Each of Waterloo’s six Faculties make vital contributions in all areas of Waterloo’s Strategic Plan.
Strategic Plan initiatives led by theme leads are building opportunities for Faculties to achieve strategic goals in multiple areas, but most directly in the Transformational Research and Academic Programming themes.
Several Faculties reported impressive gains in research funding in 2014/15, including:
- in the major Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council competitions, Arts researchers surpassed the national average grant success rate by 10%;
- the highest amount of research funding ever - $7.2M - and the greatest-ever proportion of funding from non-governmental and industry sources in Environment; and
- a 23% increase in sponsored research funding ($64M total) and highest yet levels of funding from the Tri- Agencies ($18.7M) and industry ($10.9M) in Engineering.
Waterloo’s Office of Research (OR) works closely with Faculties to facilitate all aspects of the research funding process. In particular the OR was involved in the development of large, multidisciplinary research projects in collaboration with all Faculties that led to several significant research awards totalling more than $73M in 2014/15.
Faculties are developing more course opportunities, and building new approaches to improve learning opportunities; both key initiatives within the Academic Programming theme. Faculty highlights from 2014/15 include:
- Applied Health Science’s (AHS) new Master of Science (Kinesiology) and Master of Health Evaluation;
- development of two new first year inquiry-based Arts courses and a fourth year course to address a challenging global development problem;
- Engineering’s launch of the new biomedical engineering undergraduate program;
- Environment’s new course on Introduction to Indigenous Knowledge and Master of Planning Program;
- Math’s new communication courses, free online courseware to support secondary pre-calculus and calculus courses; and
- Science’s new course in Bioinformatics, a Doctor of Pharmacy, and new online courses in biology, chemistry and physics.
Important experiential, entrepreneurial and international opportunities for students are also provided through Faculty programs and courses. As examples:
- Arts’ 64 GBDA students were all placed in paid summer internships in 2014/15;
- new courses in entrepreneurship in Engineering, and all Faculties provide a variety of entrepreneurial opportunities including Faculty-based entrepreneurial space and seed funding; and
- Environment provided international learning opportunities for students in each of the Faculty’s five units.
There are other ways that the Faculties are making contributions to the Strategic Plan. Four Faculties (AHS, Arts, Engineering and Science) are developing new and improved student spaces which is a key objective in the Student Experience theme. AHS and Math are in the forefront of Waterloo’s Excellence Canada certification, a critical initiative of the Robust Employer – Employee theme. Academic integrity and equity issues – core objectives in the Sound Values theme - are being pursued through integrity workshops and seminars and integrating inclusive washrooms into Faculty buildings.