Occasional updates, comments, and reflections from President Feridun Hamdullahpur
Our population is aging. This demographic shift is affecting the majority of Western nations and creating profound challenges. This and other factors – from mobility and accessibility to the efforts to battle cancer – are creating a number of opportunities to find solutions and supports. Universities have a leading role to play in meeting these challenges head on. The University of Waterloo is leading the way.
This week the University hosted the Waterloo Innovation Summit which brought leaders to campus to discuss how a boom in health technology is transforming health care.
I know how exceptional our students are and all the effort they commit while in and out of the classroom. They are the heartbeat of our campus and a significant part of my commitment to them is to ensure their experience at the University of Waterloo is positive and enriching.
Today marks a leap in that offering with the grand opening of the Columbia Icefield Field House. This 65,000 square foot indoor facility is the newest addition to our campus landscape and it didn’t happen overnight. The structure and meeting place we have today is something we can all be proud to have at Waterloo.
The University of Waterloo was the first stop on the special HeForShe Get Free Tour this morning that brought representatives from HeForShe and United Nations Women to our campus. The Tour stop brought excitement and support to our campus with guest speakers, corporate HeForShe partners from DeBeers and special celebrity guest Edgar Ramirez, all sharing the importance of building a university and society that is truly equitable. The outpouring of support of those from across our campus community this morning was truly inspiring.
I cannot imagine a more exciting time of the year than the first week of September.
I know we are an active community the entire year. Our students, faculty and staff are in a constant state of exploration and learning, but September and the beginning of a new academic year is something special. This week we welcome thousands of new students to our campus for the first time and welcome back even more returning students to continue their journey at Waterloo.
When I signed the Okanagan Charter this past October, our University took a significant step forward in our journey to embrace the lens of wellness in all that we do. From the decisions we make about our policies, buildings, programs and initiatives, wellness – particularly mental health wellness – will be a key factor in how we make the choices that will shape our campus.
I was excited to see the recent launch of the Wellness Collaborative which the result of the signing of the Okanagan Charter and the signing of the Healthy Workplace Statement. The Wellness Collaborative takes the commitment found in these two documents and turns it into action by bringing our community together to share ideas, perspectives and experiences on an ongoing basis.
Canada has a problem.
We play an outsized role in the world as drivers of artificial intelligence knowledge and advancement, but we aren’t seeing it pay off on the global stage–not in the headlines, and not yet in the marketplace. Even as Canada cements its role as the big thinkers behind one of the world’s most dynamic and disruptive technologies, companies are having a difficult time capitalizing on that advantage.
There is no time at the University of Waterloo like convocation. I have had the honour of joining the celebrations of many thousands of students during my time as President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Waterloo and it truly never gets old.
Canada and the world are in need of talented individuals prepared to hit the ground running and who can enable our future prosperity. They will be the catalyst for positive change, strengthened by their adaptability. At the heart of developing that talent will be experiential education.
I am pleased to share some preliminary work on the core elements of our 2020-2025 Strategic Plan: the Mission, Vision and Values. These elements have been developed with your valuable input from extensive consultations in fall 2018. They reflect the feedback we heard and are being shared with University leadership for input.
It has now been a year since the President’s Advisory Committee on Student Mental Health submitted their comprehensive final report and list of 36 recommendations to be implemented and I can assure our community that progress will continue to be made.
The Committee on Student Mental Health (CoSMH) was tasked with implementing the recommendations through deep collaboration with on-campus and community stakeholders, and through their hard work a total of 72 per cent of the report’s recommendations are either in progress or have been completed.
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