Encouraging financial literacy for young people

a media release from the School of Accounting and Finance

Three outstanding Grade 9 high school students were celebrated at Sun Life Financial’s Canadian headquarters earlier this month for placing in the top three overall within Waterloo region in the inaugural Financial Literacy Competition (FLC). The 2012 FLC was written on Monday, May 28 and of the participating schools, Waterloo Collegiate Institute placed first overall in Waterloo Region.

Financial literacy education has become an important topic in recent years and the School of Accounting and Finance (SAF), with the support of Sun Life Financial, initiated the FLC, a first of its kind, to assist secondary schools in educating and promoting financial responsibility. Developed in collaboration with business teachers within the Waterloo public and catholic school boards, the 2012 FLC was offered to secondary schools within the Waterloo Region and will eventually expand to all Ontario and Canadian secondary schools.

“We’ve had a successful partnership with the School of Accounting and Finance to help improve financial literacy and ultimately people’s knowledge of finances,” said Paul Petrelli, Senior Vice President Finance and CFO of Sun Life Financial Canada. “Congratulations to Gavin, Zarina, and Jacob, on their knowledge of money matters and as the winners of the first Financial Literacy Competition.”

Gavin Gao and Zarina Mamoukhova from Waterloo Collegiate Institute and Jacob Asma from Cameron Heights Collegiate Institute received a School of Accounting and Finance scholarship along with an award for placing in the top three overall in the Waterloo region.

Pictured above are (back row, left to right) Paul Fryer, Vice-President, Individual Business Management, Sun Life Financial, Grant Russell, Associate Director of Programs, SAF, and Paul Petrelli, and (front row, left to right) Gavin Gao, Zarina Mamoukhova, Mike Phillips, business teacher at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, and Jacob Asma. A breakfast reception at Sun Life Financial was held to celebrate the winning students.

“Improving financial literacy education across Canada is an important priority for our country. As educators of Canada’s financial professionals, we see the development of financial literacy skills for individuals in society as a key component to the overall health of the nation’s economy,” says Grant Russell. “We are extremely grateful to Sun Life for helping to make this competition possible.”

Photograph by Lisa Malleck.

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Retirement open house for Adel Sedra

Cupcakes and congratulations will be served at this afternoon's open house celebrating the career of outgoing Faculty of Engineering Dean Adel Sedra, who retires at the end of the month.

The event will take place from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the Student Design Centre in Engineering 5.

Sedra arrived at the University of Waterloo in 2003 and served two terms as Dean of Engineering. Under his leadership, the faculty has opened a number of new institutes and centres have been opened, including the Waterloo Institute of Nanotechnology, the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy, the Waterloo Centre for Automotive Research and the new Centre for Bioengineering and Biotechnology. New programs, including mechatronics engineering, nanotechnology engineering and management engineering, were added, and the UAE campus was opened in 2009 with civil and chemical engineering programs. He developed and launched two strategic plans for the engineering faculty – Vision 2010 and Vision 2015.

He is co-author of the best-selling engineering textbooks in history - Microelectronic Circuits passed the million copies sold mark in 2008.

Sedra made teaching a course per term a condition of his employment with the University of Waterloo. Since coming to Waterloo he has taught a third-year microelectronics course to hundreds of students. Throughout his career, he has guided the research of 65 graduate students.

An entrance scholarship has been established in his name.

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