Friday, August 27, 2021

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• Proof of vaccine submission form goes live today
• Beyond the Bulletin Podcast celebrates 100 episodes
• Connected in spirit: Register now for Alumni Black & Gold Day
• Researchers developing a mobile alert app for missing people with dementia
• Discussion will address institutional approaches to decolonizing curricula

Proof of vaccine submission form goes live today

The University of Waterloo's proof of vaccine submission form will be going live this morning. The questionnaire is embedded in the Campus Check-In tool.

All students, staff, faculty and visitors are required to provide proof of being fully vaccinated or have an approved accommodation, in order to come to campus. Being fully vaccinated means it has been 14 days or more since you received a full course of a COVID-19 vaccination approved by either a Health Canada or a World Health Organization approved vaccine. A full course means you have had your final dose of either a two-dose or a one-dose vaccine series.

CUPE employees without regular web access will be provided with a paper questionnaire that includes a pre-addressed envelope to Occupational Health where they can submit their information and proof of vaccination.

Questions about data collection should be directed to vaccination@uwaterloo.ca. General questions about the University’s collection of personal information should be directed to the Privacy Officer, 200 University Ave W, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G1, (519) 888-4567 X36101, fippa@uwaterloo.ca.

More information is available on the COVID-19 information website. 

COVID-19 testing, rapid screening and vaccination is available through Campus Wellness for all University of Waterloo students, employees, postdocs and their family members. 

Beyond the Bulletin Podcast celebrates 100 episodes

The Beyond the Bulletin Podcast has reached a milestone - 100 episodes. The special 100^th episode is now live on Soundcloud and wherever you get your favourite podcasts.

Launched in 2019, the podcast runs weekly (most of the time) with hosts Brandon Sweet (yours truly) and Pamela Smyth highlighting news, events and commentary found in the Daily Bulletin. The podcast also features a brief look ahead as well as an interview on a subject of interest to the University community. 

Interview subjects have included professors, students, employees and senior leaders, and the topics have been wide-ranging and timely, including regular pandemic-related updates, Islamophobia, mental health, Indigenous initiatives, and the University's Strategic Plan. Interviews are often tied to exciting new research discoveries, campus milestones and anniversaries, new University policies and plans, and the never-ending tide of current events.

Today's 100^th episode includes a campus update and lookahead, and also contains answers to the 100^th Episode Quiz, the announcement of the winner of the contest, and, of course, the requisite outtakes and bloopers.

To help us produce a show that is as relevant as possible for the students and employees at Waterloo, please tell us what you think of Beyond the Bulletin and what you think we should include by clicking on the link and filling out our anonymous listener survey, created with Qualtrics XM. Your valued feedback will help us to continually improve, as well as enable us to share important news and showcase the expertise and fascinating people at our University with an even larger audience. 

As always, thanks for listening.

Connected in spirit: Register now for Alumni Black & Gold Day

A message from Alumni Relations.

This September, we invite you to get in the Waterloo spirit and connect with your people. Grab your Waterloo jacket, Faculty hoodie, or beloved jersey…and stay home. We’re bringing Alumni Black & Gold Day to your couch, with interactive events and activities you can enjoy safely from home.

• Experience music in a whole new way with our Concert in a Box and live event (streamed from the Bomber!)
• Get your hands dirty with the Engineering Science Quest STEM workshop and complimentary materials kit
• Explore the future and risks of 5G at the “Humans and Interconnectivity” panel
• Go on a wild Goosechase scavenger hunt (with a chance to win $1000+ in prizes!)

See the full list of events and register.

Researchers developing a mobile alert app for missing people with dementia

Researchers are working with community leaders to develop a mobile alert app to help locate missing people with dementia.

Noelannah Neubauer, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Waterloo’s School of Public Health Sciences, said “Community ASAP” is aimed at addressing a gap in available tools when it comes to alerts for missing older adults and people living with dementia in Canada.

"We have Amber Alerts for missing children, but nothing for this population other than police and civilians circulating information via social media such as Twitter and Facebook,” said Neubauer, who is the first author of a study that tested the efficacy and useability of Community ASAP.

The U.S. already uses a system called Silver Alert, and there have been efforts in some provinces, such as British Columbia, to create a citizen-led alert system. The issue with piggybacking onto the Amber Alert system is that too many people go missing every day, according to Neubauer. Almost 750,000 Canadians live with dementia, and 60 per cent of them wander at least once, and some repeatedly.

“The sheer number of missing people from this population would mean that alerts would go off multiple times a day in certain jurisdictions, running the risk of significant alert fatigue,” Neubauer said. “Community ASAP gets around this by having people sign up to receive the alert on Android and iOS operating systems and choosing the radius from where the missing person was last seen to their current location. Most missing cases take place one kilometre from the place they were last seen.”

"A key concern is that if someone gets lost and is not found within 24 hours, they have a 50 per cent chance of experiencing serious injury or death," said Lili Liu, principal investigator, and dean of the Faculty of Health at Waterloo. "We proposed recommendations for community alert systems specific to Canada, such as Community ASAP, at an online national forum on community alert systems for missing older adults last fall." 

For the study, researchers engaged people living with dementia, their care partners, police services, search and rescue organizations and health and social service providers in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia to develop the alert system that engages community citizens, as volunteers, to look out for people with dementia reported missing. 

They went through three iterations of the app and consulted with these stakeholder groups along the way to test its accuracy and useability, walking through scenarios to simulate the events that transpire during a missing person event. In these scenarios, participants assumed the key roles in the Community ASAP system, including the missing person with dementia, care partner, coordinator, and volunteers. 

The idea for this app came from Ron Beleno, an entrepreneur with experience caring for his father, who lived with dementia. Beleno is turning Community ASAP into a start-up company, and Liu's research team continues to work with governments and organizations to coordinate a system that works across the country.

The study, "Mobile alert app to engage community volunteers to help locate missing persons with dementia," co-authored by Noelannah Neubauer, Christine Daum, Antonio Miguel-Cruz and Lili Liu, all affiliated with the University of Waterloo, was recently published in PLoS One.

Discussion will address institutional approaches to decolonizing curricula

This article was originally published in the Catalyst newsletter.

Decolonizing curricula is an important aspect of both decolonization and reconciliation, as institutions of learning consider whose knowledge and ways of knowing are given priority. Maawanji-idiwag (They come together): Institutional Approaches to Decolonizing Curricula, scheduled for September 23, 2021, from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., is a virtual discussion that will bring together a panel of academics and practitioners, who are not just experienced in theoretical decolonization, but who have taken concrete steps and actions to decolonize curricula in their respective institutions. 

Panelists Sheila Cote-Meek, vice-president, equity, people and culture (York University), George J.S. Dei, professor and chair, Department of Sociology and Equity Studies, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (University of Toronto), and Stryker Calvez, manager, indigenous education initiatives (University of Saskatchewan), will discuss opportunities and challenges for institutional approaches and practices to decolonize curricula. Educational Environment and the Development of Learners working group members, Professor Kim Nguyen will moderate the discussion, while Jaydum Hunt, director, Waterloo Indigenous Student Centre will introduce the speakers.

This discussion will be valuable to any member of the UWaterloo campus community interested in exploring practical examples of implementing practices, programs, and policies to decolonize curricula in educational institutions. Department chairs and faculty administrators will be particularly interested in thinking about their curricula composition and course design practices. Faculty members and instructors with teaching responsibilities may also be interested in learning from the experience of these panelists in advocating for decolonized curricula. Students will also benefit from this discussion as it impacts their learning and prompts questions and reflection on how knowledge is prioritized or left out. 

"Following the conclusion of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015, we have seen an increase in calls to decolonize post-secondary institutions, academic disciplines, teaching practices and pedagogies, and research ecosystems," said Sara Anderson, manager, Research Program Development and Partnerships, Indigenous Initiatives and member of the Educational Environment and the Development of Learners working group.

"We hope that this event will spark meaningful dialogue and action to undertake and properly resource processes to examine and decolonize program curricula," she added.  

This panel discussion is one of several monthly events organized by the President’s Anti-Racism Taskforce (PART). The event also aligns with the mandate of the Educational Environment and the Development of Learners working group, which has been tasked with developing recommendations for decolonizing curricula and teaching practices at Waterloo.

Register for Maawanji-idiwag (They come together): Institutional Approaches to Decolonizing Curricula.