Dear Alumni and Friends
I joined St. Paul’s in May 2012 on an 11-month contract and happily I am still here five years later! During those years, I have grown to appreciate how remarkable the St. Paul’s community truly is. This is a community made up of students, alumni, staff and faculty that blends achievement with passion, tradition with forward thinking, and global perspectives with local action.
What I enjoy most about my job are the stories. I get to hear and share incredible stories that range from tragic to comic, from tales of adventure, to stories of inspiring perseverance and everything in between. What makes these stories interesting to me are the threads that lead back to St. Paul’s. Most often those threads are about personal development that took place because of friendships, mentors, or in some cases, kindness from strangers.
I have heard from many alumni that you want to see more stories about you and your peers printed in our newsletters and on the St. Paul’s website. I have worked hard over the past couple years to identify more interesting content and I think you will find that we are getting there. With more stories to tell, we had to add a second issue of Community Notes and we created an Alumni Spotlight section on our website. This particular issue of Community Notes has more alumni stories than ever before. I hope you will enjoy!
Stephen Loo
Alumni Relations Officer
P.S. If you appreciate these stories and want to see more, we can use your help. If you know about any St. Paul’s alumni who are doing interesting things, or you have a story of your own to tell, please let me know: stp.alumni@uwaterloo.ca
Message from the Principal
A College is distinguished from a mere university residence by two main characteristics. The most obvious is that it has an academic mission: it hosts faculty who engage in scholarship and who deliver academic courses and programs.
Emanating from this principal distinction is a second that is, perhaps, not quite so obvious. A residence has students who come and go, as would tenants in an apartment building. It is entirely of the present. Because of its academic mission, a College necessarily operates in a living continuum of past-present-future. The scholarly enterprise is a process of building on the discoveries of the past to drive continuous discovery into the future. And any real teacher necessarily understands that our time in the classroom is best seen as preparation for a lifetime of learning.
It is this past-present-future mindset that leads Colleges to place such a premium on their history, their time-honoured traditions, and, of course their alumni.
Our alumni are the embodiment of our past. They serve as models for present students. And they help to maintain and build the
College for future generations. One of my priorities in this first year as Principal has been to establish a Principal's Advancement Advisory Council to allow for stronger and more direct consultation with our alumni. I look forward to working with members of this PAAC to determine how best to honour our past, strengthen our present and build for our future.
Dr. Richard Myers
Principal
