Honorary degree recipients named

Professor Chris Hadfield and Professor Rolf-Dieter Heuer, director-general of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), headline the list of recipients of honorary doctorates at the University of Waterloo's spring convocation ceremonies next month.

Professor Hadfield, a new Waterloo professor and the first Canadian to command the International Space Station, will receive an honorary doctor of science from the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences and address convocation on Tuesday, June 10 at 10:00 a.m. He has a degree in mechanical engineering from the Royal Military College, conducted post-graduate research at Waterloo, and earned a master's degree in aviation systems from the University of Tennessee. Professor Hadfield served as an air force pilot for 25 years and today is seen worldwide as a leader in space exploration.

Professor Rolf-Dieter Heuer is director-general at CERN, an international scientific collaboration composed of 21 member states. CERN's discovery of the Higgs boson—also called the "God particle"—is considered the most important finding in particle physics in 50 years. Professor Heuer is professor of experimental physics at the University of Hamburg. In 2012, the European Physical Society awarded him the Edison Volta Prize for leading efforts that have resulted in many significant advances in high-energy particle physics. He has a PhD in physics from the University of Heidelberg. Professor Heuer will receive an honorary doctor of science from the Faculty of Science and address convocation on Thursday, June 12 at 10:00 a.m.

Professor Vukan Vuchic will receive an honorary doctor of environmental studies and address convocation on Tuesday, June 10 at 2:30 p.m. Professor Vuchic taught and conducted research at the University of Pennsylvania from 1967 to 2010, where he was the UPS Foundation Professor of Transportation Engineering and where he made several groundbreaking contributions in the field of urban transportation.  He earned an undergraduate degree in transportation engineering at the University of Belgrade and earned master's and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Berkeley.

Ronald Lang will receive an honorary doctor of letters and address convocation on Wednesday, June 11 at 10:00 a.m. He has devoted much of his professional life to the labour movement and to public service, including his long involvement with the Canadian Labour Congress and on a variety of government advisory councils and commissions. Lang earned a BA and MA from Waterloo, and a PhD from the London School of Economics.

Professor Michael W. Higgins will receive an honorary doctor of letters and address convocation on Wednesday, June 11 at 2:30 p.m. He is vice-president for mission and Catholic identity at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut. The author of 14 books, Professor Higgins served as president of St. Jerome's University at the University of Waterloo from 1999 to 2006.

Dr. Malcolm Moore, the program head of medical oncology and hematology at Princess Margaret Hospital, and director of the McCain Centre for Pancreatic Cancer, will receive an honorary doctor of science and address convocation on Thursday, June 12 at 2:30 p.m.. Moore earned a BMath degree from Waterloo, and his MD at Western University.

Professor Dan-Virgil Voiculescu will receive an honorary doctor of mathematics and address convocation on Friday, June 13 at 10:00 a.m. is a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley. In his distinguished career, he has published more than 100 research papers, and his is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships. He received his doctorate in mathematics from the University of Bucharest.

Professor Ronald Rivest, one of the world's pre-eminent cryptographers, and the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will receive an honorary doctor of mathematics and address convocation on Friday, June 13 at 2:30 p.m. He is the co-inventor of the RSA public-key encryption and digital signature schemes, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the 2002 A.M. Turing Award.

Professor Bruce Rittmann, director of the Biodesign Institute in the Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology and Regents' Professor at Arizona State University, will receive an honorary doctor of engineering and address convocation on Saturday, June 14 at 10:00 a.m. He is considered a world leader and visionary in the field of environmental biotechnology, a successful innovator and distinguished academic. Professor Rittman earned his PhD from Stanford University.

Professor Ralph Keeney, professor emeritus of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Southern California, will receive an honorary doctor of engineering and address convocation on Saturday, June 14 at 2:30 p.m. He is research professor emeritus at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, Professor Keeney was elected member of the National Academy of Engineering, the highest honour for an engineer in the United States.

In addition to honorary degrees, the university will name Professor Roy Cameron, Professor Jane Buyers, Professor David John and Professor Ted McGee distinguished professors emeriti.

Ken Lavigne, who was registrar of the university for the past 18 years, and Sharon Adams, who worked at the university for 44 years and served on the Board of Governors, will be named honorary members of the University.

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Waterloo employer sets students up for success

by Kaitlyn Holbein.

At Waterloo, co-op employers want to help our students succeed. Nahanni Steel Products Inc., a manufacturing company based out of Brampton, is one of those employers.

At Nahanni Steel, students (like molecular biology student Lauren Hummel, pictured above) learn hands-on about the manufacturing industry, which is especially useful for forming an understanding of what upcoming work experiences might look like. Nahanni Steel is happy to supply students with these formational opportunities that give them the tools they need to thrive in the future. The company primarily hires Engineering students who have never been on a work term before, a group that typically has a harder time finding jobs.

“We hire first-year students as they need this experience," says Darrin Wiegard, P. Eng at Nahanni Steel.

The company also hires these students during the continuous round, when students are sometimes discouraged by the job-hunting process. By providing students with opportunities at the times when they most need them, Nahanni Steel helps the co-op community and sets up Waterloo students for success.

While working for Nahanni Steel is a great option for co-op students, it also benefits the employer too. The flexibility of co-op encourages Nahanni Steel to re-evaluate the number of workers that they need at a given time. Every four months the workload must be assessed in order for them to know how many students to take on for the next term. In addition to this analytical prompt, Darrin points out that hiring co-ops is an outstanding choice because Waterloo students are enthusiastic and hard working. He believes students are often motivated by academic requirements and exceed the goals and expectations that are set for them. Last but not least, the tax credits offered to companies who hire students is the extra cherry on top of Nahanni Steel’s participation with Waterloo co-op. Based on all of the benefits and positive experiences that Nahanni Steel has had with co-ops, Darrin asserts, “co-op experience is part of our company; part of our culture.”

Partnerships like the ones formed between Co-operative Education & Career Action (CECA) and Nahanni Steel are a win-win situation for employers and students. First-year students get a good start to their co-op careers and Nahanni Steel benefits from the quality workers that they are able to employ each term from Waterloo. Employers like Nahanni Steel are attracted to hire from Waterloo because of the great students available, and because of the people and organization at CECA. Darrin’s CECA account manager, Joan Lam, offers him reminders of upcoming co-op participation dates on a regular basis, which he appreciates.

“Waterloo is the most organized and makes it easy for me,” says Darrin.

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Wednesday's notes

Yasmin Saikia, the Hardt-Nickachos Chair in Peace Studies and Professor of History at the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Arizona State University, will be giving a talk entitled "The Loss of History: Memory, Humanity and Peace after 1971" today at 4:00 p.m. in Room 1208 at Conrad Grebel University College.

"The “hidden” narratives of men and women of the 1971 war offer an entry point to reflect on the dilemma of sexual violence and memory in Bangladesh and Pakistan today," says the lecture's promotional material. "Men’s personal recollections of the war experiences have not been entered into the official records of history and women’s experiences of sexual violence being relegated to the margins as “lies” and/or “shame” discourage public engagement. The complex story of the construction of the Other in gendered, ethnic and religious terms is fearfully remembered today in private spaces in Pakistan and Bangladesh."

As previously reported in the Daily Bulletin, Howard Armitage, founder of the Conrad Centre, was recently named Ontario’s Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year by Startup Canada. The national stage of the competition is now underway and as part of the selection process the public is being invited to vote.

In addition to Armitage’s category, the University of Waterloo is up for Post-Secondary Institution of the Year, and a Waterloo student, William Zhou, who is an alumnus of the enterprise co-op program as well as a past Velocity Fund winner, is in the running for Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

The deadline to vote is Friday, May 23. I’d say “vote early, vote often” but each person can vote only once. The public vote will count towards 10 per cent of the total scoring.

Human Resources is reporting that retiree Kurt Winkler died April 18. Winkler started his employment in January 1975, working for the Federation of Students as a bartender in the CC Pub, known today as The Bombshelter Pub. Winkler retired in April 1984 and is survived by his wife, Ruth. He was 95.

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