The 50th anniversary year begins

For the university that asks “Why not?” 2007 is not just a new year but a special one — a twelve-month celebration of its 50th anniversary.

Activities marking the 50th will begin next week, with a noontime launch party (and an evening repeat) on Thursday, January 11, and will continue through the year with alumni festivities, a Canada Day to remember, Warrior sports reunions, Homecoming, a history book and a blowout of a lottery.

The official founding day of the University of Waterloo is July 1, 1957, the day students arrived to begin engineering courses at what was then called Waterloo College Associate Faculties. It had been established with the support of local business executives and professionals, under the leadership of J. Gerald Hagey (left), president of the existing Waterloo College, which he would soon leave to become founding president of the new UW.

It’s not hard to imagine what was on Hagey’s mind 50 years ago today, as staff and students came back after Christmas to the campus of the little Lutheran-supported Waterloo College on Albert Street. Two issues must have been dominant: the nature of the planned engineering offerings (academic planners were weighing the merits of a degree program and a more down-to-earth training for technicians) and the possible relationship between his institution and the existing St. Jerome’s College in Kitchener.

A degree program was the eventual choice, St. Jerome’s (under the leadership of Rev. “Corky” Siegfried) chose to federate with UW, a campus was purchased in 1958 and the University of Waterloo Act made it through the Ontario legislature in 1959. Those are among the stories that will be told and retold in this anniversary year.

Meanwhile, the co-chairs of the 50th Anniversary committee, a retired dean and a retired staff member, are inviting faculty, students, staff, alumni and friends to join in celebrating “a golden moment in our history. . . . This landmark year offers an opportunity to reflect on our achievements, recognize our current initiatives and imagine our future.

“Waterloo is known around the world for its innovative co-operative and distance education programs, contributions to basic and applied research, and service to society through transfer of knowledge, technology development and cultural enrichment. The Spirit of ‘Why Not?’ — the theme of UW’s 50th anniversary — exemplifies our distinct culture of quality, innovation, local and international connections, and focus on the future.”

Things get rolling on Thursday of next week, from 11:30 to 1:30 in the main gym of the Physical Activities Complex, where the anniversary party will feature music, special entertainment, audience activities and food. A webcast will be available for those who can’t be there in person, and the daytime event will be echoed by a 10 p.m. party for staff who work the night shift.

Organizers say the program will focus heavily on a 1950s theme, recalling the university’s beginnings. The Whitewalls, a student band, will perform 50s music. Drama students posing as celebrities from the 50s will be mingling with the audience and performing onstage. The Warrior Band and the UW Cheerleaders are expected, and plays include a retro fashion show, modelling fashions through the decades.” There’s also a Reach for the Top trivia contest, free food, hula-hooping, souvenirs, a historical slide show with early photos and video footage, and the first draw in a 50th Anniversary raffle that’s being held across campus for most of the coming year.

More, much more, is on the 50th Anniversary web site. The year is just starting.

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‘A foundation for the future’

from UW’s 2005-06 donor report

The Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation strives to improve the lives of people in the K-W area and counts the University of Waterloo among the many organizations that it supports. The Foundation is dedicated to building community endowment, addressing needs through grants, and providing leadership on key community issues.

This year they supported several of UW’s priority projects including the Environmental Studies (ES) vertical living wall in the front foyer of the ES1 building. An interactive computer display demonstrates how the living wall, which is covered in vegetation, can enhance air quality and improve the work environment.

The Faculty of Applied Health Sciences also used funds provided by the Foundation to purchase elliptical trainers for the UW Well-Fit program to assist cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. “We are deeply grateful to The Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation for their support,” says Caryl Russell, Well-Fit director.

In addition to making direct donations through its Community Fund, the Foundation invests all gifts in permanent endowment funds and allows individual donors to recommend their support for a specific cause. One example of a donor-advised fund is The Walter A. Bean Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation Scholarship. The $2,500 award is awarded to a student who combines high academic standing and outstanding involvement in extracurricular activities. Ngoc Nguyen (right), a UW Health Studies student, was one recipient.

“With the money I had saved up from my part-time job and the money from the scholarship, I was able to afford my first year of university,” Nguyen says.

Through the Foundation, The John A. Pollock Family Fund supported the purchase of classroom equipment in the Canadian Centre for Arts and Technology; The Kids to Camp Fund sponsored a bursary for the Engineering Science Quest summer camp; the Music Fund and The Musagetes Fund provided funding for guest musicians and the purchase of instruments for orchestra@uwaterloo; and the TD Canada Trust Merv Lahn Community Development Fund supported UW Innovate Inc., a program which helps to identify what small- and medium-sized companies need and how UW can assist them.

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Everybody's resolutions at the ready?

Okay, here we are again, most of us anyway. Classes start tomorrow, and tomorrow the most essential service of them all will open: the Tim Horton's in the Student Life Centre. (Tim's is in operation today in South Campus Hall and the Davis Centre, and a few other food services outlets are also open.) The bookstore, UW Shop and TechWorx in SCH are back to regular operating hours, and will be open until 7 p.m. tomorrow and Thursday for textbook shoppers. Among beginning-of-term announcements is this note from the registrar's office: "Winter 2007 OSAP student funding, and out-of-province student funding, will be available beginning January 2. The Student Awards and Financial Aid office is located on the second floor, Needles Hall."

Carolyn Hansson of the mechanical and mechatronics engineering, has been named a Fellow of the American Concrete Institute, the engineering faculty's e-newsletter reports. Hansson, a researcher with the Centre for Pavement and Transportation Technologies, develops ways to increase the durability of concrete and studies issues of corrosion, erosion and wear. She's a former vice-president (university research) of UW, and has worked on the use of concrete in such high-profile projects as the Confederation Bridge between New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

The optometrists take to the waves in just a few days: the Millennium leaves Fort Lauderdale on Sunday, and aboard will be some 75 graduates of UW's school of optometry. During a week-long cruise to Casa de Campo, San Juan and Charlotte Amalie, joined by some 50 spouses and other companions, they'll not only bask, party and shop, they'll also experience 20 hours of optometric continuing education sponsored by the UW school. It's a regular requirement for practising optometrists, whose working environment and technical resources are changing rapidly, but usually it's offered on campus during an early-summer week. The cruise, says Gary Marx of the optometry school, is a new venture that celebrates not only UW's 50th anniversary but the 40th year since optometry -- formerly a freestanding college in Toronto -- came to Waterloo.

The Centre for Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology at UW and the Schlegel Centre for Entrepreneurship at Wilfrid Laurier University have announced a joint new program called "Sales Management for Entrepreneurs: Powerful Strategies and Tools for Growing Companies". It's "the first in a series of new joint programs developed by the two centres," says a news release, "as part of the Value Builders' Series. The Sales Management for Entrepreneurs program is a combination of the successful Sales Management program designed by the Canadian Professional Sales Association (CPSA), and a program developed jointly by CBET and Schlegel. The program is designed for growing companies that are quickly evolving an entrepreneurial sales culture amid the demands of a very competitive marketplace. The program will begin February 7 and runs for 5 consecutive Wednesdays from 12 noon until 7:30 p.m." More information: ext. 3-7167.

And finally . . . well, as we return to campus in the so-called winter term, it's really more like spring out there, under a sky of baby blue. The campus got a few fluffy snowflakes once or twice during the Christmas break, but that's all, and with no immediate prospect of more. The UW weather station will probably issue its December summary today, if coordinator Frank Seglenieks isn't struck speechless as he looks at yet another month of anomalous temperatures. The summary for the 13 weeks of fall was issued just before the holiday, and points out that "we had a couple of warm spells", boosting the average temperature between autumnal equinox and winter solstice to 1.4 degrees Celsius higher than average. "It was the wettest fall we have had in the eight-year history of the weather station," he adds.

CAR

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