Monday, January 8, 2024

Register for the Friesen Prize lecture with Dr. Zulfiqar Bhutta on January 16

A message from the Office of Research.

University of Waterloo faculty, staff and students are invited to attend the Friesen Prize lecture on Tuesday, January 16 featuring Dr. Zulfiqar A. Bhutta, recipient of the 2023 Henry G. Friesen International Prize in Health Research awarded by Friends of CIHR.

The session is titled “Addressing maternal and child health and sustainable development: the do’s and don’ts of doing so equitably”. Please register to attend as seating is limited.

Dr. Bhutta is the Distinguished University Professor and Founding Director of the Institute for Global Health and Development and the Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health at the Aga Khan University.

More information about the Friesen Prize lecture is available on the registration page.

United College prepares to launch Connections 24

By Rebecca Wagner, Director of External Relations, United College.

Setting students up for success through rich social connection.    

This is the heart of the Connections Program, a soon-to-be-launched (September 2024) United College initiative for incoming students. Connections will unite approximately 25 first-year students from any academic discipline through a shared living and learning environment on the United College campus.       

Success comes in part from feeling connected to your environment, to the people and places that comprise your new home.   

Many incoming students experienced part of high school in relative isolation during the pandemic and are searching for the type of community that Connections will offer. The tight-knit community where first-year students live together and learn together can go a long way to easing the transition to university life and a students’ new home away from home.   

Connections will help set them up for success.  

The 25 students in the Connections Program will take two electives together. Introduction to Canadian Studies in Fall Term, and The Indigenous Experience in Canada in Winter Term.  Together, these courses offer a deeper understanding of Canada and our place and role within it.      

The Canadian Studies course will be taught by United College Principal, Richard Myers. Dr. Myers has extensive experience teaching in this kind of programming from his days as a professor in New Brunswick; “It really makes a big difference in terms of giving new students a sense of belonging.  You see students forming friendships that take them through their entire degree and beyond.”  

Connections students will also live together in the same United College residence and will have the option of participating in group academic activities.  Students will experience treasured United College traditions like toast time and create traditions of their own. The social bonds and the sense of belonging that develop during first year can guide students through the trials and tribulations of an academic journey and cement life-long connections that carry through the decades.    

United College looks forward to welcoming its first cohort of Connections students and supporting them on their exciting adventure ahead.

UWAG presents its first exhibition of 2024

The University of Waterloo Art Gallery (UWAG) is preparing to launch its first exhibition of 2024 with Camal & Camille: unearth.

"The gallery is proud to welcome the collaborative duo of Camal Pirbhai and Camille Turner, whose new exhibition unearth includes recent photo-based artworks House of Bâby (2021) and Rocks (2021-2023)," says UWAG. "These works explore the passage of time and memory, in the process of excavating the hidden history of people of colour in Canada."

House of Bâby is a large lenticular image portraying eighteen Black and Indigenous people claimed as property by the prominent Bâby family of Windsor, Detroit and Toronto. This work was originally commissioned for Artworx TO for display in the Great Hall at Union Station, the same location that appears in the image. When viewed from different angles House of Bâby reveals the ghostly presence of these historically erased individuals emerging from the past, lingering in the present amidst the blur of contemporary commuters and urban travellers passing through the nexus of Union Station.

Rocks stages an encounter between humans and primordial beings that envelop all they encounter during their long, slow transition cycles. Rocks represent deep time on a geological or cosmic scale. They contain stories that date back to a time long before humans and stretch towards infinity. Following Camal & Camille’s earlier body of work Wanted (2017), Rocks similarly developed out of Camille’s Afronautic Research Lab, in this particular case her research on slave ships constructed on Canada’s eastern seaboard. Rocks from the same coastal areas would have been used as ballast on these ships. When the ships sailed to the United Kingdom to be registered, and then on to West Africa to participate in the trade of humans, these same rocks were dumped out onto African shores so that their intended cargo, people, could be loaded into the ships’ holds. These ships, and the people held in captivity in the holds are long gone but the rocks are present day witnesses that remember and transmit the stories of these past crimes.

The exhibition runs from Thursday, January 11 to March 9, 2024. The opening reception takes place Thursday, January 11 from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. in East Campus Hall.

Notes as the winter term begins

Students are back right on cue this week as the 2024 winter term and co-operative work term kick off. One of the surest signs? Food Services locations across the main campus are back up and running for regular hours for the most part. Additionally, rhe ECEC children's program re-opens today with regular hours. Special Collections & Archives in the Library will reopen for on-site appointments, and campus move-in for undergraduate students wraps up today. 

So what else is going on?

Athletics and Recreation is hosting Free Try-It Week from Monday, January 8 to Sunday, January 14. Fitness Classes, Club sessions, Instructional sessions and more are all available for students to, well, "try it."

The Writing and Communication Centre reports that "The Write Spot in South Campus Hall re-opens today! Visit us for free coffee and tea, drop-in writing support, and comfy workspaces. Open Monday to Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m." Also, the Writing and Communication Centre is now accepting applications to the Winter 2024 Dissertation Boot Camp. This program combines workshops with writing time and individual consultations to help thesis and dissertation writers set goals and make progress in their work. Dissertation Boot Camp runs February 22 to 25, 2024. Applications are due by Wednesday, January 24 at 5:00 p.m.

It's the last call for CBB Seed Fund Round 7 applications. "Applications are due Wednesday, January 10, by 11:59 p.m.," says a note from the Centre for Bioengineering and Biotechnology (CBB). "Successful applicants can access grants of up to $10,000 for their research projects, with potential awards of up to $15,000 for projects aligned with CBB's three priority funding pools: Health and Medical Professional Development priority funding pool, Access to Data priority funding pool, and Equitable Access to Healthcare priority funding pool." Visit the CBB webpage to apply.