Friday, August 6, 2021

Alumnus athlete earns hometown honours

Taly Williams (left) during his playing days with the Toronto Argonauts and Lesley Tashlin at the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996.

By Brian Caldwell. This article was originally featured on the Faculty of Engineering website.

An alumnus of Waterloo Engineering who went on to a professional football career will be honoured with a mural in his Ontario hometown after a successful campaign by a determined group of kids.

Students in a grades 7 and 8 French immersion class at J. Douglas Hodgson Elementary School urged politicians in Haliburton to recognize the achievements of Taly Williams (BASc ’94, civil engineering) and his sister Lesley Tashlin alongside five local athletes already featured on an arena wall.

The campaign drew widespread support, including a letter from former Toronto Argonauts star and current team executive Mike ‘Pinball’ Clemens, and convinced council in Dysart et al Township to unanimously approve the addition of paintings of the two athletes to the wall of the A.J. LaRue Arena.

'Righting a wrong'

“I guess you could say we’re righting a wrong that was overlooked,” Mayor Andrea Roberts said.

A fundraising effort is now under way to pay for the murals. It has topped $12,000 on the way to its $30,000 goal.

Williams grew up in Haliburton and played football for the Waterloo Warriors before suiting up as a defensive back with both the Argonauts and the Hamilton Tiger Cats in the mid-1990s.

Symbol of achievement

Now a co-founder and managing partner at AQORA Capital, an investment firm in Los Angeles focused on water infrastructure, technology and services, Williams has been touched by the effort.

“I would love to be on a mural to be a symbol to my kids and others regarding what you can achieve and who can achieve it,” he wrote when the campaign began.

Tashlin is the only Olympian to come from Haliburton County. She represented Canada at the Atlanta summer games in 1996, competing in the 100-metre hurdles and the 4 x 100-metre relay.

'Timely and fitting tribute'

Williams, the first local player to make it to the Canadian Football League, and Tashlin both excelled in sports at Haliburton Highlands Secondary School, where some of their records still stand.

"If possible, (their) inclusion would seem to be a timely and fitting tribute," Clemens, a teammate of Williams on the Argos, wrote in his letter. "They would also become the first Black athletes on the mural, and it is my hope that this visual representation might inspire not just Black and BIPOC youth, but all children."

The students and their teacher, Marina Thomazo, have launched a GoFundMe page to help pay for the murals.

Participate in GreenHouse's virtual Social Impact Showcase

Each term, the GreenHouse social impact incubator at St. Paul’s University College hosts its Social Impact Showcase. It celebrates the amazing work GreenHouse students accomplish through their journeys of social innovation and entrepreneurship, while also providing an opportunity for students to acquire seed funding for their ideas.

This term’s  event remains virtual and seven student teams have pitched their ventures online. While the initial adjudication decisions have already been made, there is still time to vote for your favourite student-led social venture.

The People’s Choice Award will be given to the social venture with the most online votes, alongside an additional $1,000. Voting is now open from August 6 to 9, with all winners of the Social Impact Fund being announced on August 10th, at noon via the GreenHouse Instagram account.

Some of the solutions the ventures are building include: biodegrading one-time use menstrual products; vertical farming systems for producing Irish moss; helping non-profits take advantage of digital tools; telling the stories of under-represented entrepreneurs; creating engaging mental health education content for youth; hosting a community for virtual women’s healthcare; and improving the performance of plastic-degrading microbes.

Experience the virtual showcase and vote today.

Architecture students showcase big ideas in small exhibition

This article was originally featured on WAConnect, Waterloo Architecture’s website.

Fuori le Mura | City at the Edge is an exhibition about cities on the edge of a new condition.

Kitchener and Waterloo are experiencing dramatic change. The amount and the scale of new development is unprecedented. New construction is constant. The buildings are larger, and often come in clusters. 

The expansion of post-secondary educational institutions and high-tech enterprises has brought new forms of building, new residents and new workers. High density residential developments increase housing costs, while they reduce the amount and quality of private space. There must be a response if the cities are to remain healthy, habitable, lively and attractive.

The work in this exhibition proposes specific solutions to the development of public space, pedestrian space, green space and cultural resources in downtown Kitchener and Northdale in Waterloo. Eight projects have been created by sixteen fourth year students from the University of Waterloo School of Architecture reflecting the Schools’ commitment to quality of life in our local communities. These projects present responses to intensification and gentrification. They aim to produce cultural projects that are not simply iconic, but also open, inclusive and supportive of local creative communities.

We have taken advice from municipal planners, architects, landscape architects, artists, cultural institutions, community leaders, educators and developers. The students have not stood apart and isolated, but have been involved at an unprecedented level with stakeholders in the community.

We warmly invite the public to visit the exhibition at the Crystal Ballroom of the Walper Hotel from August 10 to August 13, 2021.  We are grateful to the Walper Hotel for hosting the exhibition and to Perimeter Developments and Momentum Developments for their generous support. Come see your city as it could be!

For information contact Professor Rick Haldenby.

Q and A with the experts: Optimizing your retirement savings

This article was originally featured on Waterloo News.

Increasing uncertainties in market returns, government benefits and the rise in the cost of living is a growing concern for many who fear they may outlive their retirement savings. Professor Ken Vetzal of the School of Accounting and Finance explains how pension holders can manage their investments to improve the odds that their retirement savings will last.

Why is there a growing concern that retirement savings may not last the life of a retiree?

There are several reasons:

• Improved longevity: The longer savings are needed to fund retirement, the greater the chance of running out of money.
• Low interest rates: Investors must rely on riskier investments such as stocks compared to safer investments in bonds to obtain sufficient returns.
• The shift from defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC) pension plans: Investments in DC plans are managed by plan members who may lack the necessary skills. Inappropriate investments can increase the chance of exhausting savings.

How do defined contribution and defined benefit pension plans differ?

DB plans promise a lifetime retirement income according to a given formula, typically designed to pay around 50 per cent of the employee's salary before retirement. Assuming the employer remains solvent, the risks of the plan fall mainly on the employer who manages the plan's investments and makes the promised payments. In a DC plan, employees make specified contributions into retirement savings accounts and manage the investments of those accounts themselves. The amounts available in retirement depend on the contributions and investment returns. Essentially, employees bear most of the risk in DC plans, employers for DB plans.

Is one better than the other?

There are pros and cons for each. DB plans are generally safer and simpler for long-term employees, with investments managed by the employer and promised payments known in advance. Employees who expect to switch employers or who are confident about managing their own investments may prefer DC plans. Given a successful investment strategy, they could get higher retirement income.

How can investments be optimized and managed for people with defined contribution pension plans?

Nothing is guaranteed. The best scenario is to improve the odds of success. In a recent study, Peter Forsyth (UW Computer Science), Graham Westmacott (PWL Capital), and I tried to design investment strategies for DC plan members that would give about the same retirement income as that promised for DB plan members. Strategies recommended by the finance industry resulted in too much chance of running out of money.

We tried more sophisticated methods, specifying an objective (such as minimizing the probability of running out of money) and computing the strategy that would best achieve that objective. Such strategies often worked well in the idealized conditions of the model but failed more often when tested with historical data. Our best approach aimed for a healthy remaining balance after 30 years in retirement but still had a small chance of failure. Compared to standard approaches, our strategy sacrifices upside gains in exchange for downside protection. Investors following standard approaches might do much better, but they could also do much worse.

How do you suggest that investors respond to market crashes, such as during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic?

Our model allows for occasional market crashes. Every few years, we expect significant declines in stock prices, such as the financial crisis in 2008, the dot-com crash in 2000, and other cases as well as COVID. In narrow financial terms, COVID was nothing new. How an investor following our strategy should respond to any market crash depends on circumstances. Investors trying to accumulate more savings to fund retirement should invest more in stocks, anticipating a recovery. In the case of COVID, investors who bought stocks in late March 2020 would have done very well to date. Alternatively, investors who have already accumulated sufficient funds for retirement may be relatively unaffected by a crash due to low remaining investments in stocks. Such investors should not do anything.

Our strategy is fundamentally contrarian, which can be difficult to implement. An investor may be required to buy more stocks when most other investors are selling. Conversely, after a lengthy bull market, the strategy could call for investors to sell stocks while others are still enjoying further good returns. It can be hard to be independent and not follow the crowd, but our study suggests that is the best thing to do.

Friday's Notes

This fall, the new SLC/PAC expansion will feature many great pieces of art made by students. One installation will be highlighting the importance of balance. The artist Queenie Wu, pictured right (undergrad Engineering student), is looking for voices from all over the UWaterloo community. You can be a part of it by answering a few short questions here. Wu will incorporate the answers into her art. Save the date for the grand opening on Thursday September 23^rd at 12:00 noon. More details to come.

Just a few more wellness sessions remaining for the term! Register for sessions on Self-Care Strategies During COVID-19, COVID-19: Strategies for Managing Stress, and the Fundamentals of Change and Transition! To learn more about each workshop being offered this term and how to register, visit: uwaterloo.ca/healthy-workplace/spring-2021-wellness-sessions.

The Library recently celebrated the retirement of Alex McCulloch after 35 years of dedicated exceptional service. Congratulations on your retirement, Alex!