion for Waterloo and for Canada,” said Feridun Hamdullahpur, the university’s president and vice-chancellor. “As the University of Waterloo seeks to meet global challenges with game-changing talent, research and technological solutions, Dominic Barton will continue to play a vital role in connecting Waterloo with strategic partners around the world.”
Elected by the University’s Senate to a three-year term, the chancellor serves as the ceremonial head for the institution and also presides over convocation ceremonies, conferring degrees, diplomas and certificates on graduating students.
Barton was appointed as Canada’s Ambassador to the People’s Republic of the China by the Right Honourable Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Sept. 4, 2019.
In addition to his work the Government of Canada and McKinsey, Barton was a trustee of the Brookings Institution, a member of the Singapore Economic Development Board’s International Advisory Council, a board member at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York and at the Asia Pacific Foundation Canada. He was a Rhodes trustee and is an honorary fellow at Brasenose College in Oxford. Barton served on the board of the Malala Fund, has been actively involved in the United Nations’ HeForShe initiative, and has worked with the Mastercard Foundation to help create employment in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Born in Uganda, Barton received a BA Honours in economics from the University of British Columbia and studied as a Rhodes scholar at Brasenose College at the University of Oxford.
Barton is the author of several books ranging from the role of business in society to leadership and talent development. He is a recipient of the INSEAD Business Leader for the World Award (2011), the Korean Order of Civil Merit (Peony Medal, 2013), the Singaporean Public Service Star (2014), the Foreign Policy Association Corporate Social Responsibility Award (2017), and Canada’s Public Policy Forum Testimonial Award (2017).
Past chancellors of the University of Waterloo include Tom Jenkins, Chair of OpenText Corporation and Chair of the National Research Council, Prem Watsa, chair of Fairfax Holdings, Mike Lazaridis, co-founder of BlackBerry, Valentine O’Donovan, founder of COM DEV Intl and Sylvia Ostry, a Canadian economist and public servant.
Rooted In History event today
The President's Anti-Racism Taskforce (PART) will be hosting a special event to mark Black History Month this afternoon.
Rooted in History: A Celebration of Black History as Canadian History will include musical performances, a keynote address, and a panel of some of Waterloo's most formidable thinkers in celebration of Black History in Canada, and those trailblazers making history right here at Waterloo.
The event will run from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. virtually on Microsoft Teams.
Comprised primarily of Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) members, PART dedicates its work to ending systemic racism and holds itself to guiding principles towards realizing a more inclusive environment.
The event will highlight the achievements of Black Canadians and members of Waterloo's Black community while educating and mobilizing support around anti-Black racism.
Key participants at the event include:
- Feridun Hamdullahpur, President and Vice-Chancellor, University of Waterloo;
- Charmaine Dean, Vice-President, Research, University of Waterloo;
- Laura Mae Lindo, Member of Provincial Parliament, Kitchener-Centre, delivering the keynote address;
- Kathy Hogarth, Special Advisor, Anti-Racism and Inclusivity, VPRI and Associate Professor, School of Social Work, emcee;
- Aaron Francis, Equity Advisor, Graduate Student Association, panelist;
- Naila Keleta-Mae, Associate Professor, Department of Communication Arts, panelist;
- Christopher Taylor, Lecturer, Department of History, panelist;
- Vershawn Young, Professor, cross appointed English Language and Literature, and Communication Arts, panelist;
- Michele Ryan, Business Process Analyst, Campus Housing; and
- Rufus John, Kitchener-Waterloo Canadian-Caribbean vocalist.
“This event is a historical moment for the University of Waterloo, affirming its commitment to confronting and addressing racism in its midst,” says Professor Kathy Hogarth, special advisor to PART and professor with the School of Social Work at Renison University College who will be moderating the panel discussion. “These moments of all communities coming together to celebrate BIPOC excellence offers rich spaces for dialogue and potential for change — change that is so desperately needed through the institution”.
W Store | Gifts + Apparel Reopening March 1
A message from Print + Retail Solutions.
In close consultation with the University’s Safety Office, Print + Retail Solutions is happy to announce the reopening of our W Store | Gifts + Apparel location in South Campus Hall on Monday, March 1.
The UWaterloo community is invited to visit W Store | Gifts + Apparel to browse our collection of official UWaterloo and Waterloo Warriors apparel and gear, dorm essentials, stationery items, technology products and general supplies.
W Store | Gifts + Apparel’s hours of operation, as of Monday, March 1 will be Monday to Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
In accordance with the message from the Office of the President, a face covering must be worn at all times while inside W Store | Gifts + Apparel. Additionally, all shoppers are asked to practice physical distancing wherever possible and to stay home if feeling unwell. The front entrance to the store is now located by the staircases leading up to the South Side Marketplace and the Student Success Office, in order to allow more space for physical distancing and to control traffic. In-store capacity has been reduced to a maximum of 13 shoppers at a time.
Please note that W Store | Course Materials + Supplies, W Store Essentials SLC and W Store Essentials STC will remain closed to the public at this time. W Store will continue to process all orders placed online at wstore.ca for door-to-door shipping or contactless curbside pickup.
Next week is Ed Tech Week
A message from the Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE).
The Centre for Teaching Excellence is hosting their annual Educational-Technologies Week (Ed-Tech Week) next week. From Monday, March 1 to Friday, March 5 there will be a total of 11 workshops offered throughout the week that focuses on teaching development and technologies that promote deep learning in the online environment.
Platforms such as Bongo, MS Teams, Perusall, Crowdmark, PebblePlus, and even topics such as Extended Reality (XR) that can enhance student learning and success will be covered during this week.
If you have never heard of these platforms, we encourage you to join us and if you are already familiar with these technologies, please join us to learn about features you may be unaware about.
Waterloo alumnus earns an inaugural Globe and Mail Changemakers award
Cassie Myers (BA ’18), alumnus of the GreenHouse social impact incubator at St. Paul’s University College and Conrad Grebel University College at the University of Waterloo, has been recognized as one of 50 Changemakers in The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business magazine for 2021.
This new editorial award program is intended to showcase emerging leaders who are transforming business today. Myers is a graduate of the Peace and Conflict Studies program with an Economics minor at Waterloo. She was nominated for the award by Tania Del Matto, director of GreenHouse and Paul Heidebrecht director of the Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement at Grebel.
“It is such an honour for me to be recognized in this way,” said Myers. “Using the resources I have available to make an impact has always been important to me and it will always be a big part of my life.”
As a student, Myers participated in GreenHouse’s Social Innovators in Training program, where she lived at St. Paul’s for a term in winter 2017. This program supports students in making actionable steps towards their ideas for social change and acquiring the skills required for entrepreneurship.
“GreenHouse has been a constant in my journey as an entrepreneur,” said Myers. “It’s one of those amazing communities where you’re not there for a moment, you’re not there for a term, you’re there for however long you are willing to give back to a community that does not stop giving back to you.
“It’s wonderful to have a place you can go back to and share your learnings and gain more learnings.”
For the past four years, Myers has been working on creating a more equitable world where people of all identities can thrive, as the CEO and founder of Lunaria Solutions. This technology startup uses specialized software to perform a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) audit and develops an actionable management plan for organizations to meet their DEI goals. Its mission is to help companies and brands flourish by providing DEI solutions that put people first and drive real returns.
“We are so privileged to be working with amazing clients that trust us with such an important aspect of their long-term vision,” said Myers. “DEI has come to the forefront now more than ever and it’s truly an amazing opportunity for organizations to make DEI commitments to create impactful cultural changes on what can be a really complicated road.”
Since September 2018, Lunaria has been part of the Peace Incubator at Grebel’s Center for Peace Advancement, where Cassie and her team have continued to grow their impact alongside other startups and established organizations seeking to create a more peaceful and just world.
“Cassie is a leader in the drive towards gender justice and diversity,” said Tania Del Matto, GreenHouse director. “Her visionary leadership has evolved her company Lunaria and we are thrilled she has been recognized as the impactful changemaker she is.”
Outside of Lunaria, Myers volunteers for Technovation, mentoring a group of women who are building a product to solve a social problem. She also supports sexual assault victims as a support line volunteer with the Sexual Assault Support Centre of Waterloo Region.
She’s also currently earning a Master of Cultural and Social Theory from Wilfrid Laurier University, where she is taking a critical look at anti-Black racism in the workplace and how it manifests or changes amid growing attention of the Black Lives Matter movement, which will undoubtedly support the work she does with Lunaria.
Myers looks forward to continuously growing her knowledge as a social entrepreneur and innovating to improve the work she does at Lunaria to better serve her clients.
Social media helped spread misinformation during pandemic
This article was originally published on Waterloo News.
Researchers at the University of Waterloo examined 81 published articles examining social media during the pandemic, with more than half assessing Twitter posts.
“All media tend to see increased use when an emergency occurs, but social media is the easiest to turn to and engage in when an event like a pandemic breaks out,” said Zahid Butt, a professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems. “And because the content is user-generated, it is also easy to present inaccuracies or subjective information, going so far as unchecked conspiracy theories.”
Some examples that highlighted the misinformation include studies examining YouTube videos. One of them analyzed the top 100 YouTube videos with the most views from January 2020 and found that fewer than 33 included any of the key recommended behaviours for COVID containment. Another study from South Korea showed that misleading videos made up almost 40 per cent of the most-watched videos and had more likes and longer viewing times than did useful videos.
Misinformation was also prevalent on Twitter. One study analyzed 12 million tweets from the U.S. and 15 million from the Philippines in March, and both countries showed a positive link between bot activities and the rate of hate speech in dense, isolated communities. However, another study analyzed 942 tweets that showed that although there were more tweets with false information, they also had fewer retweets and lower engagement than those containing scientific evidence or factual statements.
“Social media has an increasingly important role to play in health education and the understanding of policy,” Butt said. “What this review shows us is that public health organizations and governments need to be present and active on social media platforms in order to guard against misinformation.”
“What social media told us in the time of COVID-19: A scoping review” was published in The Lancet Digital Health, and authored by Shu-Feng Tsao (Waterloo), Helen Chen (Waterloo), Therese Tisseverasinghe (Seneca College), Yang Yang (Waterloo), Lianghua Li (Waterloo) and Zahid Butt (Waterloo).