Vote for the best 24 Hours of Waterloo photo

by Ryan Connell, Student Success Office.

The UWaterloo community shared more than 900 photos and videos of their #UWaterlooLife for 24 Hours of Waterloo on Wednesday, October 1.

The campus community was encouraged to tweet, vine and instagram their day using the hashtag #UWaterlooLife. The UWaterloo Life Instagram account also featured 24 students over the 24 hours, including a special appearance from King Warrior and students abroad in China, Denmark, France and Switzerland.

The top 16 submissions have been chosen and now we need your help to choose number one. The top 16 are posted on the UWaterloo Life Facebook page. We encourage you to check them out and vote for your favourite by liking it. Voting will be open until Thursday, October 9 at 8 p.m. The submission with the most likes will win a $500 Retail Services shopping spree.

Thank you to all members of the Waterloo community for sending in their photos and videos.

 

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For this week, a focus on teaching

This fall, the Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE) is offering nine workshops over five days during its annual Focus on Teaching Week. For Waterloo instructors, this provides an opportunity to explore ideas and strategies pertaining to teaching in a more sustained and purposeful way.

The week will include some of CTE's most popular workshops, as well as new ones such as Teaching Bottlenecks and Threshold Concepts, Assessing the Flipped Classroom, Assessing Case-Based Learning, and Big Questions: Active Learning in Large Classes.

Special guests include Clare Bermingham and Judi Jewinski who will present on Working with TAs: Training in Writing Assessment; Jill Tomasson Goodwin, Scott O'Neill, and Rhiannon Ball on High Quality High Impact Practices; and SFU's Nancy Johnston on Describing, Supporting, and Assessing International Experiential Learning.

A complete list of Focus on Teaching Week workshops, along with dates and times, is available on the Centre for Teaching Excellence's website.

 

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Chris Hadfield delivers first lectures at Waterloo

by Sam Toman. This piece first appeared on the Waterloo Stories page.

Commander Chris Hadfield made his University of Waterloo debut as Professor Hadfield to geography and aviation students Friday afternoon.

The retired Canadian astronaut delivered his first surprise lecture of the afternoon to a third-year geography class on advanced remote sensing techniques. Hadfield described how he was able to snap photos of Earth while serving as commander of the International Space Station: “The countries aren’t colour-coded and north isn’t up,” Hadfield joked with the room of geographers.

Quizzing the room to see who could identify the various locations in his celestial photo collection, Hadfield lingered on one of the US/Mexico border. Farming techniques, city grids and irrigation patterns all change on the other side of a seemingly arbitrary line. “It’s amazing the amount of different information you can get from a photograph,” he said.

Hadfield’s three-year term as an adjunct professor at Waterloo is a cross-appointment to the Faculties of Science, Environment and Applied Health Sciences. Waterloo offers two undergraduate degrees in aviation, a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Environmental Studies.

Hadfield’s next stop was across campus at St. Paul’s University College, where he gave a surprise presentation to a packed room of geography students fresh off their first midterm.

Once the excited chatter died down, Hadfield detailed the complex process by which his photographs were transferred from the International Space Station to NASA computers – including the laptop his popular tweets came from.

Noting he’s been around the world 2,600 times, Hadfield stressed the historical and scientific importance of photographs from space.

“The first pictures of the moon changed our perceptions of Earth,” he said, showing one of the first images ever taken of Earth from space. “Now you take it for granted, but in 1970 no one had ever seen anything like that. There is so much information in that.”

Moving on to images of active volcanoes, islands, and even the recent flooding in Calgary, Hadfield was clear about the important part photography like his plays in understanding our planet. “We can use this resource to make better decisions about the planet itself,” he said.

Karim El Sayed, a first-year aviation student left the lecture impressed and inspired. “I just came for the midterm. They suggested I stay, so I did,” said El Sayed. “It was useful, but mostly interesting. Not many people have the kind of experience he does.”

Hadfield’s final lecture of the day was to a class of upper-year aviation students, who have all already logged hundreds of hours of flight time. Hadfield, who is an accomplished military pilot, used the full two-hour lecture to share his passion for flying.

While answering technical questions, on topics such as lift vectors and landing distances, Hadfield’s personal advice and career experience resonated with the students.

“They used to say, ‘Why are you training to be a pilot, you’ll all be replaced by robots soon,’” said Hadfield. “That was even back in 1958. That still hasn’t happened. This job is too complex. There is too much is at stake.”

 

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Advancement announces new leadership team

A message from the Office of Advancement.

The Office of Advancement is pleased to announce some changes to its leadership team:

Roberta Garcia retired from her position as Associate Vice-President, Advancement Services, on September 29.  We extend a warm welcome to Sean Thomas, who steps into this position today. Sean comes to us from Wilfrid Laurier University where he served as Director of Advancement Services for more than 14 years. In his new role, Sean is responsible for strategic planning and senior management of the infrastructure, policies, tools and central services necessary to promote and sustain fundraising and alumni relations activities.

Erin Sargeant Greenwood, who served as Associate Vice-President, Development, has been appointed to the position of Associate Vice-President, Campaign Strategy & Implementation. In her new role, Erin is responsible for campaign strategy and readiness programs in support of Waterloo’s Strategic Plan – A Distinguished Past, A Distinctive Future. Erin will continue to act as principal liaison to our faculty advancement teams, and also oversee prospect management for the University.

Replacing Erin in the role of Associate Vice-President, Development, is Jason Coolman, who has led Waterloo’s Alumni Relations team since 2006. Jason now leads the Development unit within the Office of Advancement, which is made up of Annual Giving, Leadership Giving and Planned Giving. As a senior member of the Advancement team, Jason provides leadership in developing and evaluating strategic fundraising approaches across the University. The University of Waterloo is currently conducting an international search for an Associate Vice President, Alumni Relations.

Ken McGillivray, Vice-President, Advancement said, “I’m confident we have an outstanding leadership team in place that will continue to work with our internal and external stakeholders to secure the financial support and volunteer investment necessary for the University to achieve its Advancement goals.”

 

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