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Reminder: Download the new UWaterloo safety app
On October 1, 2024 the University’s current safety app, WatSAFE, will be decommissioned and replaced by a new, comprehensive Emergency Notification System provided by the company Regroup.
Download the new safety app – Regroup Mobile – now.
All members of the University community are asked to download the Regroup Mobile app in preparation for the transition to this new ENS tool. For instructions on how to download the app, and for recommended settings, please see this new Knowledge Base article.
Both Regroup Mobile and WatSAFE will be used until October 1, 2024. On October 1, the WatSAFE app will be retired and no longer in use, and Regroup Mobile will become the officially supported ENS app for campus.
Please email ens@uwaterloo.ca with any questions or concerns.
Remembering Larry Lamb, Waterloo's ecologist extraordinaire
With files from Gary Nyp.
Retiree Larry Lamb passed away on July 17.
Lamb joined the University of Waterloo in 1969 to run the fledgling Faculty of Environmental Studies’ ecology lab at the behest of Dr. Robert Dorney. He served as an ecologist and adjunct lecturer in Environment and Resources Studies. While working at the University he completed a Bachelor’s degree in Independent Studies.
Off-campus, Lamb led a one-man crusade to promote alternatives to the traditional water-guzzling lawn so popular in North America, calling it a “very boring monoculture” and “evil.” He was described as a “leading authority on the topic of zeriscaping or naturescaping, a low maintenance, drought-tolerant garden form that replaces standard grass with a variety of other species” and, more succinctly, as a “lawn contrarian.” He bought a home in Kitchener and cultivated a “residential prairie” backyard as an environmentally-sound alternative. He was also an advocate for the preservation of prairie grasses and other plants indigenous to southern Ontario.
Such was his notoriety that he was invited by Lady Bird Johnson, former first lady of the United States, to visit her Texas ranch to advise on prairie gardening.
On campus, he was instrumental in the creation of the expanded Dorney ecology garden outside the Environment buildings, that featured pink granite and gneiss boulders and plants from northern Ontario, and consulted on several landscaping projects across the University, including the East-West Garden at Renison University College.
Larry Lamb, at left, with a group of Environment students on a field trip.
As part of his instructor duties he organized field trips for Environment students all over North America. He also led efforts to transplant campus plant life that would otherwise be destroyed by construction projects to greener pastures.
He joined the University’s 25-year club in 1994. Lamb retired in 2009, though he continued to teach and serve the University community for many years.
He was founding director and past-president of the Canadian Wildflower Society, and in 1997 received the Canadian Wildflower Society’s Conservation Award.
In 2019 he was awarded the Lieutenant Governor's Ontario Heritage Trust Lifetime Achievement Award. He was a lifetime honorary member of Waterloo Region Nature. He volunteered at rare, a charitable research reserve in Cambridge.
The Lawrence Lamb Collection, made up of rocks and minerals that Lamb picked up on his many nature walks, is on display in the Earth Sciences Museum.
Check out this tribute published in the Waterloo Region Record.
Thursday's notes
This is a reminder that the deadline to submit a proposal to the Fall People, Process and Projects (P3) Showcase is Friday, August 9. The annual event is billed as an "opportunity to learn more about how different departments use tools and methodologies to achieve the most efficient processes and outcomes."
The showcase will feature poster exhibits and poster flash talks, all centered around ideas and practices that contribute to continuous improvement, change management, and project management.
The 2024 P3 Showcase will take place in-person on Wednesday September 25.
Human Resources has added another position available to its weekly listing, as follows:
- Job ID# 2024–12253 - Research Project Coordinator - School of Environment, Enterprise and Development, USG 7