Community

Collaborating between the University of Waterloo Men’s Varsity Hockey team, United College and the Saugeen Recreation Department, a high-performance hockey camp was developed to foster confidence, pride and relationship building among Indigenous youth and non-Indigenous players from Waterloo. The purpose is to provide a skill-building hockey camp built with traditional teachings of the Saugeen Anishinaabe that help build belonging and pride in all youth.  

During COP28, as I traversed the intricate maze of the event, my mind grappled with the multifaceted nature of my role as an observer. Initially, I contemplated whether my primary duty lay in monitoring negotiations and ensuring accountability or engaging with diverse stakeholders to explore collaborative opportunities, a realization gradually took hold.

The Waterloo Engineering Endowment Foundation (WEEF) is making a historical donation of $750,000 to help improve student spaces across the Faculty of Engineering. This contribution is the latest in a long line of investments made by the student-led fund since its founding in 1989. As the fund has grown so has its ability to support a diverse range of causes from student projects to infrastructure improvements, all with the goal of providing world-class resources and experiences to current and future students.

The impact of community can often be overlooked or dismissed. As undergraduate students in the Faculty of Science, Emma Collington (BSc ’19, MSc ’22) and Samantha Fowler’s (BSc ’19) experiences as students with disabilities drew them together, and inspired them to build a community.

The year 2023 has unfolded with a dynamic blend of challenges and opportunities, offering us a fresh page to write the story of our University of Waterloo community.

As we embark towards 2024, we can reflect with pride on the continued dedication and achievements of our students, alumni, researchers and staff — all of whom have played an integral role in shaping on-campus initiatives, global events and cutting-edge education and research.

These trending stories highlight just some of the community’s profound impact on our collective future.

This past October, Grand River Transit staff proposed service changes for 2024 with recommendations to reduce evening service on the Ion light rail in favour of a slightly more frequent daytime schedule that would complicate departure times.

“When I first heard about the preliminary Grand River Transit budget where the off-peak hours would be cut from every 15 minutes to 30 minutes, I was shocked,” says Rodney Chan, a third-year undergraduate student in the School of Planning.

In an interview with Down Beat magazine, the jazz legend Thelonious Monk once said that “All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians.”

Practical and scalable quantum computers are still in the early stages of development, and many technical challenges need to be overcome before they can be widely used for various applications. Researchers and companies globally, as well as right here at the University of Waterloo, are diligently pushing the boundaries of quantum computing technology, driving forward innovations in this emerging field.

What beats good food and an electrifying dance party during the season of holidays? The answer: nothing. That’s why, the annual Waterloo tradition recently attracted more than 300 international students who came together to celebrate the winter break and to give back to their fellow Warriors.

For only $5, international students from across our campuses were treated to a two-course festive dinner and later crowded the dance floor at Fed Hall during the end-of-year gathering.