Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Ontario Universities Fair draws more than 139,000

This past weekend, the University of Waterloo attended the annual Ontario Universities' Fair (OUF) at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (MTCC) in downtown Toronto. This massive fair drew in a crowd of over 139,000 curious visitors, keeping the more than 450 University of Waterloo student, faculty, and staff volunteers busy for all three days of the event.

In addition to information booths, Waterloo also ran several multi-media presentations given by the liaison team, which were streamed live on Facebook for those that couldn't attend the event.

Volunteers at the Waterloo booth handed out more than 27,330 viewbooks to OUF attendees.

OUF is the largest education fair in Canada, giving prime opportunity for representatives from all 21 Ontario universities to advocate their schools to the thousands of prospective students that attend.

The next OUF will take place September 28 to 30, 2018.

Special thanks goes out to all the volunteers that dedicated their time to making this event a smashing success!

Encouraging women to participate in STEM

by Feridun Hamdullahpur. This is an excerpt of an article that appears in the opinion section of today's Waterloo Region Record, and is the latest post on the President's blog.

Even though it’s been more than 100 years since the first Canadian province extended women the right to vote, we still struggle with gender equality.

And while Canada has made more progress than many other nations, we see the consequences of inequality in our businesses, government institutions and our schools.

Alongside last week’s United Nations General Assembly in New York, a group of 30 heads of government, corporate leaders and university presidents met to reflect on the world’s successful gender equality initiatives as well as how much more we have to do to reach true equality.

Representing the University of Waterloo as the UN Women’s HeForShe IMPACT 10X10X10 Parity Report was unveiled, I was inspired by my colleagues’ determination to find solutions to the inequality that exists in so many areas of the world.

Far from a simple concept of fairness, addressing gender equality is integral to the future of our nation, its people and our economic wellbeing.

Business leaders in Canada and abroad tell us that we are suffering from a shortage of talent, and yet women are still underrepresented in growing employment fields, in particular in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).

In addition to the fact that excluding women from STEM does nothing to help create the kind of society we want to live in, it is also a terrible waste of talent.

Those who identify as women have been discouraged from pursuing or choose to avoid STEM careers for far too long. If we don’t take action to change this now, Canada will fall behind while other countries maximize their STEM talent. Only by harnessing the potential of ALL our best and brightest will Canada compete in a new economy, including in the areas of advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence and next generation computing.

Women’s post-secondary enrollment rates in these areas still lag behind men’s. This needs to change, and universities can demonstrate leadership.

Read the rest of the article on the President's blog.

Mini Town Hall will feature graduate studies

The latest in a series of Strategic Plan Mini Town Halls is scheduled to take place on Monday, October 2 in NH 3407.

Within Waterloo’s strategic plan, many themes touch on graduate studies including outstanding academic programming, sound value system, and global prominence and internationalization.

Join President and Vice-Chancellor Feridun Hamdullahpur, Associate Vice-President, Graduate Studies and Post-Doctoral Affairs Jeff Casello, and Associate Provost, Students Chris Read for an update on graduate studies at Waterloo.

You can register your attendance on the Mini Town Hall website and submit your questions in advance using the registration form.

The Mini Town Hall will be preceded by an online conversation on Twitter from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Submit questions in advance to townhall@uwaterloo.ca, and join the conversation using the #UWTH hashtag and following @UWaterlooLIVE.

Can’t make it?  Watch the livestream.

Sticker shock: Mega-sporting events will cost you

The real cost of the Olympics and other mega-sporting events is much higher than host bids would have us believe, according to a new study exploring the impacts of the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto. That’s because it takes additional investments to keep newly built venues in use after the event.

“In a bid to get a mega-event event, organizers often plan to help offset the cost of new facilities by opening the venue up for public use afterwards,” said Luke Potwarka, the study’s lead author and a professor in the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences. “But the idea that ‘if you build it they will come’ does not always hold true.”

Many venues built to host major sporting events sit idle after the original competitions. While some remain in use as national training facilities, several Olympic venues from from previous summer and winter games currently sit empty, including several facilities in Athens and Bejiing. The most recent summer games cost Rio de Janeiro more than $13 billion.

“Taxpayers, governments, communities need to go into these events with realistic expectations because getting the general viewing audience off the couch isn’t as straightforward as politicians and sporting organizations would like us to think,” said Potwarka.

Potwarka’s research team found that a person’s desire to try a new sport depends on several things. A spectator must feel immersed in the experience, fantasize that they are participating in the competition on display, and already have strong knowledge about the sport’s rules before wanting to try it.

In addition, a person’s intent to try a sport depends on how they feel while watching elite athletes. A spectator must feel inspired by the competing athletes and be able to envision a better version of themselves participating in the sport. Without this feeling, spectators are less likely to  be moved to try the sport they watched at a mega event.

“Creating a legacy takes much more strategic planning and investment to promote sport participation, which can start by understanding the way people think and feel during the spectator experience. Research into the nature of spectator experiences is needed to inform the development promotional efforts and interventions aimed at increasing sport participation in the facilities post-event.”  

The researchers surveyed almost 500 spectators leaving the $56-million Mattamy National Track Cycling Centre in Toronto after watching cycling competitions during the 2015 Pan Am Games.

The study appears in Leisure Sciences.