By-election advance polls come to campus

By Jude Doble, Student Success Office

As the Kitchener-Waterloo race for representation at Queen's Park heats up in advance of the September 6 by-election, the University Waterloo is hosting an advance polling station tomorrow and Thursday (August 29-30) in the Student Life Centre’s Great Hall from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

All faculty, staff and students, and anyone in the community, can vote during this time. Voters need to bring a piece of identification and their voter registration card, if they have one, or a piece of acceptable identification that includes their name and local address.  

On Tuesday, September 4, Elections Ontario will be in the Student Life Centre to remind students about the upcoming by-election, inform them they have the option to choose Kitchener-Waterloo as their primary residence and advise them on what identification they will need to vote.

With the by-election scheduled during Orientation Week, most upper-year and graduate students won’t be on campus. However, close to 6,000 first-year students will have just arrived. Orientation kits will include information about the by-election and Orientation leaders and residence staff will be trained on how incoming students can vote.

On Election Day, most students living on campus can cast their vote in the Village 1 Great Hall from 9:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m. Residents of University of Waterloo Place (UWP) and Columbia Lake Village (CLV), who are considered "off campus", can cast their vote at MacGregor Public School and St. Nicholas Catholic School, respectively. All students living in residence are included on the official voter registration list and will only need to bring a piece of identification, such as their driver’s license or passport.

Students who live off campus will need to locate their assigned voting station, and bring an acceptable piece of identification that includes their name and local address, such as a lease agreement or utility bill.

If you are a Waterloo student and have questions about voting in the upcoming provincial by-election, please visit the Feds website or contact Adam Garcia, Feds Vice-President, Education.

Take the time to get informed: You can attend an all-candidates meeting August 29 at Kitchener City Hall, at 7:00 p.m. as well as read some valuable voter information at www.wemakevotingeasy.ca.

 

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Japanese delegation visits; will sign agreement

 

A delegation from Japan's Chiba University will be visiting our campuses in Stratford and Waterloo today in advance of the inking of a new international exchange agreement.

The delegation includes university president Yasushi Saito and vice-president Kenzo Nonami, a world-renowned expert in air and ground robotics, as well as members of the Multi-Career Center, representatives of the university's international affairs division, and seven students who will be working on a month-long team project in Waterloo.

The agreement builds on a Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two universities in 2010 for the exploration of various forms of research and collaboration. Today's addendum to the existing agreement will establish international exchange centres at each university, using existing resources to facilitate joint research projects and other forms of collaborative activity.

Activities get underway at 10:00 a.m. with a visit to the Waterloo Stratford Campus, followed by lunch and the official signing ceremony in the Laurel Room at South Campus Hall. The delegation will then tour the Waterloo Autonomous Vehicles Laboratory and meet with Vice-President University Research George Dixon before getting an overview of Waterloo co-operative education.

Representatives from Chiba and uWaterloo will then dine at The Bauer Kitchen in Uptown Waterloo.

 

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Tuesday's notes

Registration opened yesterday for English Language Proficiency Examination (ELPE) tutorials. Aimed at students who fell below the minimum accepted ELPE score, the tutorials run from Monday, October 1 to Friday, November 30, and are a series of nine small group sessions that run for two hours per week. The tutorials are also offered online using Desire2Learn software.

The Hamilton Tiger-Cats will be suiting up for their practice at Warrior Field on Waterloo's north campus today from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Waterloo alumnus and judoka Timothy Rees was among 12 local Paralympians profiled in the Waterloo Region Record Saturday. Rees, who earned a PhD in mathematics in 2011, has been competing in vision-impaired judo tournaments since 1999. While at Waterloo, he was the co-founder and president of the UW Judo club and president of the UW Ballroom Dance club. He is now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. The London 2012 Paralympics begin Wednesday, August 29 and continue to September 9.

 

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