Waterloo will pause to remember

Ordinary life pauses for a few minutes this morning as UW, and all of Canada, marks Remembrance Day, mourning the country's war dead and honouring those who, daring to die, survived, in wars past and present.

The official date of the commemoration is always November 11, the anniversary of the day in 1918 when the guns fell silent at the end of the First World War. As national leaders mark the occasion in Ottawa, local dignitaries will place wreaths at the Cenotaph beside Waterloo City Hall on Regina Street, and veterans will parade. In the Waterloo City ceremony, which starts at 10:15 a.m., a wreath on behalf of the university will be placed at the Cenotaph by two students, Phil Izard and Joanna Mirek, whose work with Geoff Hayes, a history professor specializing in military affairs, led them to be interested in helping to honour the soldiers of the past.

On campus, a service begins at 10:45 a.m. in the Student Life Centre great hall. The service includes a minute of silence and multi-faith prayers for peace, as well as a voice quartet from Conrad Grebel and students on trumpet and bagpipes.

On the other side of campus, the customary Remembrance Day service organized by the student Engineering Society will be held starting at 10:40 a.m. in the lobby of Carl Pollock Hall.

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Maclean's ranks UW best overall, again

from UW Media Relations

The University of Waterloo once again captured the highest reputation in Canada as "best overall" university in Maclean's annual university rankings, reports a press release from UW Media Relations. The rankings were released yesterday.

UW is No. 1 in three out of four national reputation measures: Best overall; Most Innovative; Leaders of Tomorrow. Waterloo comes second in Highest Quality in the national reputation. The top reputation puts Waterloo in the company of Canada's most established universities, including McGill, Toronto, UBC, Queen's and Alberta.

It's also the 17th year in a row Waterloo has ranked first in innovation nationally.

"This is great news for Waterloo," said Amit Chakma, UW's vice-president academic and provost. "We're absolutely delighted that our reputation remains extremely high as Canada's best university in several key reputation measures."

"Waterloo is very proud of its record of innovation, which goes right back to the roots of the institution. Also, we are still viewed as best overall and Canada's leader in terms of producing the top leaders of tomorrow -- that's an important part of our mission," Chakma added.

Waterloo captures first place in several measures in its comprehensive universities category: first in reputation; first in student awards and first in scholarships and bursaries.

It also does very well in faculty awards and Social Sciences and Humanities Grants, placing second in each case.

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DaCapo choir celebrates ten years

from the alumni newsletter Grebel Now

“It seems like only yesterday that a small group of Conrad Grebel College Chapel Choir alumni were trying to convince Leonard Enns to form a new choir. Now here we are, ten years later, with a few of our original singers, a lot of new faces, and a choir that continues to make an impact on the cultural landscape of our region and beyond,” says Sara Martin, current manager and member of the DaCapo Chamber Choir since its inaugural season in 1998. (Photo, above, courtesy of Grebel.)

“DaCapo is Italian for ‘from the head,” explains Enns, a composer and professor of music at Grebel. “I agreed to form this choir only if the choir raised the bar significantly. My intent was to develop a choir that would sing intelligently and compellingly, and that would present music that was engaging both to the intellect and the spirit. The music we rehearsed and presented would need to be aesthetically substantive, intellectually rigorous, captivating both singer and listener.”

Over the last decade, the choir has received a number of very positive reviews for their performances and their debut CD Still (2004). Virtually all the music the choir sings is written post-1900, and much of it, increasingly, is composed post-2000, a defining assumption when the choir was formed, and a guiding principle in repertoire choice.

Enns plans the three concerts of each season around a single concept or theme. This year’s repertoire is built around the theme of the four elements: Earth (November), Water (March), and Fire and Air (May). The “Earth” concert is scheduled for this Saturday, November 15, at 8:00 in St. John the Evangelist Church, Kitchener. Tickets are $20 (students $15).

Typically, the November concert falls near Remembrance Day, and Enns says, “I look for ways to program a reflective concert — this year I use ‘Earth’ in the sense of receiver of life (exhausted) and giver of life (renewed) — so we will include music for burial (the overwhelming Svyati for cello and choir, by John Tavener, for example), but also music of astonishment at the promise of new life, particularly the hugely energetic Magnificat by Giles Swayne.”

Water (March) will include the Richot Mass by Glenn Buhr (WLU music faculty), a piece written in response to Buhr’s loss of his home to flooding in Winnipeg. Fire and Air (May) will also consider the celestial "fires" and includes a recent work for choir and organ by Jonathan Dove — Seek him that maketh the seven stars — and the premiere of a new work by Murray Schafer with text by UW's Rae Crossman, a composition written especially for the choir.

Just under half of the current 20-voice choir roster are former Grebelites or have Grebel connections and over the years there have been many more. All 13 of the singers from the first concert were members of the Grebel Chapel Choir at some point during their university career. Four members of the current roster also performed during DaCapo’s first year, and all four of are former Grebelites. “We are very grateful to Grebel for the support we receive: we rehearse in the Grebel Chapel and are thrilled to see many faculty members and alumni at our concerts,” says Martin.

Enns and the choir are intentionally expanding beyond the three local concert annual rhythm, and are actively seeking opportunities to perform at least one additional concert annually. This coming season, the choir will perform at the closing concert of the KW Open Ears Festival, where they performed four years ago, and received very positive response from Festival patrons.

“I'm thrilled with the group, the performances, and the audience response and community support,” says Enns. “I would like the choir to become an important part of the year for many people in Kitchener-Waterloo, and an important part of the national choral culture. But most importantly for me, working with this choir is spiritual food.”

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Things happening, or soon to happen

Flu shot clinic for all UW students, staff, faculty, and family members, takes place today through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., in the Student Life Centre multipurpose room. You are reminded to wear a loose-fitting short-sleeved shirt. Questions about influenza? See here.

Starting January 2009, graduate students will be paid for their research activities through the myHRinfo on-line Graduate Earnings Data Entry system. For graduate administrators who already use this system, Human Resources will hold an information session about the new Graduate Research Studentships tomorrow from 10 to 11 a.m. in MC 2009. For graduate administrators who are not currently using Graduate Earnings Data Entry, Human Resources will be offering two hands-on training sessions: tomorrow, 2 to 3 p.m., or November 27, 2 to 3 p.m., both in MC 1078. To register for training, contact Jim Howard (jbhoward@uwaterloo.ca) at extension 36451. Documentation for the Graduate Earnings Data Entry system will be posted shortly on the Human Resources website.

Distance and Continuing Education is offering three new certificate programs in management, as well as several full-day classroom courses designed to enhance work skills. Coming up first are "The Art of Negotiation," tomorrow and Wednesday, and "Untechnical Communication," on Friday. Classes take place next week on such topics as "Proofreading and Editing," "Interviewing Skills and Evaluation Techniques," and "Strategic and Business Planning."

Entrepreneurship is about taking an idea and making it happen," says Ray Cao, a UW engineering student and president of Impact Entrepreneurship Group, a rapidly growing non-profit, founded by Waterloo students and dedicated to encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit in Canadian youth. Cao's group organized the 2008 Impact National Conference in Toronto, November 21-22, where more than 500 delegates from across Canada will gather to meet with industry leaders and successful entrepreneurs, develop their skills through workshops, and share ideas through discussions and networking. Application and payment deadline is Sunday, November 16. The conference is a highlight of Entrepreneurship Week Canada, a national event with the goal of inspiring and enabling youth to put their ideas into action.

Registration for WatITIs, a one-day conference for information technology staff from across the university, has been extended to November 22. The conference is on December 2.

Stephen Howell, a climatologist in UW's Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change, is featured in a November 10 Scientific American article, talking about the impact of climate change on the fabled Northwest Passage from Europe to Asia. As Environment's Andrew Smith explains, "Howell says that global warming is increasing the amount of potentially deadly multi-year ice chunks in the newly opened passage. So the preferred route through the Northwest Passage may not be as viable as some people have thought. The Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change . . . is addressing this complex issue by bringing together researchers from diverse disciplines to study climate change, its impacts, and how humans can adapt. The Centre is based in the Faculty of Environment but includes researchers from UW's faculties of Engineering, Mathematics, and Science."

CPA staff

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