Monday, September 8, 2025

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• Old friends. New memories. Same black and gold spirit!
• Provost provides update on Academic Innovation Working Group

• University of Waterloo Art Gallery presents Brenda Mabel Reid and Andrew McPhail

• Welcome Week, Mennonite Heritage Week, and other notes

Old friends. New memories. Same black and gold spirit!

A message from Advancement.

Homecoming is Saturday, September 20, 2025! Alumni, faculty, staff and students are invited to celebrate our community and cheer on the Warriors football team.

Touch down before the game for a parking lot party— complete with live music, memorabilia from the Waterloo archives and food trucks. Then, enjoy the game from the Manulife Warriors Fan Zone. Alumni can upgrade their ticket for a VIP experience, including access to an exclusive area of the Fan Zone, swag and complimentary refreshments.

See the event details

Provost provides update on Academic Innovation Working Group

A message from Thomas Duever, Interim Vice-President Academic and Provost

In the latter half of winter term, the Office of the Provost created an Academic Innovation Working Group (AIWG) tasked with exploring:

• how the University can deliver our academic programs more effectively and efficiently,
• ways to leverage technology to enhance teaching and learning,
• opportunities to create new revenue streams through program development, and
• recommendations that can enhance the quality and timeliness of academic decision-making by improving processes and ensuring that relevant information is available to those responsible for making decisions.

Currently chaired by Associate Vice-President Academic, David DeVidi, the AIWG is intended to be a mechanism to address pressing issues for the University as they arise. It comprises a steering committee that chooses topics of immediate concern, and time-limited working groups to help address those specific concerns. The steering committee and working groups of the AIWG are not decision-making bodies, but are intended to develop recommendations and provide advice that will enable decision-makers to make timely, evidence-based decisions. As befits the University’s present situation, the initial three working groups are addressing topics that can help the University face its difficult fiscal situation.

The membership of the working groups generally includes faculty members with relevant experience as, for example, departmental leaders, Associate Deans or Deans, Senators, or leadership roles in the development and approval of new programs. When required, senior staff members with relevant expertise will also be invited to support the AIWG’s activities.

The working groups convened at least twice before the end of June. In early July, the steering committee met to hear proposed work plans and to provide advice, as well as to ensure efforts were not being duplicated. Since then, all groups are undertaking research that will help them move forward efficiently in September.

Read about the progress of each working group on the AIWG webpage.

University of Waterloo Art Gallery presents Brenda Mabel Reid and Andrew McPhail

The University of Waterloo Art Gallery's latest exhibitions will be presented from Thursday, September 11 to December 6, 2025 with an opening reception on Thursday, September 11 from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Brenda Mabel Reid - Underlay

Brenda Mabel Reid’s ongoing large-scale quilt project Underlay explores quilts, architecture, and gender-queerness. Reid’s work challenges binary gender norms and uses quilted-architectural forms to explore quilting as a method of making a queer space that brings people together. Composed of 62 hexagonal blocks made of waterproof construction-grade materials, the form uses a classic tumbling block pattern that references both quilting and architecture. Each block is unique, featuring spray-painted patterns related to architectural drawings and materials. The blocks are modular and can be reconfigured via grommeted corners bound together using reflective nylon rope. This iteration of the project suggests an A-frame shelter or a child’s blanket fort. Visitors are invited to remove their shoes, enter the space, and sit or lie down on the futons provided as a place for contemplation or a relaxing nap. In a society predicated on productivity and a 24-hour news and entertainment cycle routinely focusing on crisis and spectacle, Reid proposes the nap as a restorative political action that incites us to revive ourselves and take up space in a joyful manner. As an object that encourages social engagement, Underlay endeavours to provide a safe space for reflection, regeneration, and community-building. 

The artist acknowledges the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.

Brenda Mabel Reid is an emerging trans non-binary visual artist with a social practice. Reid completed their Master of Architecture (2021) and their Bachelor of Architectural Studies (2019) at the University of Waterloo. Underlay has been shown in contemporary art festivals Third Shift in Saint John, NB; Hold Fast in St. John’s, NL; Long Dash in Cambridge, ON; and a presentation by CAFKA and Pat the Dog Theatre Creation in Kitchener, ON. Reid’s work appears in private and public collections across Canada. They have received grants from the Canadian Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, and the City of Kitchener. 

Brenda Mabel Reid's presentation will take place on Thursday, September 18, from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Andrew McPhail - TEXTiles, This is not an AIDS Quilt

In the last decade, Andrew McPhail has produced an ongoing body of textile-based work that draws from his experience as a queer man living with HIV for over 30 years. Developing out of his drawing practice, McPhail’s work has evolved into a hybrid straddling sculpture, installation, and performance. Utilizing ready-made disposable materials, ranging from Band-Aids to Kleenex, his accumulative work pointedly examined failure, sexuality, and the frailty of the human body. Text has always played a critical role in his work, and over the last decade McPhail was increasingly drawn to the gaudy impermanence of brightly coloured sequins as a medium for his humorous, often caustic slogans: Sick & Tired. Fragile. Epic Fail. The End. Obsessively hand-stitching these sequined texts onto bedsheets, pillowcases, and quilts, the sum of McPhail’s ongoing project evokes a metaphoric bedroom, a place of comfort, security, compassion as well as passion, but also of sickness and death. TEXTiles knowingly honours the emotional and material impact of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, a monumental collective undertaking honouring the names of all those lost to the AIDS epidemic. McPhail’s iteration is a more modest, personal production; a self-deprecating portrait of an artist willing to make light of their own survival.

Andrew McPhail is a visual artist who received his MFA from York University in 1987. In his accumulative, craft-oriented practice he uses ephemeral, disposable materials such as Band Aids, Kleenex, and Post-its to create monumental yet ephemeral sculptures, installations, and performances. Over the last decade he has been hand-stitching sequins to spell out text on pillowcases, bedsheets, and quilts. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. He was the recipient of the Canada Council International Studio Residency in Paris in 2013 and the Nordic Artist Residency in 2023. He is the cofounder, with Stephen Altena, of the Hundred Dollar Gallery, and a founding member of The Assembly in Hamilton. 

Welcome Week, Mennonite Heritage Week, and other notes

Now that the fall term is in full swing, the Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association (WUSA) is hosting Welcome Week, a termly entertainment extravaganza that runs from Monday, September 8 to September 16. Highlights include tomorrow's BBQ Smash and Illusionist Savio Joseph performing at the Humanities Theatre, the two-day Carnival on Tuesday and Wednesday, a rollerskate night at REV Court on Thursday, September 11 and a trip to Toronto for a Jays game vs. the Baltimore Orioles on Friday, September 12.  

"In 2019, the Canadian Parliament declared the second week in September to be Mennonite Heritage Week," says a note from Conrad Grebel University College. "This occasion offers Conrad Grebel University College at the University of Waterloo an opportunity to share information about Mennonite history and culture."

This year, for Mennonite Heritage Week, Conrad Grebel University College has prepared a self-guided Mennonite Art Tour for visitors interested in learning about the history, culture, values, thought, and religion of Mennonites.  

Read more about Mennonites and Mennonite Heritage Week at Grebel. 

The Writing and Communication Centre (WCC) is hosting University Research and Writing Essentials today and tomorrow from 3:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. in LIB 323 at the Dana Porter Library. The workshop series is aimed at preparing first-year students for university-level research and writing. Attendees will learn how expectations at university differ from those in high school and find out about the many resources available to them.  Workshops include:

Students can log into Portal for more information.