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A look back at the 60th Anniversary, Part Four
Students put the finishing touches on "Sydes," an early University of Waterloo robot, assembled under the supervision of Professors Ed Jernigan and Kish Hahn in 1978. Sydes (named for Systems Design Engineering) was built by second-year Engineering students and made the rounds at trade shows, wheeling about and engaging passersby in conversation via a two-way radio speech synthesizer. Could Sydes have inspired the design of rampaging killbot Maximilian from Disney's The Black Hole? The resemblance is uncanny!
There were many opportunities to get involved as the University celebrated sixty years of innovation in 2017, but as fall turned to winter, the celebrations kicked into high gear as Waterloo finished its anniversary year on a high note.
The Beyond 60 Community Lecture Series drew to a close after subjects as diverse as fake news, autonomous vehicles, the promises and realities of Artificial Intelligence, health, aging and well-being were discussed at a number of events throughout the year.
The Canada 150 Lecture Series launched in October as the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University hosted a three-part series in partnership with the Waterloo Public Library and The City of Waterloo in recognition of the 150th anniversary of Confederation. The three lectures (the last of which was held just yesterday) dealt with topics including the Battle of Vimy Ridge, Truth and Reconciliation, and Canada's "hidden histories."
The President's Town Hall Meeting on November 14 gave President Hamdullahpur an opportunity to cover the highlights of Waterloo's 60th anniversary year as well as the University's successes throughout the last twelve months. The event also provided a platform for the announcement of the winning design in the Celebration 2017 Legacy Project.
On Saturday, November 18, University of Waterloo volunteers walked in regional Santa Claus Parades held in Kitchener and Cambridge. Members of the Waterloo Warriors, Waterloo Band and Engineering Society gave out 5,000 60th anniversary candy canes along the two parade routes.
On Saturday, December 2, President Feridun Hamdullahpur celebrated the outstanding alumni, partners, students, faculty and staff who have invested in the University of Waterloo's past, present and future at the President's 60th Anniversary Gala held in the Physical Activities Complex.
The gala contained a pair of very special announcements - the recipients of the inaugural 60th Anniversary Alumni Awards were named and honoured. The awards recognized 10 outstanding alumni for their personal commitment and citizenship to Waterloo, building on the legacy of the 50th Anniversary Alumni Award established in 2007.
In addition, the winners of the inaugural President's Community Impact Awards were also revealed and celebrated. These awards were established to recognize those who embody the University’s spirit of innovation and contribute to making Waterloo Region strong and prosperous. There were two awards honouring community leaders, who are current University of Waterloo students, faculty or staff making a difference, and two awards for university champions, local residents or organizations championing the impact of the university in our community:
Finally, the President's Holiday Luncheon on Friday, December 8 acted as a bookend for the year-long celebration, as more than 600 attendees packed Federation Hall to welcome the wintry season and view a historical slideshow.
And now you're all caught up on the 60th Anniversary. Check back in tomorrow's Daily Bulletin for some final thoughts about Waterloo's sixty years of innovation.
2017 Co-operative Education Annual Report released
A note from Peggy Jarvie, associate provost, co-operative and experiential education.
What began as a cheeky upstart 60 years ago is now recognized as the pre-eminent institution in co-op education. Waterloo’s co-op and career action programs have never been stronger than they are today.
The 2016 fall term saw co-op enrolment top 20,000 full-time undergraduate students. That’s an 18 percent increase since 2012. Even with more students, we saw an overall increase in co-op employment with 97.7 percent of our students securing work terms this past fiscal year. Three significant changes have likely played a role in our improved results: new functionality in WaterlooWorks (launched in winter 2017), employer recruitment plans that focus on programs with historically lower employment rates and robust new metrics being developed in employment relations.
Our students realize the power of co-op. The 2017 Incoming Student Survey showed that 71 percent of incoming undergraduate co-op students would not have accepted their offer without co-op. That’s because data indicates that our co-op grads earn more and have a higher employment rate in jobs related to the skills they acquired at Waterloo compared to graduates from other Ontario universities.
Those results don’t happen without the hard work and dedication of our staff and faculty partners. Last year, our team processed over a million co-op job applications and helped facilitate over 67,000 interviews. Our active employer base now sits at over 6,900 organizations across the globe who hire our students.
The Centre for Career Action continues to be an important resource for all Waterloo students, in both the co-op and regular streams. In 2016/17, more than 5,400 students accessed drop-in career or co-op consultation services. On the digital side, there were over 18,900 online workshops completed.
Despite our success, we refuse to rest on our laurels. Co-op continues to evolve with flexible work terms, a co-op research certificate and first work-term success initiatives being rolled out in fall 2018. We’ve also taken our expertise in co-op and launched the EDGE certificate – which helps non co-op students develop their professional skills, explore career options and learn how to market themselves to employers.
In response to a strategic priority in the experiential education theme in the University’s strategic plan, the new role of associate provost, co-operative and experiential education (CEE) was created with a mandate to strengthen work-integrated learning offerings for students across the University. The new portfolio combines Co-op, the Centre for Career Action, WatPD, WatCACE, EDGE and a cross-portfolio unit of CEE Services under a single umbrella. This allows Waterloo to leverage its collective strength for all students.
I am thrilled with what’s been accomplished, but I am even more excited about where we’re going. On a personal note, I have decided to retire in early 2018, so the next chapter of our success will continue without me. It has been a privilege and a pleasure to work with such a dedicated and talented team of staff, faculty, employers and most of all – students.
I hope you enjoy the report.
Kuzniar wins Hans-Walz Research Prize
This article was originally published on the Faculty of Arts website.
Congratulations to Professor Alice Kuzniar, University Research Chair and professor of German and English for receiving the Hans-Walz Research Prize in recognition of her work on the history of homeopathy and her book, The Birth of Homeopathy Out of the Spirit of Romanticism, published by the University of Toronto Press in spring 2017. Professor Kuzniar was honoured at a champagne reception held on December 1 at the Bosch Villa in Stuttgart - with a cellist playing Bach.
In her award-winning book, Professor Kuzniar asserts that the alternative medical practice of homeopathy is a phenomenon rooted in its time. She illustrates this by examining the founding principles of the practice and their parallels with the cultural zeitgeist of late 18th-century Germany, the time of early German Romanticism. The Birth of Homeopathy is the first publication in English that makes a rigorous, scholarly investigation of the cultural context of the phenomenon and its inventor. Read more about Prof. Kuzniar’s research and the book.
“The honour of accepting a prize from one of Europe's leading charitable foundations is, for me, a meaningful recognition of the significance of the history of ideas to the medical field,” said Prof Kuzniar.
The bi-annual Hans-Walz Research Prize is internationally recognized and supports research into the history of homeopathy. It is awarded by the Institute for the History of Medicine, which belongs to the Robert Bosch Stiftung (Robert Bosch Foundation), and is supported by its affiliate, the Hans-Walz Foundation. Jury members were the director of the Robert Bosch Foundation Institute for the History of Medicine, Robert Jütte, the deputy director, Martin Dinges, head of the Department of Health of the Robert Bosch Foundation, Bernadette Klapper, and head emergency physician at Berlin's Charite hospital, Michael Teut.
Hans Walz was a friend of Robert Bosch and his first CEO, explains Prof. Kuzniar. The foundation is one of the major German foundations associated with a private company and has managed the philanthropic bequest of company founder Robert Bosch for over 50 years. The Foundation still holds about a 92 percent of Robert Bosch GmbH's capital stock of €1.2 billion.
The research for the The Birth of Homeopathy Out of the Spirit of Romanticism was supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Lois Claxton Humanities and Social Sciences Research Fund, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.