Thursday, April 4, 2019

Waterloo makes its mark in 2019 University Impact Rankings

The University of Waterloo has been ranked 13^th in the world in Times Higher Education’s (THE) University Impact Rankings 2019.

THE’s pioneering initiative was developed to recognize universities across the world for their social and economic impact based on the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals. The rankings measured the efforts of more than 500 universities in 75 countries. The UN’s 17 goals aim to make the world a better place for everyone by confronting the biggest issues affecting our world. Waterloo's ranking is based on its performance in Sustainable Development Goal number 17 — Partnership for the Goals, as well as, goal 11 — Sustainable Cities and Communities, goal 13 — Climate Action and goal 10 — Reduced Inequalities.

“The University of Waterloo has long valued the principles underpinning the United Nations SDGs, particularly as they relate to gender equality, innovation and sustainability,” said Feridun Hamdullahpur. “Given the global imperative in these areas, our focus an attention will only intensify in the months and years to come.” 

In partnership with the Waterloo Global Science Initiative, Waterloo is home to Canada’s largest Faculty of Environment and is the founding institution of Canada’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Waterloo’s partnership with the UN lays out a course for a better future we can all achieve together.

The Institutional Analysis & Planning team as well as other campus stakeholders deserve a shoutout for preparing the data submission for this inaugural ranking.

Read more about the ranking on Waterloo News.

Waterloo helps Indonesian university launch co-op program

On March 12, Bill Duggan, the University of Waterloo’s READI Project Field Director, joined with Dr. Totok Prasetyo, Director of Institutional Development of Higher Education (Kemenristekdikti), Abdullah Mojadeddi, First Secretary of the Embassy of Canada and Prof. Djisman Simandjuntak, Rector, Prasetiya Mulya University, to open Indonesia’s first Co-operative Education Office at Prasetiya Mulya University.

As one of the READI Project’s first Indonesian university stakeholders, Prasetiya Mulya University embraced the co-operative education model immediately. They have devoted significant time and resources over the past two years to adapting their educational structure as they pioneered the development of this very effective type of work-integrated learning.

One of the READI Project’s key objectives is to introduce co-operative education to our Indonesian colleagues. Scott Davis, long-time staff member in Co-operative Education on-campus and the READI Project’s Co-op Program Officer, coached these Indonesian university and employer partners over the past two years to help them understand and develop co-op programming that best fits their education and employment systems. Students who participate in the co-op program at Prasetiya Mulya will accumulate a minimum of 1 year of work experience (the equivalent of 2 short semesters and 2 regular semesters) prior to graduation.

In his remarks, Dr. Prasetyo welcomed the implementation of co-op programming within the country’s university system to support and enhance the links between university and industry. According to Dr. Prasetyo, the purpose of higher education is to prepare students to be ready to enter the workforce.

Prasetiya Mulya’s Co-op Office was built with financial support from the READI Project. The facility includes interview rooms, online learning rooms, meeting and training rooms. Maydison Ginting, PhD, Head of Business Mathematics Department, explained that the Co-op Office is designed to facilitate participation in the co-op employment process for both students and employers. “Students can get advice on how to write their CVs and cover letters, browse information about the companies, practice their communication skills to prepare for interviews, and an introduction to online learning. The companies can visit the office to meet with students and conduct their interviews.”

Prasetiya Mulya University first launched its co-op program in 2018; to date, more than 100 students have been involved. Students are alternating their classroom study with working in various companies such as insurance, banking, e-commerce, technology, and other financial services.

An additional hallmark of success for the READI Project is the upcoming announcement by the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education (Kemenristekdikti) that a Ministerial Decree has been drafted to approve and regulate the implementation of Co-operative Education programming in Indonesian Higher Education legislation. This regulation will encourage and enable more Indonesian universities to implement co-op programs.

Changes to the Finance website are coming

A message from Finance.

The Finance website is getting a new look and feel!  

In order to protect and safeguard our internally-focused finance website information, faculty- and staff-directed content will be relocated to a secure CAS-authenticated Finance Resources website, leaving only generic and student-focused information available on the external Internet.

Putting internal or proprietary information behind security will also help the University prevent or reduce phishing events where the fraudster poses as a University employee with inside information or knowledge they gathered from our publicly-accessible websites.

As of April 7, visitors will see a noticeable change to the Finance website.  Website navigation headers in the left-menu which previously contained sub-menus of content and materials directed at internal audiences will instead contain call to action buttons directing users to the authenticated site.  Upon clicking on the call to action button, faculty and staff will be requested to log in via CAS to access the content.

Current Finance links saved as favourites will no longer be accessible.  The new Finance Resources site will in large part mirror the content of the previous site, so it should be fairly easy to find and set new favourites.

Also, if you have links on your faculty or department website, please make sure you update the links after April 7.

Faculty and staff can quickly connect to the new site via the Information for Staff and Faculty section of the current site. To access this content, you will be required to log in via CAS.

Prospective and current students will continue to access the information related to tuition and their student account in the same way they  have in the past. There is no change to the Student Financial Services portion of the website under Information for Students. Students will also have a more visible call to action button on the front of the Finance homepage that will redirect them to the Student Financial Services area of the site.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Ashley Schatz or Corrine Krauss.