On June 28, 2023, three members of the University of Waterloo community were violently attacked in a horrific act that targeted gender expression and identity.
It is unimaginable that in today’s era this malicious form of hate exists in some people’s hearts.
In a wide ranging and thought-provoking conversation, former Governor General and University of Waterloo President Emeritus David Johnston joined current President Vivek Goel to discuss how the workforce of the future can turn compassion into action. The fireside chat, part of the World Association of Co-operative Education (WACE) 2023 World Conference hosted at Waterloo, used Johnston’s new book “Empathy” as a starting point.
A transcript of President Goel's remarks from the June 29, 2023 Community Gathering that took place in the Arts Quad is below.
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for gathering here with us today.
Our community was shaken by a disturbing hate-motivated attack related to gender expression and gender identity. If you need to take space from work or your studies right now, please do that. Your managers and instructors will do everything they can to support you.
Campus community members who identify as Two-Spirit, trans, non-binary, queer, gender non-conforming and women may be disproportionately impacted by these events and should be centred in our healing. They may require additional space, support, time away, and accommodations at this time.
On Wednesday our community was confronted by hate-motivated violence.
In a shocking attack at approximately 3:40 p.m., a member of our campus community stabbed a professor and two students with a knife in Hagey Hall. All three people were taken to hospital to be treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
The University of Waterloo ranked 112 overall in the 2024 QS World University Ranking, a leap from last year’s place at 154. Waterloo also placed among the top five universities in Canada.
At the beginning of last summer, master’s student Lena Kozyr fled her home in Ukraine, leaving behind parents, grandparents, relatives and friends to seek refuge in Vancouver, Canada.
Like so many other Ukrainians, Kozyr says the move was bittersweet. Though she was grateful for a sense of safety and was looking forward to new opportunities, a mix of loneliness and anxiety still riddled her.
Earlier this year, the Narwhal Project released their annual Narwhal List, which tracks Canadian technology companies that are on their way to unicorn status based on their billion-dollar annual revenues.
The Italian race is the latest competition in the Indy Autonomous Challenge, a collaboration between public-private organizers and academic institutions created in 2019 to challenge university students to invent a “new generation of automated vehicle software” in order “to run fully autonomous racecars.”
The Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Aeronautics (WISA) proudly announced the recipients of its prestigious Sustainable Future Competition funding during its Annual General Meeting. The competition, which attracted project proposals from small- to medium-sized enterprises in southern Ontario, aims to drive social, environmental and economic sustainability in the aviation or aerospace sectors.