Thursday, March 20, 2025

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• Warriors hit the ice for U SPORTS Women's Hockey Championship

• Fostering belonging and inclusion during Ramadan

• Registration now open for AIMday Materials

• Graduate students invited to participate in Graduate Student Housing Survey

• Klaatu barada nikto and other cryptic catchphrases

Warriors hit the ice for U SPORTS Women's Hockey Championship

With files from Athletics and Recreation.

The 2025 Miller Waste U SPORTS Women's Hockey Championship gets underway today at the Woolwich Memorial Centre in Elmira, where the host Warriors and seven other combatants will convene for 11 games over 4 days to crown the national champion.  

The complete field, in seeding order, is as follows:

1. Alberta Pandas (CW Champions: 24-3-1 regular season, 4-1 playoffs)
2. Toronto Varsity Blues (OUA champions: 17-8-1, 5-0)
3. Bishop's Gaiters (RSEQ champions: 10-8-3, 4-1)
4. STFX X-Women (AUS champions: 18-5-5, 5-2)
5. Concordia Stingers (RSEQ finalists: 20-1-0, 3-2)
6. UBC Thunderbirds (CW finalists: 24-5-1, 2-2)
7. UNB Reds (AUS finalists: 21-5-2, 3-2)
8. Waterloo Warriors (hosts: 18-2-6, 4-1)

In women's hockey, the four conference champions are seeded in the top four based on their final national ranking. The four other participants are placed so that each side of the draw includes one team from each conference. 

The quarterfinals will be played on Thursday and Friday, as follows:

• Thursday, 1:00 p.m.: No. 5 Concordia vs. No. 4 STFX
• Thursday, 7:00 p.m.: No. 1 Alberta at No. 8 Waterloo
• Friday, 1:00 p.m.: No. 6 UBC vs. No. 3 Bishop's
• Friday, 7:00 p.m.: No. 7 UNB vs. No. 2 Toronto

Saturday's action starts with two consolation games at 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m., with the semifinals set for 4:00 and 7:00 p.m. On Sunday, the fifth-place game will get underway at 10:00 a.m., with the bronze-medal game following at 2:00 p.m. and the championship at 6:00 p.m. 

Tickets are currently on sale on at usportstickets.ca. All 11 games from the event will be broadcast live on CBC Sports digital platforms in English. In French, the games will be carried on Radio Canada's digital platforms, with Sunday's gold medal game being aired on TVA Sports.

Fostering belonging and inclusion during Ramadan

By Mifrah Abid. This is an excerpt of an article posted on the Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Racism website.

Muslims across the globe are celebrating the Holy month of Ramadan this March. Ramadan began in Canada on March 1, 2025, and many members of the University of Waterloo Muslim community are observing this month of fasting and prayers.

What is Ramadan/Ramzan about?

Ramadan/ Ramzan is a sacred month for the Muslim faith, where those observing it refrain from any food and water from dawn to sunset. This would translate to 12.5-hours to 14-hours long fasts (accounting for the varying sunrise and sunset times through the course of this month). Muslims dedicate the month (which can be 29 or 30 days long) to fasting, charity, spiritual reflection, seeking forgiveness and bonding with community. They often engage in long late-night prayers. Most people understand that Muslims may be a little low on energy during the day, but most don’t know that they also might be sleep-deprived.

What is the Eid al-Fitr holiday?

The month-long observance of Ramadan is followed by the holiday of Eid al-Fitr, a joyous time when Muslims celebrate by wearing beautiful clothes, enjoying delicious food with friends and family, and exchanging gifts. The celebration lasts up to three days.

It is important to note that since Muslims follow a lunar calendar, the start of a new month depends on the sighting of the new moon, which means Ramadan can be either 29 or 30 days long. This means that the exact day of Eid al-Fitr isn’t always known in advance. While some Muslim communities, especially in the West, use astronomical calculations to predict the date of Eid, many still follow the traditional practice of waiting until the new moon is physically sighted before confirming the day of celebration. This means that different communities — even within the same region — may celebrate Eid on different days, reflecting the rich diversity of Muslim traditions and practices.

Read more about Ramadan

Registration now open for AIMday Materials

A message from the Office of the Vice-President, Research and International.

University of Waterloo faculty are invited to participate in AIMday Materials, an engaging event that connects academic researchers with industry leaders to explore solutions to critical challenges in material science.  

In each one-hour roundtable, researchers will delve into potential solutions for participating organization’s challenges related to the development, processing, and evaluation of new and advanced materials.   

AIMday Materials will create new opportunities for collaboration, with a focus on advancing sustainable materials, specifically around the following categories: 

• Materials for vehicles and transportation 

• Materials for energy harvesting, storage, and conversion 

• Materials for health and biomedical applications 

• Materials for novel polymers 

• Materials for carbon footprint reduction 

• Materials for infrastructure and construction 

• AI and machine learning for modeling material properties 

Event details: 

• Date: April 23

• Themes: Current challenges in the synthesis, processing, and testing of new and advanced materials  

• Registration closes April 4

To learn more and register, visit AIMday Materials. 

For questions, feel free to reach out to us at partnerships@uwaterloo.ca. 

We can’t wait to see you there! 

Graduate students invited to participate in Graduate Student Housing Survey

A message from Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs.

Campus Housing, in partnership with Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs and the Graduate Student Association, is conducting a Graduate Student Housing Survey to better understand graduate students' current housing experiences and preferences. The results will inform long-term planning for Campus Housing and help align future supports with student needs. Graduate students were invited to participate via email on March 17, with a link to participate in the online survey. The survey will remain open until April 4, 2025.

Klaatu barada nikto and other cryptic catchphrases

Put on your silver jumpsuits and join the Centre for Society, Technology and Values tonight for a screening of the 1951 classic The Day The Earth Stood Still. "This movie showed that American science-fiction could be a serious genre with significant things to say about technology and society," says a note from the CSTV. "All UWaterloo students, faculty and staff are welcome."

The event takes place tonight at 6:30p.m. in E5 6008. Admission—and popcorn—are free.

What else is going on today? Well, the Library is hosting an online workshop entitled Online Systematic Reviews for the Environmental Sciences geared towards graduate students in the environmental sciences who wish to conduct a systematic review for either a thesis, coursework or journal publication from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Also tonight, the 2025 Balsillie Lecture: “Planetary Maintenance Engineers: Exploring Earth Interventions” will feature author and journalist Gwynne Dyer at 7:00 p.m. in the CIGI Auditorium.

Dyer will be discussion the topic of his latest book, Intervention Earth: Life-Saving Ideas from the World’s Climate Engineers. "Jim Lovelock, the founder of ‘Gaia’ (now called Earth System Science) predicted humanity would inherit the perpetual, thankless, possibly doomed job of ‘Planetary Maintenance Engineers’, if we so destabilise the planet’s natural cycles that we are compelled to intervene directly to keep them within the limits that would allow a human civilisation to survive," says the lecture's abstract. "That was in 1979, and current indications are that Earth interventions will be necessary. This job is now called climate geoengineering."

A reception and book signing will follow the lecture. There's still time to RSVP.