Talking up the potential of partnerships

by Stacey Ash, communications officer, Communications and Public Affairs

Partnerships between universities and colleges, municipalities and businesses will help drive Ontario’s economy forward, delegates to a Toronto conference were told Tuesday.

University of Waterloo president Feridun Hamdullahpur joined other leaders in higher education on the Academic Potential 101 panel at the Rural Ontario Municipal Association/Ontario Good Roads Association joint conferences at the Royal York hotel. The panel also included University of Guelph President Alastair Summerlee, Conestoga College President John Tibbits, Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities Glen Murray, and Executive Director James Milway of the Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity.

Panel members urged municipal staff and elected officials to work with their local post-secondary institutions on research that benefits their community, knowledge-creation that meets local economic needs, and partnerships that make communities more competitive.
Milway said Ontario’s economy is globally competitive largely due to strong productivity.

“Working more hours is not our biggest challenge here in Ontario,” he said. But working harder isn’t enough. Universities and colleges must give Ontario residents the ability to work smarter.

That’s already happening in Waterloo, Milway said. University of Waterloo “is our poster child here in Ontario . . . for driving success and innovation.”

“We need more Open Texts, more Research In Motions, firms that are coming out of Waterloo,” he said.

“Our biggest challenge here in Ontario is innovation and productivity.”

He challenged municipal representatives in four areas:

• Build connections between business people and higher education institutes, focused on community strengths,
• Look at problems in the community and how local universities or university graduates can help solve them,
• Offer opportunities to students by hiring them as co-op or summer staff, and find ways to keep them in the community after graduation, and
• Team up with local higher-education institutions, and support each other in lobbying and community-improvement efforts.
  

Hamdullahpur cited Waterloo’s history of driving innovation and workforce participation, through its intellectual property policy and world-leading co-operative education program.
Strong participation in co-op lets students bring their knowledge and experience to the workplace sooner, he said. And Waterloo’s focus on entrepreneurship has a significant impact on an economy increasingly driven by innovation, with 32 startups created by last year’s graduating class alone.

“Our students have what it takes to play in the big leagues and to drive prosperity in Ontario and Canada,” Hamdullahpur said. But none of that can happen without partnerships with the municipalities and businesses also dedicated to moving the community forward, he said.

“Universities are very much a product of their communities, and in turn they feed back into their communities and play a role in the improvement of those communities,” Hamdullahpur said.

Tibbits said successful examples of those partnerships already exist in and around Waterloo Region, including an Emergency Medical Services station built to complement the paramedic program at Conestoga College’s Doon campus, and a long-term care facility being built at the University of Waterloo.

“It’s not one and one makes two, it’s one and one makes three,” Tibbits said.

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Wishing new retirees well

by Chris Redmond

A number of staff members have retired in recent weeks, according to the human resources department.

Among them is David Wood, whose final job for the university was as director of international education and training programs in the faculty of environment. He retired November 1, ending a Waterloo career that began in 1999.

Retired as of December 1 are Hélène McLenaghan, language instructor in the French studies department, who came to Waterloo in 1987, and Randy Klawitter Dodd, assistant director for engineering in the co-op and career services department, who joined the staff in 1996.

Retirees as of January 1, 2012:

• David McKinnon, residence attendant in housing and residences since August 2001.
• Suzanne (Sue) Fraser, administrative specialist in the kinesiology department, a staff member since 1973.
• Douglas Painter, instructor in kinesiology, on staff since 1976.
• Rick Culkin, apparel buyer and planner for retail services, on staff since 2006.
• Barbara Trotter, project manager in the marketing and undergraduate recruitment office, a staff member since 1992.
• Valerie Whetstone, food services cook in Ron Eydt Village, a staff member since 1965.
• Richard Pinnell, manager of branch library services and head of the University Map Library, who had been at the university since 1978.
• Paul Stadtlander, custodian in plant operations, a staff member since 1982.

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Burning donuts at UWAG and other notes

A busy schedule is packed into the latest open house presented by the Fine Arts department and the University of Waterloo Art Gallery (UWAG) on Friday, March 2. Events get underway at 4:30 p.m. with a graduate studio open house that features work by MFA candidates Lisa Birke, Shauna Born, Nicholas Breton, Jessica Massard, Linda Martinello, Rob Nichols and Josh Peresotti, followed by an artist talk by New York based painter Denyse Thomasos.

Thomasos's work involves political themes and global issues, and her research focuses on "vernacular architecture," which has led her to look at "super jails in response to the global privatized prison crisis."

At 5:45 p.m., UWAG will present a live demonstration of Donut Burner (pictured above right) by Toronto artist Steven Laurie. The performance will take place outside the gallery's south entrance.

The open house and artist talk will be followed by a reception in the gallery at 7:30 p.m. All events are free and open to the public.

On February 7, the School of Optometry's name change was made official, reports Associate Director, Development and Alumni Affairs Andrea Carthew. The new name—the School of Optometry & Vision Science—better reflects the school's undergraduate, graduate, and research activity.

Writes Carthew: "The School has grown significantly over the years, and now boasts approximately 50 students in vision sciences, 30 faculty members, 9 research groups and two internationally renowned research centres in contact lenses and low vision. We are now home to one of the largest Vision Science graduate programs within an optometry school in North America and arguably the world.

"While the optometry program is at the core of our activities, we recognize that there are strong synergies between our clinical education and our research activities. Graduate students and researchers work together to develop new techniques and technologies that will help to enhance vision care and rehabilitation. It is our hope that our new name, School of Optometry & Vision Science, will help to further promote our strength as both an academic and research institution, nationally and internationally."

And now for something completely different: "March is Nutrition Month," writes Health Services dietician Sandra Ace, "and this year the theme, 'Get the Real Deal on Your Meal,' is intended to help separate commonly believed myths from facts and provide evidence-based food and nutrition info along with practical advice." In recognition of Nutrition Month, I will be running a bit of nutrition "myth vs. truth" in the Daily Bulletin as supplied by Ace and the Dieticians of Canada, and the first is as follows:

Myth: Organic foods are the safest and healthiest choice for you.
Truth: Both organic and non-organic foods are nutritious and safe to eat and, like any food purchase, are a personal choice. Remember to rinse all fresh produce thoroughly under running water, regardless of whether or not you have purchased organic.

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