Monday, September 27, 2021

Register for the Safeguarding Science workshop

Waterloo faculty, staff, and students involved in research using biological, chemical, radiological, or nuclear materials or technology are invited to join Public Safety Canada (PSC) for the Safeguarding Science workshop.

This online workshop will take place on Wednesday, October 6 (1:30 to 3:45 p.m.). Please register to receive a link to the event which be held on Microsoft Teams.

The purpose of the workshop is to provide information and guidance to Canadian researchers on possible threats to their research and how to mitigate them. More information can be found on the Public Safety Canada Safeguarding Science website.

Waterloo rises in employability rankings

By Natalie Quinlan. This article was originally published on Waterloo News.

The University of Waterloo has risen to 24^th in the world and top 5 per cent among participating institutions for the 2022 QS Graduate Employability Rankings. With an overall improvement of one spot from 2020 (no rankings were released in 2021), Waterloo saw year-over-year gains across all indicators including:

1. 69^th in employer reputation (from 78^th) — Based on more than 75,000 responses asking employers to identify those institutions from which they source as the most competent, innovative and effective graduates.
2. 43^rd in alumni outcomes (from 49^th) — More than 40,000 of the world’s most innovative, creative, wealthy, entrepreneurial and/or philanthropic individuals were asked to establish which universities are producing world-changing graduates.
3. 61^st in student connections (from 69^th) — Comprised of two parts, this indicator establishes which universities are collaborating successfully with global companies to produce citable, transformative research, while also considering work-placement related partnerships that are reported by institutions and validated by the QS research team.
4. 16^th in partnerships with employers (from 19^th) —This indicator involves summing the number of distinct employers who are actively present on a university’s campus, providing motivated students with an opportunity to network and acquire information in a recent 12-month period.
5. 74^th in graduate employment rate (from 94^th) — Measuring the proportion of graduates in full or part-time employment within 12 months of graduation to gain an understanding of how successful universities are at nurturing employability.

This year, 786 institutions were included in QS rankings’ evaluations, up from 758 in the 2020 edition. In total, results from the top 550 universities (10 per cent more than previously) were published.

Considered responses were captured from more than 75,000 employers, over 40,800 mapped degrees and affiliations spanning 29,000 high-achievers, nearly 170,000 employers’ connections with graduates, and evaluated more than 310,000 work placement partnerships for 2022.

Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Aeronautics will take off October 5

The Faculty of Environment is inviting members of the University community to join them virtually on October 5 for the launch of the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Aeronautics (WISA).

WISA will be the world’s leading hub for sustainable aviation and aerospace research, technology, and education. By facilitating direct partnerships with industry, government, and academia WISA mobilizes the research and innovation capacity of all six faculties at the University of Waterloo to drive meaningful and lasting impact.

The launch will also feature a panel discussion with decorated astronaut Colonel Chris Hadfield, Dean of Engineering Mary Wells, Director of WISA Suzanne Kearns and Thomas Lagaillarde from NAVBLUE as they discuss how the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Aeronautics is helping to build a sustainable future in Aviation. Moderating the panel discussion will be Bessma Momani, professor in Political Science and senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance and Innovation (CIGI).

Sustainable aeronautics is a rapidly growing interdisciplinary field that encompasses all types of air transport, including aviation, aerospace, and space. Researchers at WISA develop innovative solutions, tools, and practices to create a viable future for air transport. 

The virtual event takes place on October 5 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Registration is now open.

How you can support WUSA's Stock the Bank Challenge

The Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association (WUSA) Food Support Service has started planning for its third annual Fall Stock the Bank Challenge and will be transitioning the event from an online format back to the original on-campus version of the event.

Stock the Bank is a month-long challenge in November where self-formed teams compete against one another in an effort to raise the most amount of non-perishable food items or money for WUSA's Food Support Service. These items will go directly to supporting the users who access the service for food and essentials. Post-secondary students are one of the fastest growing groups of food bank users across Ontario. Since Fall 2020, the service has distributed over 250 hampers to University of Waterloo affiliates.

Teams can be as large as an entire faculty, a small group of friends, or even a general office or store. At the end of the challenge, the winners will receive a sharable prize among team members and the coveted Golden Can Award in recognition of their efforts.

The collection campaign will run from November 1 to December 1 and teams will be able to organize a drop off their items directly to the Food Support Service office, or arrange a pickup with Food Support Service volunteers.

You can join the challenge's already-confirmed teams like the W Store, the Student Success Office, and WUSA in the on-campus event. If you would like to confirm a preliminary interest in participating in Food Support Service’s Stock the Bank Challenge, please contact the Food Support Service at foodsupport@wusa.ca or sign up here with your team.

Don’t have a team but still want to help? Partner up with your favourite UWaterloo team to help them win against their rivals. There’s always a way to participate with Stock the Bank.

UWSA info session today; UWAG exhibition; other notes

The second of two University of Waterloo Staff Association (UWSA) information sessions about how staff can get involved in the Board of Directors takes place today at 12 noon on Teams. The call for nominations for the 2021-2022 elected Board positions is open until October 29, 2021.

The University of Waterloo Art Gallery (UWAG) is showcasing two new exhibitions by artists Rah and Amanda Rhodenizer that run from September 16 to December 8.

Rah: SuperNova

SuperNova is a multidisciplinary video installation informed by Rah’s experience as a Canadian-Iranian exilic and diasporic artist. Featuring a series of characters that she has performed as over several years including Fatimeh, Oreo and Coco, these carefully conceived personas pointedly deconstruct ethnic and gender stereotypes. In SuperNova, the three fictional personas appear together for the first time as contestants on an American Idol-style galactic talent competition adjudicated by a panel of extraterrestrial judges—all portrayed by the artist. While parodying the tropes endemic to reality television, Rah’s characterizations are a pastiche of racialized stereotypes as well as a pointed critique of Western popular cultures exoticization of the other; from the self-aggrandizing Oreo, to the questionable authenticity of Fatimeh, to the non-binary posthuman Coco who communicates through waacking, a hybrid dance style that emerged from queer and racialized communities in the 1970s. SuperNova is framed by a futuristic screening kiosk that takes the shape of the kind of stargate or warp portal found in science fiction that further suggests the offer of a journey towards an unknowable future.

SuperNova was commissioned by the Carleton University Art Gallery and curated by Heather Anderson in 2019. The installation will also be exhibited at A Space in 2022.

Rah is a media and performance artist who has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally at spaces including: Images Festival, Carleton University Art Gallery, Miami Art Basel, Nieuwe Vide (Netherlands), Art Basel (Switzerland), Cable Factory (Helsinki, Finland), Kunst Am Spreeknie (Berlin), Kunsthaus Graz Museum (Austria), Williams College Museum of Art (MA, USA) and Onassis Cultural Center (Athens, Greece). She has been the recipient of numerous awards and residencies including: Chalmers Arts Fellowship, Canada Council, SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship, ArtSlant Georgia Fee Residency (Paris) and the Studio Das Weisse Haus Residency (Vienna).

Amanda Rhodenizer: O’er the Western Hills

Borrowing its title from a Homer Watson drawing (c. 1875), the paintings in O’er the Western Hills were inspired by representations of settler life found in early Canadian ad campaigns that depicted idealized, anonymous women and a romanticized life “on the frontier”. Each painting was conceived in collaboration with the subjects, who appear in their chosen work attire as either actively engaged in work or caught during an introspective moment in the early morning or late afternoon. Students, temp workers, teachers and retirees from a range of specialized STEM fields are represented: fire safety, water quality, wetland conservation, contaminated site remediation, regenerative permaculture, as well as ethics and justice, accessibility and outreach, and astrophysics. Despite their many professional accomplishments, the lived experiences and day-to-day reality of these members of the science community remains largely dominated by masculinity, whiteness, hetero-cis-normativity, and other privilege. The exhibition is not intended as a recruitment campaign for Women in STEM, but rather as a collection of portraits of female and non-binary workers sharing their experiences as we collectively advance toward the unknown.

Amanda Rhodenizer’s paintings draw inspiration from her family’s connection to folk art, antiquated tourism campaigns, and contemporary real estate practices in Canada. She holds an MFA from the University of Waterloo, and a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Orillia Museum of Art & History, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, and Art Mûr. Recent projects include “The Larger Forgetting” a collaboration with poet Laurie D. Graham, and “Parallel Play” a solo exhibition at ARTsPLACE in Annapolis Royal.

To book an appointment to visit both exhibitions visit the UWAG website. Bookings are currently available Wednesday and Friday from 12 noon to 5:00 p.m. and limited to 5 visitors at a time. Exhibition documentation will be posted on the UWAG website on September 30.