Below are details about the Internationalization Fund recipients including a brief summary of each funding initiative.
Congratulations to the 8 projects who received the funding in 2018. The community looks forward to learning from your projects.
Tony Munro, Colleen McMillan, Jessica Lang, Angela Rooke, Karla Boluk, and Linda Zhang.
Sociology & Legal Studies
Transnational Talks: Global Methodological Approaches to Research
Transnational Talks will cultivate innovative methodological approaches to the study of emergent and pressing social problems. We will host up to six recognized international scholars to give talks that cross disciplinary boundaries, sharing their insights and experiences on how they use a particular method to answer important research questions. Each talk will be followed by a hands-on workshop that is ideal for expanding uWaterloo faculty and graduate students’ methodological toolkit and connections to international scholars and institutions. Transnational Talks will inspire uWaterloo participants to draw on a more diverse palate of intellectual inquiry from abroad when studying complex research questions at home.
Recreation & Leisure Studies
Building Bridges across Borders: Virtually Aligning Courses between Institutional Partners (Kazakhstan)
This project focuses on internationally aligning the Community Engagement course taught at UW with a course in the Master of Public Health program at Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan. In collaboration with colleagues at Nazarbayev we will initially determine courses ripe for alignment, including points of intersection such as panel discussions whereby faculty will speak to contemporary recreation, health, and community engagement challenges inhibiting quality of life, and on-line forums whereby students will engage with each other on the topics covered. Considering experiences and reflections, faculty will explore the development of a virtual course which could be mutually taught and offered in both locations.
Renison University College
Enhancing Student Experience: Domestic & International Student Integration
UWaterloo competes globally for the best students; however, internationalization poses potential challenges. A lack of intentional integration between international and domestic students can prevent optimal learning, and create acculturative stress. Renison University College has a unique learning ecosystem where international students, hosted by the English Language Institute, live and learn alongside students in the School of Social Work, Social Development Studies, and Housing and Student Life. This arrangement offers an opportunity to examine how intentional bridging promotes deeper learning and resiliency. We will research and build a model for domestic and international students to work and live optimally together.
WatPD – EDGE
International Experiential Education Toolkit for EDGE instructors
EDGE will develop a toolkit for instructors which will support their planning for experiential education activities abroad. The toolkit aims to be a ‘one-stop-shop’ resource guide that supports instructors in designing and executing experiential education activities abroad. The toolkit will cover topics such as policy, insurance, legal requirements, and safety. The toolkit will highlight the EDGE framework, outlining the program’s expectations and the eligibility requirements to have experiences count for credit. The goal of this project is to create a resource that brings clarity to the experiential learning abroad planning process, supporting instructors in doing their important work with ease.
Public Health & Health Studies
Collaborative Online Graduate-level Course “International Perspectives on Equality in Work and Health” (Sweden)
Six faculty members from the University of Waterloo (UWaterloo), Mid-Sweden University, and Malardalen University (Sweden) created an international graduate on-line course entitled, “What Is Fair? International Perspectives on Equality in Work and Health”. The course increases knowledge about work, health and equity from an international perspective. However, setting up a course does not make it sustainable. This formative evaluation will allow us to learn from our initial Winter 2019 course offering to make modifications to ensure that the course is relevant and sustainable for all students and to plan for growth by enlarging the geographic range of universities involved.
Dean of Math Office
Videos Addressing Cultural Stereotypes of Minority Groups on Campus
With an ever increasing international population, more and more students are coming into contact with others who are culturally different from them. A series of videos will be created that debunk common misconceptions and stereotypes about some minorities which are represented on the UW campus. These videos aim to help replace incorrect learned behavior with positive ones by highlighting common occurrences which negatively affect minorities. By having short videos, the audience can see common scenarios that may help them better interact with minorities.
Graduate Studies & Postdoctoral Affairs
Workshop Series on Professionalism for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Fellows
Emerging scholars are expected to exhibit a high degree of professionalism at conferences, interviews, business lunches, and meetings. But we know that perceptions of what is “professional” are culture specific. We propose to pilot and assess the value of a series of workshops on two major themes: intercultural understanding, and professionalism in the Canadian context. The audience is University of Waterloo’s culturally diverse group PhD students (nearly 40% international) and postdocs (55% international). Funds will be used to host four lunch and learn sessions between September 2018 and April 2019.
Information Systems & Technology
International Student Seminars to Promote Successful and Healthy Transition to Waterloo
"International Students Saturday Morning Breakfast Seminar" is a UW community-centered initiative that aims to build a community for international students. Using a seminar format, students will gather together in a casual and friendly setting to encourage a welcoming environment for newly arrived international students. This project is complimentary to other campus initiatives encouraging effective integration of international students into the University of Waterloo community.
