Occasional updates, comments, and reflections from President Feridun Hamdullahpur
The University will be holding a memorial event tomorrow at noon at Federation Hall to honour and celebrate the lives of our Waterloo community members who died in the crash of Ukrainian International Airlines Flight PS752.
During the memorial event, we will take part in a nationwide moment of silence, joining with Universities Canada and other Canadian academic institutions to pay tribute to those students, postdocs, faculty members, alumni and our broader community whose lives were cut short on January 8.
Welcome back to every member of the University of Waterloo community. After a nice break full of celebration and rest, we are back for a new exciting year, a new term and a new decade for our institution and with it countless possibilities. And, we are ready for it!
The University of Waterloo has pushed against convention and tradition for more than 60 years and has carved a path of progress, discovery and creation few other institutions in the world can match. I know that it is easy to talk about progress and impact as so many other universities do, but we have data to back it up.
Today, like so many other universities across Canada, we mourn. We mourn the loss of safety. We mourn the loss of bright futures. We mourn the loss of 14 young women. Today we stand with l'École Polytechnique de Montréal and all those who identify as women who are impacted by gender-based violence.
Today is an opportunity for everyone to reflect on the past as we honour those brave men and women who have fought and died for Canada, its values and its people. For weeks we have worn our poppies with reverence and care, pinning them to our jackets to show the respect our veterans deserve for their service to our country.
Change and disruption is shifting our world and we must be prepared to face the challenges of our society and lead. I know what our University is capable of because of the students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members who have made Waterloo the dynamic institution it is today.
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.
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