Arts dean calls 2012 Congress 'spectacular'

A gathering next spring will give Waterloo “a spectacular opportunity to bring together scholars from many environments and disciplines”, the dean of arts, Douglas Peers, told the university senate on Monday.

He was talking about the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, which is to be held at Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University from May 26 to June 2 next year.

Peers (left), who arrived from York University on July 1 to lead the arts faculty, said the plan to hold the 2012 Congress here, announced in 2007, was “one of the chief attractions to coming to Waterloo. It’s a spectacular opportunity to bring together scholars from many environments and disciplines.”

He added that the event, which is expected to bring about 7,500 Canadian researchers to Waterloo for part or all of the week, will mean “lots of interdisciplinarity” and will put the two campuses into the national newspapers every day.

“There will be space and parking problems,” the dean admitted, “but we are looking forward to hosting the event. This is a wonderful opportunity for those in the arts, but also for everyone else — lots of fascinating speakers, connecting in the Stratford campus. It really is a great opportunity.” He expressed gratitude to James Skidmore, professor in Germanic and Slavic studies, who is serving as a co-organizer of the conference (“academic co-convenor”) along with a Laurier counterpart.

Skidmore reminded the senate that the Congress is “a meeting of meetings, 70-plus scholarly organizations” in fields from fine arts to economics, which has been held annually in Canada since 1931, formerly under the name of “the Learneds” (for “learned societies”). The theme of the 2012 gathering will be “Crossroads: Scholarship for an Uncertain World”, Skidmore noted.

The two universities are partners in hosting the event, and there is a joint organizing committee, “but the centre of gravity will be at Laurier,” he said, referring to “the all-important beer tent”. From the beginning, he added, the plan has been to hold the majority of the Congress’s myriad meetings at Laurier, mostly because that campus has more available space in the summer than Waterloo does. Waterloo will try to address the challenge of making opportunities to connect Congress visitors with what’s happening on the uphill campus as well as the downhill one, he said.

Staff for the event are hired by the national sponsoring organization, the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, and that will include “up to 300 paid and unpaid student volunteers”, Skidmore said. Faculty from many departments will also be involved, as well as staff in departments as diverse as food services, the registrar’s office, and communications and public affairs.

The organizing committee has three goals in mind, he said. “One, the hospitality: we need to welcome our colleagues with a really warm and inviting welcome. You want them to feel that all their needs are met.

"Second, the theme is a real opportunity for us in social sciences to demonstrate that our work is not so esoteric that it does not have wider meaning in the social context. Third, the goal is communication. This is an opportunity with so many colleagues visiting, an opportunity for us to create a profile in the social sciences and humanities that is not always connected to the University of Waterloo.

“Our work deserves a wider audience. It’s an excellent opportunity as well for our graduate students to be part of that environment. It’s been a joy to work and co-operate with Laurier and it is good for this community.”

President Feridun Hamdullahpur, probably reading senate members’ minds, asked whether the Congress would mean any disruption to spring term classes. Organizers are “identifying possible distractions,” Skidmore replied. Registrar Ken Lavigne spoke up to say that his staff will try to “minimize disruption, but this is a tremendous opportunity for Waterloo.” There’s a preference for some buildings as venues for Conference meetings as a “showcase” for Waterloo, he said, and “we are looking at a plan to speak to instructors involved and move classes briefly that week with a minimum of disruption.”

Hamdullahpur closed the senate discussion by joking that he had been through the experience before — the 2009 Congress was held at Carleton University, where he was a vice-president — “and I’ve never been normal since then!”

In advance of the Congress, its sponsoring organization, the CFHSS, has invited people from the universities, local technology businesses, and the public to an after-work reception and presentation on November 10. The title: “Canadians at the Crossroads: How technology challenges us to change”.

Says the invitation: “We are on the precipice of a total digital revolution. This startling technological transformation profoundly affects our day-to-day: older Canadians have cell phones to keep up with loved ones; teens are finding their voices and compellingly raising concerns via social media; organizations are serving customers all over the world in real-time.

“But what does all this mean for our society as a collective? How will diverse and aging populations be granted access? How do we protect privacy? How are different groups harnessing and challenging technology? Does technology really enhance democracy? Are these even the questions we need to be asking?

"Join renowned social scientists Darin Barney, McGill University, and Barbara Crow, York University, for an after-work unwind and illuminating exploration of these and other questions around Canada’s place in the digital society.” The event starts at 5 p.m. on the 10th and will be held at the Communitech Hub in downtown Kitchener. RSVPs go to cevans@ fedcan.ca.

Back to top

Women have been playing Warrior hockey for ten years now, and to mark the anniversary, the athletics department invited some special guests to drop the puck at Saturday night's game in the Columbia Icefield. They were Judy McCrae, who was director of athletics when the women's team first took to the ice (she retired in 2008), and Lindsay Wood, the team's first captain.

Next 'town hall' and other notes

The president and provost are today announcing the date of their next "town hall" session: Tuesday, November 1, from 3:00 to 4:30, in the Humanities Theatre. Past town hall sessions have been aimed at staff and faculty, but this one will welcome students as well. Invitations should be going out by e-mail in the next day or so. In another change from recent practice, questions aren't being collected in advance. Instead, the president will present an update to the campus community, provide a status report on the Mid-cycle Review, and open the floor to questions and answers. The meeting will be webcast for the benefit of those who can't get there in person.

At Monday afternoon's meeting of the university senate, Hamdullahpur also said a few words about that "mid-cycle review" process, which will call on him to lead 59 meetings with faculty, student and staff groups before the fall term comes to an end. By last weekend the score was 27, he said. "The information exchange is fabulous, and themes are already emerging," the president added.

Hamdullahpur also said a few words about the recent Times Higher Education rankings of the world's universities, which put Waterloo somewhere a little below 200th place. "While we are there, we have no ideas why we are there," said the president. He said Waterloo seems to have figures on various scales (research citations, for example) very comparable to those of other Canadian universities that somehow ended up higher in the rankings. "This is totally beyond our understanding," he said, adding that Mary Jane Jennings, the director of institutional analysis and planning, will press the Times editors to make their data public. "I don't believe there should be so much discrepancy," he said, adding, "there is life beyond rankings!"

Hundreds of students who are officially classified as “mature” — that is, undergraduates who didn’t come to university straight from high school — have been invited to take part in a collaborative research study involving researchers at Waterloo, the University of Guelph, and York University. (The key Waterloo figure in the study is Martin Cooke of the department of sociology and legal studies.) Participation in the Mature Student Experience Survey involves an online questionnaire in each of the fall and winter terms for the next two years. This term’s survey is now open. ”This exciting project,” said an e-mail memo this week, “is collecting information to broaden awareness and understanding of the experiences of mature students related to post-secondary attendance. It is following mature students and student parents over several years. The information obtained from this study may be used to improve campus-based services and information to better serve the needs of mature students. If you are a university student and 25 years of age or older and/or you are a student parent with a dependent child 18 or under, we invite you to participate.” There’s more information online.

The food services department says the Williams Fresh Café outlet in the new Environment 3 building is now in operation. "Drop by," says a note in its weekly flyer, "for a cup of organic, fair-trade coffee, fabulous espressos, cappuccinos, steamers or decadent white hot chocolate! Yummy! We're also serving up amazing soups, salads, wraps, sandwiches, smoothies and decadent brownies."

Each term the Engineering Society does a survey of undergraduate students in engineering programs, asking how their finances are going. Some results from the spring term survey were published a while back in the Iron Warrior. They include the finding that the average cost of living for a four-month school term is $10,161, and for a work term, $4,127. Students were asked whether they had applied for Ontario Student Assistance; 38 per cent said they had asked for OSAP and received it, 18 per cent had asked for it but not received any, and 44 per cent had not applied. Another key question: "How much debt do you expect to be in by graduation?" A total of 28 per cent said they would have no debt; 9 per cent thought they would owe $40,000 or more.

And . . . it must be half way through the fall term: the registrar's office says the December final exam schedule is available on its web site as of today.

CAR

Back to top