Friday, September 23, 2022

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• Waterloo celebrates the legacy of Doug Wright today
• Celebrate togetherness at the Welcome Back Lunch today
• How the R+T Park meets the need for talent and the desire for community
• It's meme o'clock: Waterloo joins Tiktok
• Indigenous Speaker Series takes us back to 1939
• UWSA seeks nominations, Pow Wow this weekend and other notes

Waterloo celebrates the legacy of Doug Wright today

The University of Waterloo will celebrate the life and legacy of President Emeritus Douglas Tyndall Wright with a special event this morning.

Douglas Wright joined the University in 1958 and soon became the youngest Dean of Engineering in Canada.

In collaboration with the Wright family, Waterloo will honour the legacy of Douglas Wright, his achievements and how he shaped the University’s future at a special Celebration of Life event at 11:00 a.m. The event will be livestreamed on YouTube. You can watch the event here, beginning at 11:00 a.m.:

Watch video on YouTube

The special event will feature remarks and tributes from President and Vice-Chancellor Vivek Goel, dean of engineering Mary Wells and other university leaders, former colleagues and students, distinguished community leaders and members of the Wright family. The event will also include live music and video tributes.

Portrait of the president as a young man: Douglas Wright at his farewell event in 1993 with a photograph of himself as Dean of Engineering in the late 1950s.

Wright, who served as the first dean of the Faculty of Engineering from 1958 to 1966 and as Waterloo’s third president and vice-chancellor from 1981 to 1993, passed away on May 21, 2020.

Watch video on YouTube

Ken McLaughlin, historian and distinguished professor emeritus, discusses the lasting impact of Doug Wright with Pamela Smyth on the Beyond the Bulletin podcast.

Celebrate togetherness at the Welcome Back Lunch today

Come out to a special Welcome Back Lunch today at noon to greet our new and returning students, reconnect with colleagues, and show your UWaterloo pride.
 
Lunch will be rain or shine and will be held on all four campuses at the following locations:

• Waterloo – 12:00 noon – 2:00 p.m. on the BMH Green
• Cambridge – 12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. at the back terrace
• Kitchener – 12:00 noon – 1:30 p.m. in the School of Pharmacy Outdoor Courtyard
• Stratford – 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. in the Atrium at the Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business

In partnership with the Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association, attendees can take part in a tour of the new Student Life Centre/Physical Activities Complex extension at the Waterloo campus.

RSVP is not required but let us know if you are planning to attend.

How the R+T Park meets the need for talent and the desire for community

By Matthew King.

The competition for talent has never been fiercer. As companies seek any advantage to help them attract talent, proximity to the University of Waterloo has become a differentiator for some companies.

The David Johnston Research + Technology Park (R+T Park) officially opened in 2004 and spans over a million square feet on the Waterloo campus. It began as a research hub and is now home to more than 100 companies — many of which hire Waterloo co-op students and recent graduates.

“What's really changed in the last few years has been the shift to talent and it's really becoming all about people,” says Mike Pereira, manager of R+T Park. “Companies want to be close to the University because they're really keen to connect with world-leading talent that's coming out of the Waterloo.”

On an episode of Waterloo Grit, a podcast by the Accelerator Centre, Cindy Fagen, managing director of SAP Labs Canada shared that “90 percent of their employees in Waterloo are graduates of the University.”

According to Pereira, something as simple as having large signage on a building is seen as a recruitment tactic.

"If the students can stay where they are and easily get to work with the same ease that they get to campus, it makes recruitment that much easier,” says Pereira. “The value proposition is ‘listen, it's no different than coming to your classes. We're right here on campus.’ So that proximity and that placemaking is really important.”

In 2021 and 2022, companies within R+T Park hired a total of 170 students. Pereira is tapping into that talent himself by employing upwards of 10 students in the five years he’s been managing R+T Park.

“I love having a co-op student come on board. Especially during the summer months when we're doing more fun event planning and things like that. I love having people that we can give a project to and watch them run with it,” says Pereira.

In spring 2022, Rose Mathew, a Waterloo Math student, coordinated many of the events at the park as part of her co-op work term in the role of marketing and event specialist at R+T Park.

“I coordinated our social media and most of the events that we held,” says Mathew. “I coordinated our digital and a lot of our in-person engagement, I worked extensively on our newsletters, our blog, our charity events, and then the summer rec leagues held in the park — which I handled entirely myself. So, a lot of it was just the engagement in the park, getting the word out to people and getting people interested into coming back to the office.”

The sense of community amongst the companies with offices in R+T Park home is something Pereira is trying to amplify. Holding events like charity events, beer gardens and lunchtime recreation leagues are all an attempt to add to the workplace experience within the park.

“People would come to the office on those days specifically because they wanted to take part. We even saw some people coming in on multiple days of the week so that they could take part in the rec leagues,” says Mathew. “People were taking their time to come to the office, in part, to tap into that sense of community.”

“That seems to resonate really well with the companies, because a lot of them have that sense of togetherness,” says Pereira. “They like their coworkers, and they enjoy the opportunity to get out and do something more social and fun. So, the feedback there has been really positive.”

With community-building at the forefront, the R+T Park is looking to the next phase of the park’s makeup. They are currently investigating the zoning uses available within the park to amplify the amenities available to companies and their employees.

“It's really about looking at the types of uses that make sense, while still focusing on the reason for having a research park because we still want to attract companies that are going to partner tightly with the University,” says Pereira.

It's meme o'clock: Waterloo joins Tiktok

A message from University Relations.

We’re excited to announce that the University of Waterloo has added TikTok to our roster of social media platforms, launching officially on October 24, 2022. This new social media channel will help us better connect with our current and future students, while providing one central space for short-form video content.

If you’re a TikTok user, please give us a follow @uwaterloo and share with your network. 

Our TikTok account and content calendar is being managed by University Relations, however content is created by a diverse group of campus stakeholders including representatives from each Faculty, School, many Departments, University Relations and the UWaterlooLife team. If you have feedback or would like to contribute content to our TikTok account, please email Beverly Kesse, Social Media Manager.

Indigenous Speaker Series takes us back to 1939

A message from the Faculty of Arts.

This Monday, September 26, the Indigenous Speakers Series presents Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan, whose co-created play 1939 is running at the Stratford Festival this season.

Lauzon and Riordan will speak about their process of developing 1939 by engaging Elders and Knowledge Keepers with a lens to the work of Indigenous artists and activists over the last 100 years. Set at a fictional residential school in Northern Ontario, 1939explores the use of Shakespeare as a tool of colonization — and what happens when the students subvert that intention and bring their cultures and lived experiences to the task of putting on a play.

Jani Lauzon is an award-winning director and multidisciplinary performer of Métis ancestry. Her company, Paper Canoe Projects produces original work including, Prophecy Fog, I Call myself Princess and A Side of Dreams. Kaitlyn Riordan, a settler of Irish and French descent, is a four-time Dora award-nominated actress and a playwright. She was part of the leadership team at Shakespeare in the Ruff from 2012-2021, where she 'feminized’ Shakespearean plays.

Their play 1939 launches a new partnership between the Stratford Festival and the University of Waterloo’s Office of Indigenous Relations and Faculty of Arts to develop educational resources that support knowledge sharing and create spaces for Indigenous productions.

In addition to attending the Indigenous Speakers Series on September 26, Waterloo faculty, staff and students can purchase tickets to see 1939 at a reduced rate — details and promo codes are on the event page.

Indigenous Speakers Series is on September 26 at 4:00 p.m. in Theatre of the Arts, ML, and online. 

UWSA seeks nominations, Pow Wow this weekend and other notes

The University of Waterloo Staff Association (UWSA) is seeking candidates for the upcoming election. "The UWSA exists to serve UW staff interests," says a note from the UWSA. "Each year in October, UWSA Members elect colleagues to serve as Board Directors and as President-elect. Each of these roles involves a three-year term as follows: 

• Board Directors - 6 vacancies 
  • help guide the big-picture strategic vision of the UWSA and direct the work of the President and the rest of the operations team 
  • granted 1 day release time per month from regular UW role (more if appointed as Secretary or Treasurer) 
• President-elect (then President and Past President) - 1 vacancy 
  • year one: training and shadowing the current President; granted 3 days release time per month from regular UW role 
  • year two: one-year secondment to the role of President, serving as the full-time executive director of the organization 
  • year three: supporting the new President in their work; granted 3 days release time per month from regular UW role 

"The UWSA needs a President-elect and Board Directors who are interested in improving UW staff working conditions. All Members are eligible to submit a nomination for these roles," the UWSA statement continues. "If you’re willing & able to help ensure a strong UWSA, please consider running. 

“The Nomination Form will close on Monday, September 26 at 4:30 pm. Any of our current President, President-elect, Past President, and Board Directors are available to connect and answer any questions – please reach out.” 

Saturday, September 24 is the date of the Waterloo Indigenous Student Centre's 19^th Annual Pow Wow, held in Waterloo Park at the Bandshell Green. Vendors open up at 10:00 a.m. with the formal Grand Entry happening at 12 noon. The event runs until 5:00 p.m. Saturday evening.

The Pow Wow is an important opportunity to show solidarity with the local Indigenous community and celebrate Indigenous culture. Bring a lawn chair and sit and watch the dancers, listen to speakers, participate in an Intertribal dance, visit the craft, information and food vendors, and meet with other pow-wow visitors.

Here's the final National Postdoc Appreciation Week fun fact of the day: Did you know that postdocs can get their funding from a wide variety of different sources? Some postdoctoral fellows are funded through supervisor grants or other internal sources, but many secure funding before even coming to Waterloo. Some of our postdocs are funded through Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships or the Tri-Agency Postdoctoral Fellowships CIHR, NSERC, or SSHRC. Waterloo is also proud to host the “gold standard” for funding opportunities in Canada: the AMTD Waterloo Global Talent Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, which attracts the most accomplished research leaders from top universities across the globe.