Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Staff International Experience Fund recipients named

Three University of Waterloo staff members have been awarded funds through the 2017 Staff International Experience Fund (SIEF) to participate in international experiences that enrich their professional development and support Waterloo’s strategic goals.

This year’s recipients will travel to Australia, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands to broaden their professional perspectives on a global scale while representing the University and sharing ideas and best practices with partner institutions.

They are:

Katherine Lithgow, Senior Instructional Developer, Centre for Teaching Excellence (Australia)

Katherine Lithgow is travelling to Australia in February 2018 to support her professional goals and passion for integrative learning. She works closely with instructors to ensure they have the knowledge, tools, and resources to better support student success in the classroom and beyond.

The SIEF will allow her to visit partner institutions along Australia’s east coast, including Deakin University, Griffith University, and Macquarie University. She is eager to exchange innovative ideas about experiential learning, programs, and incentives to bring back to Waterloo.

“Experiential education is about taking risks and embracing unique approaches,” says Katherine. “I’m elated to share Waterloo’s innovative approaches to experiential education and bring other ideas home to not only support my role in the Centre for Teaching Excellence, but the University’s strategic objectives.”

Monica Vesely, Instructional Developer, Centre for Teaching Excellence (United Kingdom and the Netherlands)

With a keen interest in learning about teaching orientation strategies and approaches used at partner institutions, Monica Vesely is eager to converse with her counterparts in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in the spring of 2018.

With a focus on the international nature of students and faculty, Monica is using SIEF funding to travel to various universities to better support the diversity of Waterloo’s new faculty group.

Monica designs and delivers instructional development programs and provides consultations for faculty and staff in course design, instructional skills, and evaluation. A major part of her portfolio focuses on assisting new faculty with their teaching professional development.

“By investigating different international models for preparing and supporting new faculty in their teaching roles, my goal is to bring back ideas to help shape the future of Waterloo’s own programming,” says Monica.

Adam Wlad, Information Systems Specialist, Information Systems & Technology (United Kingdom)

With a passion and expertise in software solutions, Adam Wlad is travelling to Scotland and England in October 2017 to further his technical knowledge and skills that will enhance Quest, the University’s core student information system.

The SIEF will provide Adam with the opportunity to meet with colleagues at various universities, including the University of Glasgow, University of Strathclyde, and University of Derby to share ideas and best practices in managing web-based tools used to strengthen information systems and application software. He is also looking forward to being an ambassador for Waterloo for the first time.

“I’m excited to collaborate with information systems and technology specialists at foreign institutions,” says Adam. “Interacting face-to-face provides a unique opportunity to meet with people in my field and learn and share ideas to improve not only Waterloo’s systems, but our international partnerships and presence.”

To stay up-to-date on the recipients’ journeys and learn more about internationalization at Waterloo, follow Waterloo International on Twitter.

Charting the history of the Internet from Gutenberg to Zuckerberg

​

A new course offered by the Department of History, offered in the Winter 2018 term, takes a look at the history of the Internet. A long look.

Professor Ian Milligan is teaching HIST 216 - From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg: A (Long) History of the Internet.

"The Internet has enabled global connection on an unprecedented level," says the course's marketing materials. "To live and innovate in a society dominated by network communications requires an understanding of from where we've come from. Yet, as Google executives Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen have noted, the 'Internet is among the few things humans have built that they don't truly understand.'"

The course will touch on early computing, theories of Hypertext, ARPANET and the networking revolutions of the 1980s and 1990s, but is equally concerned with the longer human story. How has the concept of information evolved over time? How did print media emerge and how did it change over the centuries? How have humans communicated over time and space, and how did the common standards develop that allowed them to do so from across the globe?

Course topics include:

• The invention and impact of the printing press;
• 19^th Century communications technology (or why it turns out early fights around telephones can shed a lot of light on net neutrality);
• The emergency of Hypertext from unlikely places;
• Cold War research networks and the rise of the modern Internet;
• How the Net developed around the world from BBSes in Taiwan to Minitel in France; and
• much more.

Get off the shoulder of the Information Superhighway and enrol today. Anyone with questions can send an email to Professor Milligan at i2millig@uwaterloo.ca.

Student leaders toured campus and community

On Thursday, September 28, the University of Waterloo hosted the delegates (all 1,250 of them!) of the annual Canadian Student Leadership Conference (CSLC).

The multi-day conference attracts student leaders from high schools all over Canada to take part in skill-building workshops and presentations, as well as touring the attractions of the surrounding area. This is the first time in a decade that the conference has been held in Ontario.

Students started their day at local high school Sir John A. Macdonald (SJAM) for a speech by President Feridun Hamdullahpur. Following that, the students boarded 22 buses and came to the University for an entire day of activities.

Students, in their spirit groups, attended two workshops and a speaker series in Fed Hall. To accommodate the large numbers Waterloo ran 84 different workshops and repeated the Fed Hall Speaker series twice.

Speakers included Associate Director, Undergraduate Studies for CONRAD Marc Hurwitz; HeForShe advocate Professor Corey Johnson; Wellness advocates Donna Rheams and Adam Steeves; Waterloo graduates and business founders Tina Chan (PASS Kit) and Eric Blondeel (ExVivo); and Feds Vice-President Internal, Jill Knight.

The 84 workshops included everything from the cadaver labs to yoga to viral vaccines and a journey into the teenage brain and were led by over 60 experts from across campus. Students enjoyed lunch at Fed Hall and wrapped up their day with a BBQ at Warrior Field before continuing their conference off-campus.

A special thank-you goes out to the 75 ‘Waterloo hosts’ who volunteered their time to made CSLC run so smoothly, the amazing working group from across campus that turned this idea into reality, our emcee for the day Michael Klein, and the partnerships with University Relations and Catering & Event Services!

Tuesday's turkey leftovers

Faculty and staff have returned to campus after the Thanksgiving Holiday, but students won't be joining them for a couple more days. The second in a three-year Fall Break pilot is taking place this week, with Tuesday, October 10 and Wednesday, October 11 set aside as study days. Students will return to campus on Thursday, October 12, which will follow a Tuesday schedule, and Friday, October 13 will follow a Wednesday schedule. For more information consult the Fall Break website.

As part of the SLC/PAC Expansion project, the SLC/PAC West parking lot (Red South) will be closed on Wednesday, October 11 for the entire day. This closure will affect Accessible, Visitor, WatCard and Service spots - none will be available. The SLC's loading dock will be available to allow deliveries to the Student Life Centre. Flagpersons will be on hand to direct vehicles and pedestrians safely around the construction zone while the work is being carried out.

And what work is that? The Red South squash courts are being renovated, and subsoil is being removed around existing wall foundations and footings to be filled with concrete. Plant Ops promises "continuous cement trucks and pump equipment onsite" hence the closure of the parking lot. Access to the gym from Red South will be redirected internally. Stairs at the main level and gym level will be closed with signage.

The Waterloo-local ACM-style programming contest took place on Saturday, September 30 with an unprecedented 154 registered contestants, and 81 of those contestants solved at least one problem successfully. 

The top three winners were:

• 1st place: Reyno Tilikaynen (3A Computer Science / Combinatorics & Optimization);
• 2nd place: Ted Ying (4A Software Engineering);
• 3rd place: Joakim Blikstad (2A Computer Science)

"The excellent results do not stop at the top three: nine contestants solved four problems, and another 31 solved three problems," writes Professor Ondrej Lhotak. "Troy Vasiga and I are now forming the teams that will represent Waterloo in the internatinoal ACM competition, starting with the East Central North America Regional Contest in Windsor on October 27 and 28. If we do well there, one team of three students will represent Waterloo at the world finals in Beijing on April 15 to 20, 2018."

The full standings can be found on the Waterloo ACM website.