Faculty of Arts Update 2015-16

Quick links:

Strategic Initiatives: Transformational Research

  • In just five years the Games Institute (GI) has built a transdisciplinary research network across all six Faculties, as well as with seven other universities and six industry partners. Funded by grant and in-kind contributions equalling $5.8M, the GI conducts research on player behaviour and gamification across sectors.
  • Psychology’s Centre for Mental Health Research launched a new program that provides mental health assessments for veterans and members of the Canadian Forces and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
  • Arts researchers received high academic honours:
    • William Coleman (Political Science) was promoted to University Professor;
    • Eric Helleiner (Political Science) became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) for his scholarship on international political economy;
    • Bessma Momani (Political Science) received a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Fellowship for her research on Arab-Canadian youth; and
    • Karen Collins (Digital Arts Communication) was inducted in the RSC’s College of New Scholars for her research and development in gaming audio technology.
  • Susan Roy (History) and her collaborators were awarded a Governor General’s History Award for a digitally-enhanced series of museum exhibitions redressing First Nations’ perspectives and history of the Vancouver area.
  • Ian Milligan (History) unlocked valuable big data for Election 2015 by building a search tool allowing the public to access archived political platform content of the past decade.
  • Winfried Siemerling (English) won the prestigious Gabrielle Roy Prize for his groundbreaking book The Black Atlantic Reconsidered: Black Canadian Writing, Cultural History, and the Presence of the Past.
  • Arts continues to increase public outreach and knowledge mobilization; a sold-out expert panel at the Kitchener Public Library presented “Understanding the Refugee Crisis: Historical, Global and Local Perspectives” in March 2016. The panel included Lamees Al Ethari (English), Marlene Epp (History), and Suzan Ilcan (Sociology and Legal Studies).

Strategic Initiatives: Outstanding Academic Programming

  • The Bachelor of Global Business and Digital Arts (GBDA) continues to attract a large number of incoming Arts students. With 121 new students in fall 2015, first-year enrolment has grown by 38% since the 2012 GBDA launch. The program has achieved close to 100% paid internship placements, nearly half the graduating class are employed in tech / business sectors while others pursue entrepreneurial ventures of freelance digital production work.
  • Master of Public Service (MPS) enjoys outstanding government/employer reception and engagement for co-op placement and postgraduate hires; MPS has now established itself among Canada’s top public administration professional programs, providing excellent training of public servants for all levels of government.
  • The PhD in Applied Philosophy was approved by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. This program is representative of the Faculty's commitment to preparing doctoral candidates for diverse careers in the knowledge economy.

Amanda M.

Amanda is completing her MA in Public issues Anthropology with a focus on the archaeology of Indigenous borderlands.

  • An interdisciplinary fourth-year undergraduate course is in development with a director and steering committee now in place. The course challenges student teams from across campus to tackle specific global problems, with mentorship by high-profile experts from the private, not-for-profit and public sectors. It will be offered beginning in January 2018.
  • The Faculty of Arts Strategic Enrolment Management exercise was completed by Higher Education Strategy Associates (HESA) in 2016. The final report provides recommendations related to outreach, recruitment, and retention. In response, working groups are exploring and developing initiatives including new programming. This work is also informed by a new Arts-Marketing and Undergraduate Recruitment (MUR) report on recruitment strategy.

Strategic Initiatives: Experiential and Entrepreneurial

  • A School of Accounting and Finance student team captured the world championship at the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Investment Research Challenge, a year-long competition that started with 865 university teams from 70 countries. The five students applied their learning to analyze a publicly traded company, submit a written report and present their buy, sell, or hold recommendation of the company’s stock.
  • English alumni Rupi Kaur self-published and self-marketed her book of poetry, Milk and Honey, while still a student; the book was picked-up by a publisher in 2015, and appeared for months on multiple bestseller lists including Amazon and Globe & Mail. Kaur’s work and feminism was well-covered in national media and she continues to hold sold-out poetry readings in Canada and the U.S.
  • Economics alum Ryan Chen-Wing launched the Waterloo Banking Project, spawned from his team’s success at the Ontario Centres of Excellence Social Enterprise Student Competition in 2013. Today, the financial start-up is dedicated to helping students manage their finances.

Strategic Initiatives: Teaching Excellence

  • Jee-Hae Lim (Accounting and Finance) received a Distinguished Teaching Award; Shannon Dea (Philosophy) and Jennifer Schulenberg (Sociology & Legal Studies) received Arts Excellence in Teaching Awards; and David DeVidi received a Waterloo Award for Excellence in Graduate Supervision.
  • Arts teachers leverage support for innovative teaching from the Centre for Teaching Excellence. As an example, Doreen Fraser (Philosophy) completed a successful pilot course, Quantum Mechanics for Everyone, which combines practice, history, and philosophy, encouraging all Waterloo students to learn about the quantum revolution this University helps lead.  

Strategic Initiatives: Vibrant Student Experience

  • The Hagey Hall Hub construction progressed well and is on schedule to open for Fall 2016. This project is a substantial response to student social and study space needs.
  • The Faculty is developing a new co-op admission program along with other new pathways into co-op, such as a new departmental co-op option in History scheduled for 2017.
  • Arts is participating in a cross-campus working group developing EDGE certification, which will provide non- co-op students with the opportunity to supplement their undergraduate programs with an experiential education component. This is especially relevant in Arts where undergraduates are predominantly in the non-co-op stream, yet are often involved in experiential education activities.
  • A cross-Faculty working group developed an online quiz in 2015/16 that helps prospective and current undergraduate students select from Arts’ range of digital media programs. This quiz will be piloted in September 2016 and may extend to other program groupings after this trial period.
  • In response to steep competition around doctoral funding, Arts Graduate Studies prepared a proposal to increase doctoral funding to $25K per year for five years, which is now before the Provost.
  • Teaching Assistant assignments have been standardized across graduate programs to ensure student workloads are equitable and support success.
  • Arts implemented coordinated departmental and Faculty oversight of graduate student progress to ensure timely program completion.
  • In close collaboration with campus partners, Arts has concentrated offerings for graduate professionalization to build skills and knowledge mobilization for non-academic career pathways. For example, the Balsillie School of International Affairs hosted a graduate workshop entitled, "Using Academic Research Skills in the Canadian Private Sector".
  • With collaborative efforts across Arts and with MUR to promote internationalization options to prospective and current students, as well as to foreign students, many programs are thriving in the Faculty:
    • a steadily growing number of students are participating in study terms abroad as well as other options such as summer language programs and academic tours;
    • Economics 2+2 program is in high demand; and
    • graduate and undergraduate programs attract increasingly more international students to Waterloo.