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Registration opens for the Dismantling Systemic Racism: Policy and Governance panel
A message from the President’s Anti-racism Taskforce (PART).
The University of Waterloo is hosting a virtual panel discussion entitled Dismantling Systemic Racism: Policy & Governance that will feature senior anti-racism experts from racialized communities on Thursday, November 18 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.
“Dismantling systemic racism is a complex task, to which I am committed,” said President Vivek Goel in support of the event. “I know this will require vision, a collective commitment to equity, persistence, and determination to take on the difficult work of changing the system.”
Panelists Nosa Ero-Brown, assistant deputy minister, Ontario's Anti-racism Directorate, Violet Ford, associate vice-president, Indigenous Research, Memorial University and Professor Mark Green, provost and vice-principal, academic of Queen’s University, will highlight the importance of policy changes and governance transformations in addressing structural racism. Professor Charmaine Dean, executive designate of the President’s Anti-racism Taskforce (PART) will moderate the event.
The discussion will focus on gaps in policies, governance structures, and cultures that contribute to systemic racism; recommendations to include Indigenous, Black, and other racialized voices into governance, senior leadership, and other decision-making bodies; and ways to embed equity, diversity, inclusiveness, anti-racism, anti-oppression, and decolonization into University policies and procedures.
“We all belong is a core value of UWaterloo. We must, therefore, act proactively to challenge institutions, systems and structures that perpetuate racial disparities and support equitable access for all,” said Dr. Goel.
The Dismantling Systemic Racism: Policy & Governance virtual panel discussion is open to members of the University’s community, including senior leaders and administrators, students, faculty members, and staff.
Please register for the event.
To assist with accomplishing its mission of weaving anti-racism into the fabric and culture of all campus operations, communities, pedagogy, and lifestyle, PART has committed to hosting monthly educational and awareness events related to ending racism in all its forms and supporting inclusion.
Sign up for the Catalyst anti-racism newsletter to learn more about PART’s ongoing racism initiatives, as well as other anti-racism efforts and events across campus.
Connections: Fall issue of Waterloo Magazine is live
A message from University Relations.
The new issue of the Waterloo Magazine is all about Connection with alumni sharing stories about everything from 5G connectivity to the bonds we share that are lifelong and lifesaving.
During this final week of Thrive Month, read about Caitlin Brydges (BSc ’12) a varsity hockey player who secretly lived with depression before reaching out to Warrior hockey coach Shaun Reagan in The connection that saved her life. As we all mark Remembrance Day, read about how Geoff Keelan (MA ’10, PhD ’14) uncovered details of his grandfather’s story of war.
Engineering professor Amir Khajepour (PhD ’96) shares the future of the technology behind the WatonoBus in Beyond Ring Road: Where will Waterloo’s self-driving shuttle go next? Chekema Prince (PhD ’14) shares her take on being a Black woman engineer in tech and her approach to coaching students through Velocity’s Concept program in Representing the future of entrepreneurs.
Read about how Kevin George (BA in progress) is building a venture to support Indigenous youth as part INDENT, a new entrepreneurship training program based at Waterloo’s St. Paul’s University College in The power of Indigenous entrepreneurs.
Please share these and other alumni stories using #UWaterlooMagazine and #WaterlooAlumni.
Waterloo instructors demonstrate excellence in online teaching
By Janice Cooke, Centre for Extended Learning.
The Centre for Extended Learning has been helping Waterloo instructors design, develop and deliver online courses since 1997; it’s not just a pandemic thing here at Waterloo. We’re proud to announce the winners of the latest Excellence in Online Teaching and Design Awards who have gone above and beyond to provide excellent learning opportunities for their students.
2020 Online Course Design Award
Professors Nicolas Hebbinckuys and Kanstantsin Tsedryk.
Intermediate Spoken French (FR 250), created by Kanstantsin Tsedryk and Nicolas Hebbinckuys, has been awarded the 2020 Excellence in Online Course Design Award. This course was specifically designed for students who want to improve their fluency in French at an intermediate level. Students from diverse backgrounds of language learning benefit from the course, from new learners to those who studied at French immersion schools and want to enhance, strengthen, or maintain their French.
In the past, this course was exclusively offered in person, available only to a limited number of students each term. However, after two years of development and a successful launch in September 2019, the online version has allowed the department to enrol more students and offer it on a more frequent basis.
This course is the only fully online, fully asynchronous spoken French course offered at a Canadian university.
2020 Online Instructor Award
Fiona Dunbar is the recipient of Waterloo’s 2020 Excellence in Online Instructor Award for Math 128 - Calculus 2 for the Sciences. She was nominated by her students for “putting in an incredible amount of effort in making sure her students are able to learn, participate and even enjoy her course. She has demonstrated unique characteristics and phenomenal positive attributes - which can sometimes be difficult to find in a Prof.”
Universal design, instructor presence, and empathy guided Fiona’s approach to teaching Math 128 online. She found incorporating elements of universal design was easy to implement and had a big impact.
In recommending Fiona, Ian VanderBurgh, director, Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing says “Fiona is passionate about education and passionate about the support that technology can bring to education. Both before and during the pandemic, she has been able to combine these to give outstanding learning experiences to her students through her online teaching.”
Research finds that people are misapplying mindfulness
This article was originally published on Waterloo News.
Mindful awareness is about both accepting and engaging with life’s challenges, and that’s what popularized concepts of mindfulness tend to miss, new research has found.
Studying popular concepts of mindfulness, the researchers found most laypeople are confusing the practice with passive acceptance of problems—a misconception scientists say ignores the important work of engaging with them.
Originating in Buddhist religious practice, much of the mindfulness movement’s popularity grew from clinical research affirming its potential for reducing stress and related health disorders.
“Scientific understanding of mindfulness goes beyond mere stress-relief and requires a willingness to engage with stressors,” said Igor Grossmann, corresponding author of the project and a professor of social psychology at Waterloo. “It is, in fact, the engagement with stressors that ultimately results in stress relief. More specifically, mindfulness includes two main dimensions: awareness and acceptance.”
Grossmann and colleagues compared critics’ claims to popular interpretations of mindfulness to evaluate how people understand and apply the concept in their daily lives. They found that in practice, most people conflate acceptance with passivity or avoidance.
The research team conducted an extensive empirical project that examined the meaning of mindfulness in three parts: analyses of the semantic meaning of the term mindfulness in the English language, meta-analysis of the results from a widely used mindfulness measure, and empirical tests of association with markers of wisdom and effective emotion regulation.
“While we found that people seem to conceptually understand that mindfulness involves engagement, the general public is not walking the talk. Our results suggest that laypeople may understand what awareness is, but the next step of acceptance may not be well understood — limiting potential for engaging with problems,” said Ellen Choi, lead author on the paper and an assistant professor of organizational behaviour at Ryerson University.
Using social media as a topical example, Grossmann says that with algorithms curating increasingly hateful content, the ability to be mindful of others’ perspectives has never been more critical. “Mindfulness might not provide an easy answer to the divisiveness that surrounds us, but an accurate understanding that includes the practice of acceptance may herald the re-emergence of sincere discussion and authentic connection.”
The paper, “What do people mean when they talk about mindfulness?,” authored by Grossmann, Choi, Norman Farb of the University of Toronto, University of Guelph’s Ekaterina Pogrebtsova and Jamie Gruman, was recently published in the journal Clinical Psychology Review.
Concept $5K semi-finals begin; other notes
Student teams will be pitching their startup ideas to a panel of judges from the local community today and tomorrow as part of the Concept $5K semi-finals. The Top 10 finalists across both nights will move on to pitch in the Concept $5K Finals and compete for early stage grant funding. The semi-finals take place Wednesday and Thursday from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Register now to attend.
The latest in Conrad Grebel University College's Noon Hour Concerts series takes place today at 12:30 p.m. Den Svenska Psalmboken: The Lutheran Chorale Tradition in Sweden, 1580 - 1937 features Katherine Hill on vocals and the nyckelharpa, a Swedish keyed fiddle.
"The emergence of the Lutheran chorale in the sixteenth century relied on both tradition and innovation, and as certain melodies and texts became more and more established, they circulated all over northern Europe, leading to the publication of the first Swedish book of hymns in 1695," says the event background material. "Singer and nyckelharpa player Katherine Hill will present the Swedish versions of some well-known chorale melodies, as well as unusual traditional variants, new melodies and instrumental music that emerged over time in more remote communities, drawing together some of the most beautiful and unusual elements of this centuries-old singing tradition."
The concert video will be released on YouTube at 12:30 p.m. today.
Speaking of Conrad Grebel University College, the institution is co-hosting an online conference entitled "International Humanitarian Law and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) @ 20 Years" on Thursday, November 11 from 12:30 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. Grebel has partnered with the Canadian Red Cross, Wilfrid Laurier University, Project Ploughshares, and the Balsillie School of International Affairs to host the virtual event.
"In December 2001, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty released its ground-breaking report “The Responsibility to Protect” or R2P as it is now commonly known," says the event promo material. "Twenty years later, the norm of R2P remains contested." Event participants will discuss the complex relationship – both in theory and practice – between international humanitarian law (IHL) and R2P. Check out the event agenda.
The School of Architecture's Arriscraft Speaker Series Praxes of Care continues this week with Caretaking, the fourth of five conversations on the theme of attention, with speakers Annmarie Adams and David Theodore of McGill University.
Their short presentations will be followed by a discussion moderated by Fiona L. Kenney, PhD student in the McGill School of Architecture. The virtual event takes place on Thursday, November 11 at 6:00 p.m. on Zoom. A link will be sent to registered attendees.
The Warriors Basketball teams have their home opener against the Windsor Lancers in the Physical Activities Complex tonight with the women's game at 6:00 p.m. followed by the men's game at 8:00 p.m. Between the two games there will be a ceremony to officially dedicate the Carl Totzke Court, the new PAC floor that was installed in November 2020.