Monday, January 24, 2022

Pivot-RP training for faculty and graduate students coming up Thursday

A message from the Office of Research.

As promised, training for Pivot-RP, a new searchable database of research funding opportunities, is taking place this term. The first virtual workshop is scheduled for Thursday, January 27, from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. This session is for faculty members and graduate students and will highlight key functionality of the database, including claiming your profile, searching for funding, tracking, sharing, and exporting funding opportunities, and highlighting available resources.

Workshops for administrative staff are scheduled in February and March. Registration is now open for all training sessions. For more information and to register for a workshop, visit the Pivot-RP training webpage. 

If you are not available for any of the virtual workshops, helpful training videos can be found on the Pivot-RP YouTube channel.

This week is Consent Week

A message from the Sexual Violence Prevention & Response Office 

Today marks the start of Consent Week 2022. Consent Week is an annual opportunity for campus community members to engage in conversations, learnings, and events focused on consent and changing culture.  

Talking about consent, and creating a consent culture at Waterloo, is work we do all year round – though ConsentWeek enables us to intentionally: 

• Normalize dialogue about consent;
• Enhance nuanced understandings of consent;
• Explore how to engage in healthy, positive, respectful relationships with each other, and embed consent into our daily practices; and  
• Highlight the services available for support when people cause harm.  

This year we invite you to: 

• Wear your #Purple4Prevention t-shirt on Thursday, January 27 and Friday, January 28 to stand in solidarity with survivors of gender-based violence. Then, take a selfie, post it and tag @uwaterloohrei with your comments about the role we all play in creating safer campuses and communities. 
• Attend Art with Impact’s Movies for Mental Health on Monday, January 31 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., a free workshop featuring award-winning short films, student discussions, mindfulness activities, and a panel discussion with students and community resources. Registration required.
• Attend the Sexual Assault Support Centre’s Consent Workshop for Students hosted by the Women’s Centre and the Glow Centre on Thursday, January 27 from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Registration required.  

Explore the Consent Week webpage to learn more about all the happening’s for the week.

W Store launches You+Waterloo Collection

A message from Print + Retail Solutions.

W Store is calling on all creators, explorers and boundary-pushing thinkers to celebrate the launch of our new You+Waterloo collection. In collaboration with Creative Services and University Relations, this collection highlights the central theme of the You+Waterloo brand campaign: “Our greatest impact happens together.”

“One of the reasons we felt it important to adapt the brand campaign for merchandise was to increase the reach, visibility and pride within the Waterloo community. It adds to the consistent brand positioning already in place, to help us create a strong, recognizable brand campaign that is unique to Waterloo,” says Christine Goucher, Associate Director, Creative Services.

The merchandise reflects some key messages that differentiate Waterloo from its competitors, creating the greatest impact, such as Fear+Less, Dream+Chaser and Create+Innovate. These messages, along with the tagline, are featured on various apparel, stationery and drinkware items.

“It was important for Print + Retail Solutions to support this central campaign. As the department responsible for the procurement and sale of all University of Waterloo branded merchandise, we understand our contribution to the strategic plan – to help create community and a sense of belonging at Waterloo. Seeing colleagues and students wearing Waterloo branded, and now You+Waterloo branded items, emphasizes the pride and commitment we all share in being part of this great University,” says Ryan Jacobs, director, Print + Retail Solutions.

As part of the launch for this new collection, we asked students to tell us how these messages resonated with them and how they bind us together as a community. These stories are featured on Instagram and Facebook.

What do these messages mean to you? We would love to hear from the UWaterloo community and feature them as part of this launch.

This collection is featured in W Store | Gifts + Apparel in South Campus Hall or online at wstore.ca. For more information about this collection or to share your story please email wstore@uwaterloo.ca.

Applications open for 2022 Pearl Sullivan Emerging Global Leaders Award

A message from the Faculty of Engineering.

Last year, with the inspiring support of alumnus Sanjay Malaviya (BASc '93, computer engineering) the Faculty of Engineering launched the Pearl Sullivan Emerging Global Leaders Award with Amanda (Mandy) Coleman, BASc '21, Environmental Engineering as the inaugural recipient.

The award will celebrate a student who with determination and passion has worked to make the Waterloo Engineering community a better place and will take that same energy to a career focused on improving the human condition.

One $50,000 award will be presented annually to an outstanding undergraduate leader graduating from any engineering program.

The 2022 recipient will be an undergraduate engineering student with a proven record of leadership through participation in extracurricular and volunteer activities at the University of Waterloo. They will have demonstrated the potential to grow as a leader, will have inspired others to action, and have made a difference to their community.

The award is intended to be a financial catalyst to kick start a lifelong commitment to excellence, leadership and change for the common good.

More information on the award is available on the Engineering website. 

The deadline to apply is March 1, 2022.

Parking refunds, Transit Plaza platforms open, and other notes

"Recognizing that many of us have not visited campus locations in 2022, the team in Parking Services is arranging refunds for parking fees for January," President Vivek Goel and Vice-President, Academic & Provost James Rush wrote in Friday's memo to campus that outlined the next steps that the University is taking to resume in-person learning and working experiences on February 7, 2022. "Parking permits paid through payroll deduction will be waived for January for those on monthly pay and will be refunded or not charged for January for bi-weekly paid staff."

"The team will individually refund the January portion of parking permits paid other than through payroll deduction at the end of February."

While we're on the subject of transportation, Grand River Transit (GRT) has announced that all bus platforms at the University of Waterloo Station on the University's East Campus will be in operation as of today. "Routes 201, 9, 13, 19, 30 and 31 serve University of Waterloo Station," says GRT. "The new Route 30 Ring Road will serve all existing Ring Road stops, connecting campus buildings to the new station."

Construction began on the "transit plaza" in the summer of 2019, and the station opened in January of this year. The University of Waterloo Station includes a bus-only roadway and bus stops between Phillip Street and Ring Road, facilitating connections between buses and the University of Waterloo ION station. The new platforms are intended to provide easy access from main campus for students and employees.

For the time being, GRT says, GO Transit buses will continue to depart from the existing stop on Ring Road in front of the Davis Centre.

Professor Shana MacDonald and Dr. Brianna Wiens, co-directors of the qcollaborative (qLab), have organized a series of feminist dialogues on networked intersectional feminist practices, community-building, and resistance that cut across disciplines, practices, and experiences with contributors from Networked Feminisms: Activist Assemblies and Digital Practices (Lexington Books, 2021). 

"Bringing together contributors of the book, this speaker series explores how feminists employ a variety of online platforms, practices, and tools to create spaces of solidarity and to articulate a critical politics that refuses popular forms of individual, consumerist, white feminism in favor of collective, tangible action," says a note from the event organizers.

There three upcoming speaker sessions, scheduled as follows:

• Session One on Conceptual Frameworks for Networked Feminisms with Tara Conley, Melissa Brown, and Helena Suárez Val will take place January 27, 2022 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time.
• Session Two on Networked Digital Identities and Communities with Adan Jerreat-Poole, Ace J. Eckstein, and Elizabeth Nathanson will take place February 16, 2022 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
• Session Three on Digital Activism in Practice with Leandra H. Hernández, Radhika Gajjala,  Sujatha Subramanian, and Angela Smith will take place March 14, 2022 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

"Email Tutoring for Undergrads starts today," says a note from the Writing and Communication Centre (WCC). "Are you stuck on a draft and need some feedback? Working to a deadline but can’t book an appointment at the WCC? We’re here for you with our email tutoring service."

"Get feedback over email on your papers, reports, resumes and cover letters, presentation slides, or any other writing or communication assignments," says the WCC. "Available Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays."

"Warrior Rec In-Person Registration is now open," according to Athletics and Recreation, "for Fitness Memberships, Personal Training, Intramurals, Instructional, Rock Climbing Memberships and Clubs. The Intramural registration deadline is January 26, while the instructional deadline is January 30. Find out more information today.

University of Waterloo Professor Sarah Tolmie's upcoming novel, All the Horses of Iceland, has been mentioned by the CBC in their list of 66 works of Canadian fiction to watch for in spring 2022. Her newest work is "a magic realist family saga set along the Volga trade route in the ninth century about an Icelander bringing horses home from Mongolia." It will be out with tor.com in 2022. Tolmie is an Associate Professor in English Language and Literature and teaches medieval and early modern literature, general British literature, and creative writing. She is also a poet and speculative fiction writer.