It's Keystone Treat-A-Gram season

by Whitney Albright.

February 14^th is just around the corner, it’s time to order your Keystone Campaign Treat-a-grams for friends and colleagues at UWaterloo. Just $3.00 each, Treat-a-grams are a fun way to say “thank you” to a friend or to recognize the hard work of a colleague.

Pictured above assembling 2013 treat-a-grams are (l-r) Carrie Nickerson, 2014 Volunteer Treat-a-gram Chair, Vice-President, Advancement Ken McGillivray, and Meghan Whitfield, associate director, annual giving.

Order yours now! Visit: Keystone Campaign: Treat-a-gram 2014!

Treat-a-grams are on sale as of today, January 23, and will be available for purchase until Friday, February 7. A tasty selection of fresh-baked mini cookies (a variety of raspberry cheesecake, Belgian chocolate, rum raisin pecan and chocolate paradise) will be delivered to your chosen recipients on February 14. Each Treat-a-gram will also come with a gift tag, displaying your very own personalized message.

New this year: If you’d like to send a treat-a-gram but know the recipient would prefer to forgo the sweet confection, you can instead send your message on a special Keystone postcard!

Treat-a-grams will be delivered on Friday, February 14 between 11:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. to University of Waterloo offices. This year, all proceeds and additional donations to the Treat-a-gram program will support the HEALTHY CAMPUS, HEALTHY COMMUNITY campaign for the expansion of Health Services.

Treat-a-gram is brought to you by volunteers of the Keystone Campaign, which engages and inspires the campus community in philanthropy. Every year, our family of faculty, staff and retirees donate over $1 million and countless volunteer hours to support the University of Waterloo.

 

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Engineering Science Quest gets award nod

by Katharine Tuerke.

The University of Waterloo’s Engineering Science Quest (ESQ) outreach program has been awarded the 2013 Actua & GE Canada Award for Leadership and Innovation in science and technology education.

The award recognizes ESQ’s dedication to high impact quality programs, ongoing leadership and supportive engagement of Canada’s most underserved youth.

“We are pleased to be able to recognize Engineering Science Quest's success during Actua's 20th year and we look forward to recognizing the fantastic experience Engineering Science Quest provides for both campers and staff,” said Jennifer Flanagan, CEO of Actua.

Offered by Waterloo’s Faculties of Science and Engineering, ESQ is one of Canada’s largest science and engineering summer camps for students between grades 1 to 9.

“It’s an honour to receive this award and a joy to be part of a program that encourages future generations to envision, create and fulfil career aspirations in science and engineering,” said Professor Mary Wells, Associate Dean of Outreach for the Faculty of Engineering. “ESQ’s approach is simple: put science and technology in the hands of students. This ignites their natural curiosity to explore the science behind their world and cultivates a commitment to lifelong learning, discovery and entrepreneurship.”

ESQ attracted more than 2,000 students in 2013. Hands-on activities focus on innovation and explore topics such as physics, chemistry, biology and health science as well as civil, mechanical, electrical and computer engineering.

In past camps, students have engineered their own jitterbugs, performed medical lab analyses, synthesized their favourite smells, built tornado tubes and programmed Lego robots.

Satellite programs located throughout Southwestern Ontario mean students from rural locations such as Chatham, Stratford, Orangeville and Owen Sound, as well as aboriginal communities such as Six Nations, Walpole Island and Aamjiwnaang may also attend ESQ’s summer camps.

Year-round programming reaches even more students by providing exciting, hands-on science in regional Ontario classrooms. In 2013, ESQ offered 335 workshops reaching nearly 7,500 students in more than 50 schools. To date, ESQ has reached more than 100,000 students in 3,500 classrooms.

ESQ offers a bursary to assist children from financially disadvantaged backgrounds to attend camp. An inclusion program has allowed more than 300 children with physical and behavioural challenges to participate in ESQ’s camps too.

“ESQ draws upon Waterloo’s strengths in Science and Engineering to give all students the opportunity to explore, discover and challenge themselves through hands-on activities of real-world scientific issues,” said Professor Terry McMahon, dean of Science. “ESQ is a prime example of Waterloo’s dedication to innovation and developing the next generation of scientists, engineers and technologists.”

More information about Engineering Science Quest and details on how to participate are available online.

 

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Thursday's tally of transactions and tales

Nominating committees were among the subjects discussed at Monday's meeting of the University's senate, with a motion to appoint the Senate's Executive Committee as a nominating committee to seek the next chancellor of the university. Current Chancellor Prem Watsa's second term comes to an end on April 30, 2015.

In addition, Provost Geoff McBoyle presented a motion to increase the membership of the 2014 Nominating Committee for the Dean of Science by one, for a total of seven regular faculty members. The rationale is that Section 4.A of Policy 45 indicates that there are to be six regular faculty members, including at least one elected at-large. With the addition of the School of Pharmacy, there are six constituencies that need representation on the nominating committee, so Senate was asked to increase the membership by one to allow for six constituency members and one elected at-large from the Faculty of Science.

St. Jerome's University is hosting the John J. Wintermeyer Lecture on Religious and Politics on Friday, January 24. The lecture will be presented by Professor Paul Litt (left) of Carleton University and is entitled "The Just Society: Just a Slogan?"

"In 1968, Pierre Trudeau ran for office promising a “Just Society.” Was it just an election slogan? For a society supposedly secularizing in the swinging sixties, descriptors like “Just Society” and “Peaceable Kingdom” had remarkably religious overtones," reads the lecture's promotional material. "This lecture looks at how the promise of the sixties melded with Canadian identity formation and imprinted baby boomers with a particular understanding of national values that would long withstand the rise of neoliberalism."

Litt is an associate professor in the Department of History and the School of
Canadian Studies at Carleton University, and director of the MA in Public History
program.

The event takes place in C.L. Siegfried Hall at 7:30 p.m. The lecture is endowed by a special fund created by family and friends in memory of the Honourable John J. Wintermeyer.

The Centre for Teaching Excellence will be hosting a winter term New Faculty Teaching Day tomorrow. This day is intended for those new faculty members that arrived after (or missed) our August Teaching Orientation Day. The CTE will be offering three of their four core new faculty workshops all on one day.

 

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