UW’s 2008 appeal to potential students

Thousands of posters, and 80,000 copies of a “viewbook” that introduces Waterloo to potential students and their parents, are the key publications for UW’s Marketing and Undergraduate Recruitment office, which is already thinking about September 2008.

“After a great deal of research and student feedback,” says Julie Hummel, associate director of MUR, “we undertook a project which began in January to re-tool our viewbook in an effort to strengthen the UW message. The direction we took this year was to reinforce the core values that students see in UW.”

She lists them: “UW’s academic and program reputation (Leaders in high-quality education which is connected to the world) . . . Career success after graduation . . . World leaders in co-operative education . . . Outstanding reputation for student leadership . . . Strong sense of community (ring road, campus safety, student centred city).”

The viewbook, with the same glossy black colour that has identified UW’s recruitment materials for several years now, opens with an introductory page about founding president Gerry Hagey and “one man’s middle-of-the night inspiration”. “A university education is about encountering ideas,” MUR writer Barb Trotter declares. “No one understood that better than UW’s first president. . . . Even President Hagey couldn’t have known how much his dream would grow.”

Subsequent spreads in the book position UW as “Canada’s most innovative university”, and one that offers students 105 international exchange programs, campus-wide wireless Internet, a “park-like campus” and a choice of more than 100 areas of study. Later sections go into detail about what the academic programs involve, the admission requirements and technical details.

Besides Hummel and Trotter, the team that created the viewbook included Robin Ashton and Virginia McLellan of MUR, students Brooke Lauria and Meghan MacDonald, plus Christine Goucher and Melissa Martinez of UW Graphics. “We are very fortunate here at UW,” says Hummel, “to have an extremely talented and committed in-house graphics department to work with on these pieces. Their expertise and vision has been critical throughout the entire project from the research review, to concept development, as well as in photo shoots and design layouts and finally to the execution of the finished product.

“Many people across campus help make this piece possible with the information and ideas they provide throughout the process. In particular the faculty/program recruiting representatives across campus played a big role in the success of this year's publication.”

The viewbook, she says, “is our signature print piece in recruiting and is used widely across campus. We also distribute it widely throughout Ontario to high schools and through the Ontario Universities Fair and ideally (depending on budget) to select markets across the country. in total we will deliver approximately 80,000 viewbooks to prospective students, their parents and high schools across the country.”

The viewbook is complemented by UW’s main recruiting poster (left), which continues the black-is-black colour scheme and the theme of last year’s “hand” poster. It’s the second in a proposed series of three designs, says Hummel. “The theme of the posters plays off the tag line ‘learn from experience', which is used widely on all UW recruitment publications. The theme is tied to our institutional message of real-world connections and enforces the message that all student attending UW will benefit from these connections and experiential learning opportunities in the classroom, labs and as a part of course work and extra curricular activities.

“The poster will be distributed to all Ontario high schools and internationally to Canadian Education Centres, and select schools in our target markets. The poster is also available for students on our findoutmore website and can be requested there to be mailed or downloaded as a screen saver.” Staff and faculty members who would like a poster can request one from Hummel by e-mail.

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View from 1997: the ups and downs

Fourth in a series of reports on the 40th anniversary “time capsule”

There were optimists and there were pessimists on UW’s campus in 1997, it’s clear from a riffle through the “predictions” that people put on record at the end of the university’s 40th anniversary celebrations.

Ten years later, the electronic time capsule has been opened as a 50th anniversary diversion, and it’s apparent that the cynics of 1997 were balanced by those who could only imagine UW going onward and upward, bigger and more widely known.

“UW will be bigger and better than the University of Toronto!” wrote one science student. But another student predicted Waterloo “far lagging behind top-notch universities like U of T in great teachers, researchers and students”.

“By the year 2007,” a third student wrote, “UW will, if at all possible, have an even better reputation. It will be known as the most innovative post-secondary institution in the world. . . . Unfortunately, I don’t think that this incredibly high standard of education will be obtainable by all those worthy high school graduates because of the ever-increasing tuition fees.”

Some of the predictions were specific, such as this one that’s likely to delight the people in the Tatham Centre: “I think that UW’s reputation will increase tremendously. The work experience that they provide to students will produce the most qualified applicants for the future working field. Not only will the students be educated in their field of choice, but they will have the hands-on experience that will make them the competition to beat. I think UW will expand in size, where funds will be needed to expand the university to facilitate the growing interest. UW will provide examples for other universities in how they can improve themselves.”

And a physics student had these thoughts: “UW will become one of the elite universities, depending on corporate sponsorships for financial stability. However, I do not think this is a negative forecast. This will become the trend of the major universities of Canada. This corporate sponsorship will tend to specialize each university and create a gradient of specialty levels throughout the country.”

A number of people called for another ten years of high ratings from Maclean’s magazine, which had recently started taking an interest in higher education. Others predicted technical innovation and the growth of UW’s engineering and math programs. And Sharon Lamont of the library staff wrote that “UW will still be a wonderful and challenging place to work and play.”

But other people in 1997 had worries. Several mentioned rising tuition fees (the one-term fee for most undergraduates in 1997-98 was about $1,700). One faculty member predicted that “administration” would take up more than 50 per cent of UW’s total budget by 2007. “Fed Hall won’t be paid off yet,” one student wrote, “and the Grad House will still be broke.”

One biology student grimly wrote that “Despite World War III, the university will continue to serve students and staff to the best of its abilities.” Other concerns for 2007 included pollution in Columbia Lake, crowded computer labs, billboards on campus, the loss of full-time jobs, even global warming. “The men’s washrooms in the Davis Centre will still not have any paper towels,” one student wrote.

Finally, of course, there were prognosticators in 1997 who didn’t want to commit to either rosy or blue. “In the year 2007,” wrote a systems design engineering student, “I think the University of Waterloo will still exist.” Got that one right, for sure.

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Notes with an academic flavour

UW’s senate gave approval at its June meeting for a Graduate Diploma in Theoretical Neuroscience to be offered in the faculty of arts. “Theoretical neuroscience is the quantitative study of neural systems,” a brief background document said. “There are currently a number of courses on offer at Waterloo in this area, though it is not a recognized area of study. In October 2006, the University established the first Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience in Canada. The Centre proposal included a plan to launch a graduate program to complement the research focus of the Centre. There are currently a number of graduate degrees offered in the United States and Europe in computational or theoretical neuroscience. . . . However, given the relative youth of the field, it may be a disadvantage for students to be overly identified with the area, hence the proposal to mount a diploma that complements a graduate degree in another established program (e.g. Psychology, Mathematics, Engineering, Computer Science). This will be the first graduate designation in the field offered by a Canadian university. The Diploma will be offered in conjunction with a Master's (or Doctoral) degree. Students will have to fulfill all the requirements of the degree programs in which they are enrolled as well as the requirements for the Diploma,” which include a Theoretical Neuroscience Research Seminar and three other courses (which can also be counted toward the degree).

Also approved by senate was a new list of three specializations that will be available to undergraduate students in religious studies. They’ll be able to choose “world religions”, “Christian traditions”, or “religion, culture and society”. A background note explained that creation of the three streams is a result of the departmental review done in 2005. It recommended “that the department emphasize a thematic approach to the study of religion, including greater focus on the methodological study of religion, and reduce the number of areas, while giving higher profile to world religions”.

Not in religious studies, but in the department of history, is a new course that’s to be offered this fall under the title “Sinners and Saints in Early Modern Europe”. It’s officially History 291, and will be taught by Greta Kroeker, a recent arrival from the University of California at Berkeley. “In this course,” a flyer says, “we will study works by and about prostitutes, witches, heretics, criminals, husband, wives, nuns, clergy, and saints . . . the social and cultural repercussions of changing ideas about sinfulness and remedies for sinfulness. This is a reading and writing intensive course based on a balance of primary and secondary documents.”

The beginning-of-summer issue of Teaching Matters, published by UW’s Centre for Teaching Excellence, includes an interview with Trent Tucker, graduate student in management sciences and this year’s winner of the CUT Prize. CUT is the Certificate in University Teaching program; the prize goes to each year’s highest achiever in the program. Tucker has been teaching in the Wilfrid Laurier University school of business and economics even while making his way through the PhD program at Waterloo, and says that he “saw the process of teaching as a way to explore his creative side. . . . He is constantly looking for new information and new ways of bringing the youth-embraced cultural practices into the classroom.” (That means YouTube, Facebook and Lego have all figured in his pedagogy.) “In preparing the next generation of business managers,” he says, “my main goal is for them to learn to think and be creative.”

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