Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Keeping optimism through antagonism and aggression in health-care research

By Jenna Braun. This is an excerpt of an article originally published on Waterloo News.

The rapid spread of misinformation is rampant in the highly politicized area of health research. That misinformation opens the door to antagonism, intimidation and targeted attacks on researchers, educators and health-care workers within the field. 

On February 27, panelists Dr. Geoff Bardwell, assistant professor in the School of Public Health Sciences, Drs. Lisbeth Berbary and Kimberly Lopez, associate professors in the department of Recreation and Leisure Studies, and Dr. Nancy Waite, professor and associate director, clinical education in the School of Pharmacy, came together for the third discussion in the Antagonism and Intimidation in Academia Speaker Series: Antagonistic Responses to Health Research in the Academy.

The four experts shared their own experiences facing antagonism solely due to the subject matter of their work, including substance use and related interventions, creative approaches to qualitative inquiry, aging well in long-term care and medication and vaccine management. 

When it came down to the questions about mitigating and managing antagonism and intimidation that results from their research findings, the panelists circled back to two main sources of hope. 

The world needs health research 

Waite is a pharmacist, an academic and a vaccine researcher, which she calls “the trifecta of the last three or four years” in making her a target for antagonistic threats. She helped lead the pharmacy portion of the Health Science Campus COVID vaccine clinic in 2021 and is passionate about innovating the evolving health-care landscape. 

“I know information that people need to know,” she said. “Most people just want more information so that they can make the right decision.” 

Waite said that although no conversation about vaccines is going to be risk-free, she feels that she brings value and hopes that she can help others through those discussions. 

“People have a right to their opinion, but they don’t have a right to interfere with others getting care. That’s really important to me and I will act in ways to make sure there is balance.” 

Lopez described a “thrum of fear, discomfort and uncertainty” that stems from teaching about topics like race, climate change, employment, poverty and substance use. Her current teaching interests include race/ethnicity, gender and class, therapeutic recreation, difference, inclusion, advocacy and activism and aging well and leisure in later life. 

“As someone who sees teaching as an act of activism, I feel the work we do with students are opportunities to have difficult discussions,” Lopez said. 

“I believe it sets a dangerous precedent if we choose not to use certain words or teach certain topics on the basis that it might offend some students,” said Bardwell, who is a principal investigator for several projects, including a longitudinal study examining access to opioid agonist treatment in rural and Indigenous communities in British Columbia. 

“Since 2016, over 41,000 Canadians have died from opioid toxicity. There is a continued urgency for research on novel interventions. It’s a matter of life and death.” 

Read the rest of the article on Waterloo News

Jennifer Gillies named Associate Provost, Campus Support and Accessibility

"I’m pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Jennifer Gillies to the position of Associate Provost, Campus Support and Accessibility, effective March 4, 2024," wrote Vice-President, Academic and Provost James Rush in a memo to campus this morning. "In this newly created role, Jennifer will be responsible for advancing the campus experience for students, faculty, and staff through an integrated oversight structure that will provide leadership to the following current administrative units: Occupational Health, the Conflict Management Office, the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office, AccessAbility Services, and Disability Inclusion."

"Under Jennifer’s leadership, a new Employee Health and Wellbeing unit will be established that will include Occupational Health, and will also include a new central hub for advice, intervention, resources, tools, and programs as they relate to promoting a healthy workplace," the provost's memo continues. "In addition, Disability Inclusion (currently housed within Human Resources) will now join AccessAbility Services."  

"Aligning these services under a common umbrella will facilitate streamlined strategy development, minimize duplication of services, coordinate responses and oversight across departments, and facilitate an improved campus experience for all community members. This supports a “one University” approach, as articulated in the Provost’s Advisory Committee on Building a Resilient University of Waterloo report." 

Dr. Gillies currently serves as the Director, AccessAbility Services and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in coordinating campus-wide services and support, leading teams through organizational restructuring, supporting the rights and quality of life of persons with disabilities, and the strategic development of initiatives. Her diverse skill set and expertise will bring a people-centred approach to organizational operations and planning. 

"Please join me in congratulating Jennifer on this important appointment," Provost Rush concludes.

Updates on the university's network core update initiative

A message from Information Systems & Technology (IST).

The following two significant changes have been scheduled as part of the Core Network Update project.   

Change one 

Subject: Core routing modification 

Description: A direct link between the external routers will be enabled, BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) will be removed from the core switches, full BGP tables will be enabled for use on the external routers.  OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) default route origination will be moved to the external routers. 

Date: Sunday, March 17, between 9:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. 

Expected Impact: Periodic brief internet service interruptions while routing protocols recalculate. 

Change two 

Subject: Core equipment migration 

Description: The distribution network routers serving Wi-Fi, campus buildings, and residence buildings will have their uplinks migrated so that they are connected to the new aggregate distribution router. Traffic will route through the new core switches and firewalls. This is an intermediate step required to ease the migration of individual building connections, which will take place at a future date. 

Date: Sunday April 28, between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. 

Expected Impact: Internet bound traffic will be interrupted several times during the service window (for several minutes each time) for all wired and wireless traffic. 

Questions or concerns? Please submit a ticket via the IST Help Portal.