Master of Development Practice begins

Waterloo is the first Canadian university in a worldwide network of institutions that will offer master’s degrees in international development, says the background material about the newly approved Master of Development Practice program.

The MDP has received university senate approval and gone to the Ontario councils whose okay is also needed; the first students, about 15 of them, are expected to arrive this fall.

The program is based in the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development, the newest academic unit in the faculty of environment. Like the related undergraduate program in international development, established several years ago and now part of SEED, it will also have a close relationship with the Waterloo-affiliated St. Paul’s University College.

“The goal of the MDP program,” says the proposal that was presented to senate, “is to produce graduates with a set of practical skills and functional forms of knowledge in the interrelated areas of management, social science, physical science and health as they relate to the practice of international development. Graduates with this knowledge and expertise will constitute the foundation of a new kind of development practitioner who is a social innovator, helping to shape a just, humane and ecologically sustainable world. It will provide an excellent setting for mid-career development professionals wishing to retrain themselves or to augment their current knowledge and skills for the complex challenges of the 21st Century, and for younger scholars eager to combine generalist management strengths with issue and area specific training and experience.”

Two years ago, the proposal says, the environment faculty “responded to a call from the MacArthur Foundation for applications from Universities worldwide… SEED consulted widely… a small team of ENV faculty were brought together to manage the proposal… USD 200,000 in seed funding was made available to the University to support the full development of the MDP.”

The result: a program that lines up with ones being created at more than 20 other institutions worldwide. Students may be able to draw on course offerings at other universities — Waterloo is particularly linked with South Africa’s University of the Western Cape. “Our program,” says the proposal, “offers not only an opportunity to study at a first-class Canadian university; it offers a portal into a global network of MDP programs.”

Some details: “The MDP provides meaningful inter-disciplinary study across the four pillars of management, social science, physical science and health.

“The MDP delivers courses through a combination of relevant pedagogic methods, which include on-campus blended learning classes, a network-wide Global Classroom experience, a series of e-courses (several of which are jointly offered with the University of the Western Cape) and a mandatory for-credit field placement. The MDP degree will be completed over a period of 16 months for full-time students.” Courses, required or optional, have such titles as “Health Environment and Planning”, “Regional Planning, Economics and Investment Analysis”, “Transboundary Water Governance”, “Urban Food Security,” and “Consequences of Tourism”.

Faculty members involved in the program will not all come from SEED, as it also draws on the other departments in the environment faculty (environment and resource studies, geography and environmental management, and planning) as well as health studies and gerontology, political science, the Balsillie School of International Affairs, and Conrad Grebel University College.

Says the proposal: “We envision our graduates as being capable of stepping into senior level positions in government, the private sector, and not-for-profits. We also envision their being capable of joining or establishing consulting firms. With their combination of critical lateral thinking and resource (e.g. Water, Food, Cities) or discipline specific specialisations (e.g. Management, Health), we believe that they will be well-suited for management positions across a very broad spectrum of companies both locally and globally.”

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Standoff at dawn: That's how Jane Britton, librarian in the university archives, interprets this encounter between one of the campus's squirrel horde and the red-tailed hawk that lives in a tall tree near the Dana Porter Library. She spotted the encounter outside the Physics building early yesterday.

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Paperwork for taxes, and other notes

"T2202A tuition tax receipts for 2010 are now available on Quest," students were told in a blast e-mail message from the finance office a few days ago. "If you did not request a refund for the Endowment Fund contributions paid as part of your term incidental fees, you will also have access to a charitable donations receipt for your contributions during the year. You may view your tuition receipt information in unofficial format or print an official CRA-approved T2202A Tuition, Education and Textbook Amount Certificate for 2009 and/or 2010 by visiting the Finances area on your Quest account." There's detailed information online.

And more about paperwork, as federal and provincial income tax season approaches: the payroll unit in the human resources department will be mailing out "approximately 35,000" T4 and T4A slips to people who earned money from the university during 2010, says payroll manager Shermaine Primeau. That includes faculty and staff members and a multitude of others, from "casual" employees to recipients of scholarships and bursaries. "They are scheduled to be mailed out no later than February 28," says Primeau. "This is the deadline set by Canada Revenue Agency. They will be mailed to the address that we currently have on file."

A “showcase of student-led global health projects” is scheduled for tonight starting at 7:30 in the Student Life Centre multipurpose room. Five speakers are scheduled: Nahila Joeseph (talking about experience in Ghana in 2009); Valentina Aulizio (Peru, 2011); Rashida Brown (Brazil, 2010); Ayo Odutayo (Switzerland, 2010); and Tricia Kennedy (Kenya, 2009; photo from a YouTube video about the project). “There will be free food and beverages for attendees,” says Jennifer Calbery of Waterloo International, adding that “Web conferencing is available for those who are unable to attend in person. Please email rbrown@ uwaterloo.ca for additional details. This event will be undertaken with the financial support of the Government of Canada provided through the Canadian International Development Agency.”

A magazine-style publication just released by Water Canada is described as "a celebration of Canadian water excellence", and it's hardly a surprise to find Waterloo represented. In particular there's a full-page piece about civil and environmental engineering professor Peter Huck and his colleagues. "Municipalities are at the core of Huck's research," the article says. "Called upon to participate on an expert panel during Part I of the Walkerton Inquiry, he is well known for his expertise in municipal utilities. Currently, his team is partnered with a number of municipalities looking at several areas, including methods to treat for trace contaminants such as pharmaceuticals and endocrine disrupters; the use of membranes and ways to reduce their fouling; and improved methods of analyzing for pathogenic organisms."

CAR

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