Map and bookmark show Waterloo's identity

The latest versions of three University of Waterloo information publications are now ready for distribution. They’ve all been designed in the new visual identity, using the Gotham font wordmark (pictured below) and other elements, from colour to lines, that first appeared around campus on street banners last July.

The first publication is the campus map, which is updated in both look and content. For instance, there are more hard hat symbols to mark new construction sites in the Research and Technology Park, including building 2 of the Research Advancement Centre. The GO Transit icon has also been added, showing its campus stop location at the Davis Centre. The back page of the campus map, which shows the satellite campuses, also recognizes the name change of Distance and Continuing Education (at its Gage Avenue location in Kitchener) to its new name: the Centre for Extended Learning.

The second is a one-page, two-sided fact sheet that gives information about Waterloo — everything from a locator map to brag points about the university’s first-place rankings in 2009 in Maclean’s. “This one-pager is very much an introduction to Waterloo to people who know little about us,” says Kelley Teahen, associate director of communications. “It’s a handshake, and an ideal piece to include along with other items that are more faculty, department, or institute specific.” 

Previously, the university has produced a folded brochure for “facts and figures”, but users have reported two distinct needs, she says: a fun handout, and something with more information that can be useful to those promoting Waterloo nationally and internationally. Ryan Jacobs, of the office of development, has been working with the faculties to create one-page information sheets on various faculty initiatives, and the overall university one-page information sheet complements that series.

Copies of the fact sheet, map, and bookmark are available for UWaterloo community use by emailing Karen Mason (k3mason@ uwaterloo.ca) in Communications and Public Affairs.

Back to top

Scientists add perspective on Haiti's quake

With the whole world still talking about the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti two weeks ago — and world leaders meeting in Montréal to discuss the future of the devastated Caribbean nation — UW’s department of earth and environmental sciences will provide its own angle on the experience on Thursday evening.

The department has announced a free public lecture — “The Geoscience of the Haiti Disaster” — to help the community understand more about the earthquake, which measured 7.0 Mw on the moment magnitude scale. The International Red Cross estimates that approximately three million people were affected by the quake and the disaster has claimed 150,000 lives.

The earth and environmental sciences department is known for its study of the geosciences, which focuses on all sciences related to Earth. At Thursday’s event, Steve Evans, a professor with geosciences expertise, will explore why the Haiti earthquake happened. “I will be focusing on the tectonic zone known for major earthquake events in the region since the mid-1500s,” said Evans. “I will also look at previous earthquakes that occurred before this current disaster.”

Keith Delaney, a PhD student in the same department, will present before-and-after satellite images of the region. “Satellite imagery indicates that the damage was greatest in the high density urban regions of Port-au-Prince,” he advises.

The lecture, hosted by the faculty of science, will start at 7 p.m. Thursday in J.R. Coutts Engineering Lecture Hall room 301. Admission to this lecture is free, but attendees are encouraged to make a charitable contribution to support the relief efforts in Haiti. Donations will be accepted at the lecture and will be given to various Haiti relief organizations.

Other Haiti-related developments this week:

• Lisa Weber and Bonnie Fretz, both of the faculty of science office, who were in Haiti on a church-related service trip when the earthquake struck, are home safely along with family members and friends. The Record newspaper published a long story yesterday describing their experiences treating injured people after the earthquake, then being evacuated on a Canadian Forces flight back to Canada.

• A number of people on campus are helping to collect “Haiti relief kits” for the Mennonite Central Committee. Jan Weber in UW Graphics (Commissary building, near the smokestack) is one person who will accept hygiene kits as well as comforters and sheets to be shipped to the stricken country.

• Waterloo International has identified just one student on the UW campus whose home is in Haiti. First-year arts student Max Louis-Juste reports that he lost a cousin in the disaster and that a nephew is missing.

• Annika Allman, who was known on campus three years ago for her work in Guyana while she was a social development studies student, is now a graduate student at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and was at work in Haiti when the quake hit. She was airlifted home by the United Nations three days later.`

• Details should be announced shortly for a coffeehouse and fund-raising event for Haitian relief, to be held Saturday night at Conrad Grebel University College.

Back to top

Flakes flagged in the daily flurry

It hasn't exactly been a fierce winter so far, and although a few flakes of snow are in the forecast for the rest of this week, I wouldn't bet heavily on a storm closing day any time soon. However, on the assumption that it could happen sooner or later, here's a reminder that, as announced in October, UW will be making its own decisions about storm closing this year. That's a change from past practice in which UW has followed the lead of the local public school board. Said a memo from provost Feridun Hamdullahpur: “We understand the concerns that severe weather conditions can cause for members of our community and would stress that these new guidelines do not mean UW will never close due to such conditions. Our decisions will be informed by the first sentence of these guidelines: 'UW (and its Federated University and Affiliated Colleges) will close because of severe weather when normal operation would pose a significant danger to students, staff or faculty, or would prevent large numbers of them from coming to campus or returning safely to their homes.’” The storm closing guidelines are online, and indicate that notice of a campus closing will be posted on UW's web site, normally by 7:00 a.m. on a storm day. Local radio stations will be asked to carry the announcement.

Back to the topic of typefaces, and in particular the Gotham font that UW is adopting for its public image, as in the map and other print pieces mentioned earlier in this Daily Bulletin. The font has been licensed through UW Graphics for use across the university, but at this point some people have it and some don't. Registrar Ken Lavigne has it, for one; the laptop used for PowerPoint presentations in the Needles Hall board and senate room, not so much. Which explains why, when Lavigne stood up to report to the university senate last week on the state of applications and admissions for this September, his headlines didn't exactly appear on the screen in sober Gotham. Opinions seem to vary about exactly what font was substituted, but one observer called it a "hilarious comic book style", not altogether suited to news that applications have dropped by a few per cent from last year's record levels.

Donna Ellis, interim director of the Centre for Teaching Excellence, writes in the latest issue of CTE’s Teaching Matters newsletter that “Life at UW is really very good. We may be faced with another round of budget cuts for this coming year, but at least we have a say in what gets cut and how we restructure our units and/or services to serve our stakeholders as best we can. I appreciate how difficult it is to  let anything go, but our resources  are always finite even when budgets aren’t so tight. It is hard, though, when we see how many good programs and services we could provide and know that we can’t do it all.  This situation can be detrimental to the energy and enthusiasm of our staff members, but not everything  has to go. Good ideas can be saved for a later opportunity. Old ideas  can be rethought in light of newer ways of doing things. New faculty and staff, including coop students, can ask good questions that get you rethinking why you do what you do. Every day comes with the chance to learn something new. Change — regardless of whether it happens in support units or academic departments — is largely about how you talk about it and how much choice the individuals involved have. Words significantly define our reality, and choice provides a sense of ownership and control when our  daily routines become uncertain.”

In the same newsletter issue, the CTE's Ellis reports on a talk by Karen Cummings, a teaching expert from Southern Connecticut State University who visited the Waterloo physics and astronomy department in December. She writes: "Students can struggle because they may only have fragments of the principles or math required, have misunderstandings or misconceptions about key principles, lack an understanding of how to create meaningful frameworks, and/or lack the skills to reflect on or question their decisions and solutions. Expert problem solvers do not have such difficulties, and are typically comfortable even when they are not sure of the next step to take in a solution. Much discussion ensued, though, about whether it is helpful to flounder in front of students when solving a problem."

The school of optometry has proudly announced that a leading American academic is coming to Waterloo as a faculty member and to take the newly created position of Associate Director for Clinical Affairs. Timothy McMahon “will also serve as Optometrist-in-Chief of the UW Optometry Clinic System”, the announcement says. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin and the Illinois College of Optometry, he has spent his entire academic and clinical career in the department of ophthalmology and visual sciences of the University of Illinois College of Medicine, with medical staff appointments at four hospitals. “His principal research interest has been the pathobiology, genetics and clinical management of keratoconus, a degenerative disease of the cornea,” the announcement notes. “He has published over 80 original research papers and 11 chapters and has served on the Editorial Boards of the journals Cornea and also Eye and Contact Lens . . . Dr. McMahon has served on the Ophthalmic Devices Panel of the US Food and Drug Administration and, in 2006, he was elected to the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Optometry. Dr. McMahon will take up his new position on June 1, 2010.”

CAR

Back to top