More than 250 students, faculty and staff came together on Wednesday, February 1 to honour scholarship recipients at the annual Graduate Studies Awards Reception, organized by the Graduate Studies Office (GSO). Pictured above are (L-R) civil engineering students Mark Spanjers and Mark Ouseley, and statistics and actuarial science students Lauren Fu and Nathalie Moon. Vice-President Academic and Provost Geoff McBoyle congratulated the award winners and thanked them for helping to make Waterloo a top research university. Colleen Merrifield, a PhD student in the Psychology department, gave a short speech on how receiving the prestigious Vanier scholarship contributed to her educational success at Waterloo. The emcee for the evening was GSO's Sue Horton (Associate Provost, Graduate Studies).

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Online Master of Social Work introduced

a media release from Renison University College

The School of Social Work at Renison University College, in collaboration with the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Waterloo, announced that it is launching a Master of Social Work (MSW) program beginning this fall. This will be the first health-focused online MSW program in Canada.

This unique MSW program accommodates professionals with a Bachelor of Social Work degree who wish to continue working and remain in their home community while pursuing a postgraduate degree in social work. The program is delivered primarily online with two on-campus one-week Summer Institutes. Students may enroll on a part-time basis in Fall 2012 or on a full-time or part-time basis in Fall 2013 and beyond. The program includes a supervised field practicum of 462 hours. Full-time students may complete the program in one year and part-time students in two years.

Students will graduate with knowledge and skills in advanced social work practice within a focus on health, research/scholarship, professional leadership, and social work supervision. The program prepares students to practice in a range of settings including public health and health promotion programs, primary care and long-term care, hospitals, health-related governmental agencies, community-based health services, and health advocacy groups. The program takes a holistic view of health that incorporates the political, environmental, psychosocial, biological, and spiritual determinants of health in social work practice.

More information about the program is available online.

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Para-athlete to headline awareness week

an advisory from the media relations department

The University of Waterloo will host paracanoe medallist and speaker Christine Selinger as part of National Therapeutic Recreation (TR) Awareness Week, which takes place from February 5 to 11.

Selinger won gold and silver medals at the ICF Sprint Canoe World Championships in 2010. Only a few years earlier, she sustained a spinal cord injury as a result of a rappelling accident, but she never let her disability get in the way of pursuing her dreams. She became the first person with paraplegia to traverse the Nootka Trail in British Columbia, and hopes to represent Canada in the first-ever Olympic ParaCanoe event at the 2016 Paralympics.

Other TR Awareness Week events at Waterloo include a wheelchair obstacle challenge on February 6, and an appearance of the Twin City Spinners wheelchair basketball team during halftime of the Waterloo Warriors basketball game February 8. Details are available online.

The goal of National Therapeutic Recreation Awareness Week is to raise awareness about the many benefits of recreation programs and services, and to expand leisure opportunities for people with physical and developmental difficulties, those with mental health challenges, older adults and at-risk youth.

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Notes for today, notes for next week

Entrepreneurship and tech culture were celebrated yesterday as Premier Dalton McGuinty (above, seated with Communitech CEO Iain Klugman, Google Canada's Steve Woods, Desire2Learn CEO John Baker, uWaterloo President Feridun Hamdullahpur and Minister of Community and Social Services John Milloy) presided over the grand opening of the expanded Communitech Hub at the Tannery on Charles Street in Kitchener. A number of milestones were marked: 11,000 new square feet of office space for Google, the expansion of Desire2Learn into a full floor at the Tannery building, a new 6,500 square foot workspace for VeloCity, and another 14,000 square feet for Communitech, bringing its total floor space to 44,000 square feet.

The deadline for nominating instructors for the Distinguished Teacher Awards (DTA) and the Amit and Meena Chakma Award For Exceptional Teaching by a Student are approaching. In fact, the DTA deadline is today.

The Distinguished Teacher Award at the University of Waterloo recognizes up to four instructors each year for excellence in teaching. This program has been in existence since 1975. The nomination procedure is on the Centre for Teaching Excellence’s website.

The University of Waterloo also recognizes up to four student teachers each year through the Amit and Meena Chakma Award for Exceptional Teaching by a Student. This program has been in existence since 1999. Nominate an outstanding student teacher via the online nomination form found on the Centre for Teaching Excellence’s website. The nomination deadline is Friday, February 10.

For further information on nominating an instructor for the DTA, contact Verna Keller at vkeller@ uwaterloo.ca or at extension 33857 in the Centre for Teaching Excellence, EV1 325.

The Registrar's Office reports that Spring 2012 class enrollment appointments are scheduled for the week of February 6-11. Students are invited to check when their enrollment appointment has been assigned in Quest. "If you have chosen courses and have decided not to continue at the University of Waterloo for the Spring 2012 term, you are encouraged to speak to your advisor before withdrawing," says the Registrar's Office memo. "If you decide to withdraw, you will be required to complete and submit the Undergraduate Notice of Withdrawal form to the Registrar's Office." Once their class enrollment appointment has ended, students will have to wait until February 13, when open class enrollment begins, to make any course changes in Quest.

The School of Architecture reports that Waterloo architecture graduate Charles Walker has been named Head of Architecture at the Royal College of Art in London, England. Charles graduated from Waterloo with a B.Arch in 1988. He has worked with ARUP as Director of the Advanced Geometry Group and with internationally renowned architect Zaha Hadid and has run design units at the Architectural Association School in London. Walker is married to Alison Brooks, another 1988 graduate of Waterloo Architecture, whose firm Alison Brooks Architects recently won the competition to design new facilities for Exeter College at Oxford University.

The university's Board of Governors has its first meeting of the year on Tuesday, February 7 in NH 3001. The board will be approving new program fees for the Master of Social Work (MSW) and the Master in Digital Experience Innovation (MDEI). With the current Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities' tuition framework expiring at the end of 2011/2012, the new tuition rates for 2012/2013 will be brought forward for approval "at a future meeting once the new tuition framework is received." The board will also be considering two name changes: The Department of Co-operative Education and Career Services is requesting that its name be changed to The Department of Co-operative Education and Career Action, and the School of Optometry's proposed change to the School of Optometry and Vision Science, which was approved by Senate in November 2011, must be approved by the board to go into effect.

Finally, a point of clarification regarding yesterday's piece on year-end tax slips. Your 2011 T4 and T4A slips will be published online later this month, and Human Resources will notify all employees when they become available. The purpose of yesterday's article was to make employees aware that they should check their consent status in myHRinfo and look at previous years' tax slips, and not to suggest that the current tax slips were immediately available.

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