At Waterloo, we are also members of regional, provincial, national, and global communities.
We are working with our sector associations – receiving information from them, providing them with our perspectives and experiences, and standing together in solidarity. See their statements:
We are engaging internationally in two primary ways.
First, we recognize that university communities in Ukraine and surrounding countries have been devastated by the invasion. In addition to the trauma in their personal lives, many current students, staff, and faculty (and those scheduled to enter university in September 2022) have had their professional lives shattered. We are working to see how we can help, and at present are developing assistance in three key ways:
- We will engage multilaterally with those associations that are building collective responses – including CBIE and UnivCan. We will also continue our work with World University Service of Canada and Academics Without Borders. Additionally, we acted upon our commitment to expand these kinds of engagement with other international associations by joining Scholars At Risk. Please see our recent news item for more information. Moreover, when relevant opportunities arise, we will publicize them here:
- For students who were studying in Ukraine (or were scheduled to study in Ukraine), irrespective of their nationality, and who would like to explore admission to Waterloo, we have instituted the following change:
- Even though applications are now closed for September 2022 studies, we are willing to consider late applications on a case-by-case basis.
- For those interested in graduate admissions, review information here, and email here.
- For those interested in undergraduate admissions, please email here.
- For students who were studying in a university in Ukraine, irrespective of their nationality, and who would like to explore ways in which they might be able to continue to make academic progress on their current course of study, we offer the following:
- We will continue to support Academics Without Borders, which has a history of engagement with institutions of higher education in Ukraine.
- We invite expressions of interest from any who think that Waterloo faculty and/or staff may be able to help them continue to make academic progress on their Ukrainian-based degree studies. This may be, for instance, graduate students looking to maintain their research momentum by getting supervisory support for a term through, for example, the International Visiting Graduate Student program. Please email with such inquiries.
- A cross-campus initiative was launched to welcome a total of 34 Ukrainian students whose studies were interrupted by the ongoing war in their country. Further details can be found in this news item.
Second, we have reached out to some of our key partners in Europe, as they are on the front-line of a sector response, offering our assistance. Partners in Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom expressed appreciation to be contacted in this way. As they develop their own response strategies, they have promised to be in touch should an appropriate way to collaborate arise, such as guest lecturing or thesis consultation for instance.
We are open to collecting offers of assistance from members of the Waterloo community, and exploring how to match with the needs that we discover. We are accepting offers of interest from those University of Waterloo faculty and staff who are interested in volunteering their services in this way. Please email with such offers.