Wednesday, February 12, 2025

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• Reunion 2025: Alumni will revisit campus this June
• Join CEE at the Navigate Hiring Co-op Talent workshop
• Getting more undergraduate students into the lab
• Teaching Innovation Incubator welcomes three new projects aimed at transforming teaching
• Wednesday's notes

Reunion 2025: Alumni will revisit campus this June

A message from Advancement.

We’re getting ready to celebrate University of Waterloo alumni! 

Registration is open for Reunion 2025 — Friday, June 6 and Saturday, June 7. Hundreds of alumni will return to campus to reconnect with friends and rediscover UWaterloo. 

Alumni Relations and Advancement teams across campus are putting together an exciting line-up of events including:

• Tours, workshops and open houses
•  Forever Black and Gold Luncheon to celebrate milestone graduations 
• Special programming from faculties and schools 
• Friday night screening of Rock this Town 

If you’re a member of the UWaterloo alumni community, we hope you’ll register for Reunion and spread the word to your classmates and friends! 

Join CEE at the Navigate Hiring Co-op Talent workshop

A message from Co-operative and Experiential Education.

We’re excited to invite you to our "Navigate Hiring Co-op Talent" workshop! Whether you have hired before or are looking to start, connect with Co-op and Student Awards & Financial Aid (SAFA) to learn more about hiring co-op students on campus. This session is designed to make the hiring process easier and more efficient. It will guide you through everything from using WaterlooWorks to accessing workplace funding.

 You’ll learn:

• Tips for success
• What it means to be a Waterloo employer
• All about WaterlooWorks, our recruitment system
• How to utilize your service team
• How to navigate our hiring cycles
• How to use work placement funding to support your hires

Join us for a session on Thursday, February 20 or Wednesday, March 12.

• Thursday, February 20, 10:30 a.m. to 12 noon, Microsoft Teams
• Wednesday, March 12, 10:30 a.m. to 12 noon, Microsoft Teams or TC 2218.

RSVP today by completing this short registration form. If you have any questions or need further details, feel free to reach out to your Account Coordinator.

Getting more undergrad students into the lab

This is one of many stories published in the 2025 Global Futures: Innovation Update.

Waterloo researchers and graduate students strive to uncover new solutions to today’s complex challenges. But for some undergraduates, there was a gap in opportunities for additional real-world research experience outside their lab courses.

Waterloo alum Ria Menon (BSc ’24), is helping fill that gap with Real Research, a venture connecting undergraduate students with mentors to gain hands-on research and lab experience.

“Working in research requires a lot of creativity and innovation because when you’re working in a lab, you have to often think of new solutions to persevere around problems that you’re facing,” says Menon, who majored in biomedical sciences.  

“Creativity and innovation sprout out new ideas which can lead to new discoveries. I believe that’s a crucial part of research that a lot of researchers love.”

Getting involved in research often requires undergraduate students to take 400-level classes, also known as senior thesis courses, or to have connections that can help them access research opportunities earlier. Now, lower-year students can apply to be in the Real Research program and complete it as part of the University’s EDGE certificate, a unique experiential education program that lets students who aren’t enrolled in co-op gain professional skills and explore career options.

“Since spring 2023, Real Research has helped more than 50 undergraduate students get involved with research … it’s a forward cycle where we’re helping other people realize their passions in research as well,” Menon says.

Read more on the Global Futures website

Teaching Innovation Incubator welcomes three new projects aimed at transforming teaching

A message from the Teaching Innovation Incubator (TII).

In November 2024, the Teaching Innovation Incubator (TII) published its inaugural open call for transformative, interdisciplinary projects aimed at transforming teaching at the University of Waterloo. Key themes of the open call included Generative-AI (Gen-AI), Waterloo’s Global Futures, and educational technological exploration through the Incubator’s EdTech Sandbox. The call closed on December 13^th, receiving 10 project submissions. In January 2025, an adjudication committee of academic leaders and subject matter experts got together and selected three new project teams to join the Incubator in Winter 2025. The three new projects joining the Incubator include:

AI Meets EDI: Virtual Simulations for Culturally Safe Indigenous Healthcare

Led by Jeff Nagge, Associate Professor at the School of Pharmacy, this project aims to create a series of virtual training modules for pharmacy students to learn how to deliver culturally competent care to Indigenous patients. In collaboration with the Office of Indigenous Relations and Indigenous content creators, this project aims to address a critical gap in healthcare education, equipping students with the skills they need to provide culturally competent care, and aligning with The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada’s Call to Action #23 and the University of Waterloo’s ongoing efforts to Indigenize its curriculum.

Learning by Teaching a Large Language Model (LLM)

In the second project team, Professors Pascal Poupart (Computer Science) and Igor Grossman (Psychology), will join the Incubator to seek support developing and evaluating a large language model (LLM) that students can use to enhance their learning experience. Acting as a virtual student, the LLM will be taught by human students, thereby enhancing their comprehension of course content which will enable them to fill knowledge gaps. The goal is to foster a personalized and engaging learning experience and to explore the potential scalability of this model across the disciplines.

Evolving Work-Integrated Learning with AI Insights

In the third project team, Judene Pretti (Director) and Tonya Eliott (Analyst) from the Co-operative and Experiential Education’s Strategic Enablement Team will explore how AI can be used to create a new partnership to enhance Work-Integrated Learning at Waterloo. Using 1Mentor, an AI platform that analyzes job market data, the project aims to provide personalized career guidance and real-time insights to tailor career pathways for students and evolve the existing work-integrated learning opportunities at Waterloo.

Stay connected with the TII projects and the Incubator

Each project entering the Incubator will receive up to a maximum of $20,000 in project funding and will have access to the supports of the Incubator which include: dedicated project support and project management by TII co-op students, the brokering of connections for ideas and networking, advisory input and access to resources.

You can read more about the Teaching Innovation Incubator and how it’s supporting these project teams by visiting the website. Project updates and opportunities for engagement will be spotlighted on the Teaching Innovation Incubator website.

Wednesday's notes

"Graduate students are invited to participate in the Canadian Graduate and Professional Student Survey (CGPSS)," says an announcement from Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs (GSPA). "The CGPSS is a national survey administered by approximately 50 Canadian institutions and runs every three years. The CGPSS collects feedback from current graduate students about varying aspects of student life and helps shape university policies, services, and academic programs."

"As an incentive for participating, graduate students will receive $5 on their WatCard and will have a chance to win one of ten $150 shopping sprees. Students who submit their responses by February 28 will also have the chance to win one of three early bird prizes valued at $200 – movies and dinner out!"

Graduate students received an invitation to participate in their student @uwaterloo email accounts earlier this week. The survey runs from February 10 to April 25.

 For full details, visit the Institutional Analysis & Planning (IAP) website.

Tired of powering through menstrual cramps and aches every month? The Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism and Counselling Services invites you to a 90-minute Mindfulness for Menstrual Health meditation session that will explore how to make a deeper connection with your body and find relief through self-care.

The session takes place on Wednesday, February 26 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. in the SLC's Black & Gold room.

Attendees should bring a water bottle and a yoga mat (extras will be available). Free menstrual products, both single-use and reusable, will be available. "Join us and discover a different way to support your body!" says a note from EDI-R. Register online. To learn more about the Menstrual Equity Project, please visit Menstrual Equity at Waterloo.

And finally, a note about yesterday's note about storm closings as poor weather continues to approach southwestern Ontario. I quoted from an older version of the weather closing guidelines, which were lasted updated in 2022 after the pandemic changed the way that non-essential work is done on (and off) campus. So, here's what I should have written:

The guidelines define the condition of "closed" to mean that “classes are not held; in-person meetings and other scheduled events are cancelled; scheduled examinations are cancelled, to be rescheduled; deadlines for assignments and other submissions are postponed until the same hour on the next business day on which UW is not "closed"; staff, other than those providing "essential services,"  who can perform their tasks remotely are expected to do so in accordance with the current flexible work guidelines; if feasible, meetings, depending on the unit, may be moved to an online platform.”

Here's what the guidelines say about essential services:

"Essential services" are defined to be: food service in the residences; policing; the central plant; residence life staff; snow removal; emergency repair and maintenance; animal care. Staff providing "essential services" will be so designated by their Department Heads, who are responsible for assigning duties to be carried out and making reasonable arrangements for the protection of such staff. Department Heads are expected to show flexibility and, so far as possible, sensitivity to individuals' needs when assigning "essential" duties. No department can designate any other services as "essential" or require employees to work during a "closed" period without approval from the Provost.