Most innovative university, 22 years running

For the 22nd consecutive year, the University of Waterloo has been named Canada's Most Innovative University according to Maclean's Magazine.

The annual rank of Canadian universities saw Waterloo move up to second spot in the magazine’s Best Overall category within the national reputational rankings as well as second in the Leaders of Tomorrow category. Waterloo stood at number three in both categories last year. Waterloo was named tops in reputation among comprehensive universities and number one in awards for faculty and students.

“For nearly a quarter of a century, this university has been recognized as Canada’s leading institution for innovation. We consistently rank amongst this country’s best universities,” said Feridun Hamdullahpur. “We have charted a course for the University of Waterloo to build on this foundation — as well as our distinctive experiential education and transformative research — to become one of the world’s top innovation universities.”

Maclean’s also places universities into one of three categories to recognize differences in the levels of research funding and the type of graduate and professional programs offered by universities.

Waterloo ranked highly in the comprehensive category, ranking first for reputation again this year. It also took the top spot among comprehensive universities for awards for full-time faculty and for students. The results also show that Waterloo invests the most of any Canadian university in student scholarships and bursaries.

Waterloo moved up to second spot from third among comprehensive schools for medical and science research grants awarded to faculty and first for grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Waterloo had a third-place finish among comprehensive universities for total research funding for full-time faculty.

Comprehensive universities have a significant degree of research activity and a wide range of undergraduate and graduate programs.

A note about methodology: Maclean’s reputational rankings result from a national survey of high school guidance counselors, university officials, heads of national organizations, recruiters, and CEOs of companies across Canada.

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Sharing Student Success stories

by Taylor Small, Student Success Office.

The uWaterloo Life blog officially launches today. Maintained by the Student Success Office, the uWaterloo Life blog highlights stories of student successes, big and small, with lots in between. New stories are posted every Tuesday and Thursday to feature uWaterloo student accomplishments and to highlight interesting activities uWaterloo students are doing on campus, in the community and sometimes around the world.

While the SSO often summarizes existing content from Waterloo and external websites, we have also started to post original stories from student interviews. We hope to soon start posting stories written by the students themselves to truly capture the uWaterloo student perspective.

When we use your content or feature a student from your faculty, we will reach out in advance for approval and always link to your original story. Once the post is live, we will let you and the featured student know and ask you both to share it.

How can you help? Aside from sharing your students’ incredible success stories on social media, we’d love to hear about any students you know who are doing interesting things: awards, recognitions, job or extracurricular experiences, social programs or activities, etc. You can submit student stories online, share the blog with colleagues, and encourage students to submit their own success stories as well.

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What matters now? Eliasmith will tell you

The professor behind the world’s largest simulation of a functioning brain joins a public discussion next week to ask if it is possible to build intelligent machines.

Professor Chris Eliasmith, creator of Spaun, joins researchers from four other universities at What Matters Now, a panel discussion moderated by journalist and broadcaster Piya Chattopadhyay, on Monday, November 4, at McMaster Innovation Park in Hamilton. The free event is open to the public and the first of five in the Research Matters speaker series that takes place across Ontario during the next six months.

“I’m very excited about sharing my lab's work as part of Research Matters. One way to understand how people think, complete tasks, and why they behave in various ways, is by building machines that mimic those abilities. In doing so, I hope we’ll be able to better understand and treat disorders of the brain as well as design more useful and intelligent devices,” said Professor Eliasmith, Canada Research Chair in Theoretical Neuroscience, and professor in Waterloo's Department of Philosophy and Department of Systems Design Engineering.

Other research topics for the panel include:

• How communities can be a force for social innovation (Gayle Broad, Algoma University);
• Preventing illness and saving lives through water safety (John Brennan, McMaster University);
• The miracles of nano-magnets (Muralee Murugesu, University of Ottawa); and,
• Planet hunting (Ray Jayawardhana, University of Toronto).

Researchers will present their topics and then ask the audience members present and online to decide What Matters Now? The series is a collaborative effort of the Council of Ontario Universities (COU) and the events allow the public to discuss the future with the university researchers who are creating it.

The event, which takes place from 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., can be watched online (registration is required).

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November's first batch of notes

This weekend, as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations, St. Paul's University College will be hosting its Blackforest Reunion. Founded by a group of St. Paul's students in the summer term of 1972, the Blackforest Coffee House was a big hit with college residents, and the tradition has continued for more than 40 years, making this one of the longest-running such events in campus history. The event gets started at 5:00 p.m., with performances beginning at 7:00 p.m. in Alumni Hall.

And now, on All Saints' Day, let's take a quick tour through...The Costume Zone...

Office of the Dean of Science:

(Left to right) Upper row: Debra Thompson, Melinda Meng, Maiesha Malcolm-Lovi, James Lamb, Pam Van Allen. Lower row: Priscila Carrara, Amy Geddes.

Housing and Residences:

(Left to right): Amanda, Roni, Aziza, Paul, Ryan, Megan and Julie (front row).

Applied Health Sciences:

Recreation & Leisure Studies:

The Centre for Extended Learning (Where's Waldo? Oh, there. And there. And there.):

The Peanuts Gang (The Institute for Quantum Computing's Communications and External Relations team):

Thanks to Aziza Tahseen, Michelle Douglas-Mills, Sandy Devisser, Emma Dost, Priscila Carrara, and Jodi Szimanski for submitting photos.

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