Waterloo: a welcoming campus community

The 2014-2015 academic year is off to a busy and successful start.

Throughout the month of September we have been welcoming people to campus from beginning to end!

In addition to receiving our exceptional incoming students and excellent faculty, we are also welcoming back old friends over the upcoming Reunion weekend. It’s a great chance for our Alumni to revisit their alma mater and see the continued successes and expansions of the University.

We are also happy to welcome home Heather Moyse, two time Olympic gold champion as a speaker the afternoon of as well. I look forward to introducing her.

 In September, our University and the broader Waterloo region made significant progress on some key community-building initiatives as well. The University of Waterloo proudly partnered again with Doors Open Waterloo Region, inviting the local community members to tour and learn about the university's School of Architecture, School of Pharmacy, and School of Optometry.

We also hosted Canada’s largest international hackathon this month, Hack the North. A non-stop 36 hour event that was planned by our students and the Faculty of Engineering, we invited over 1,000 students from across North America to compete and interact with other likeminded students, professors and sponsors.

Also here on campus, it was my great pleasure to participate in the long-awaited grand opening of the Health Services building. I am very excited about the growth and expansion of this building. It is an excellent reflection of the university’s commitment to providing a supportive and healthy environment for our students, faculty, and staff.

In the larger community, we were happy to help Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and Square, celebrate the new Square offices in Kitchener, as well as to offer our congratulations to the new Velocity Foundry building also in downtown Kitchener.

Both of these buildings bring with them great opportunity for expansion and growth within our engineering and entrepreneurial communities. With these openings, our task of building the strongest, deepest, broadest university entrepreneurship system in Canada continues to build momentum.

Waterloo’s strength as a powerhouse university was also recognized in a new and exciting way in September. The University of Waterloo has received the highest possible score in the prestigious QS Stars Rankings, with an outcome of 5+ stars. This outcome rightly places our university in the company of some outstanding peer institutions, such as MIT and Monash University in Australia.

Combined with our improving global rankings performance – we were recently named the 169^th in the world, an improvement of 11 spaces over last year — Waterloo is steadily tracking in a very positive direction.

We further deepened this trend by signing key partnership agreements with two outstanding Korean universities this month, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). I urge you to read the media release detailing the agreements – they are extremely positive for our rapidly internationalizing institution.

On that high note, I am pleased to reiterate the announcement that Tom Jenkins, chair of OpenText Corporation, has been named the university's incoming chancellor for a three-year term beginning next May.

As we say goodbye to one great leader, our outgoing Chancellor, Prem Watsa, we will soon welcome another with open arms. I look forward to properly thanking Mr. Watsa for his service to our University after his final convocation this fall.

As a final note for this month: October 1 marks Waterloo’s annual United Way Campaign kickoff, with the campaign scheduled to run throughout October. I thank you in advance for chipping in with your time, talent or treasure to make this campaign a success. Stay tuned for a message from me on Monday morning, as we gear up for our annual campaign.

Best of luck with your upcoming midterms, and enjoy the quickly approaching fall weather.

Yours most sincerely,

Feridun

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Come one, come all to Reunion 2014

Waterloo opens its doors to alumni, the community, students, faculty and staff on Saturday in celebration of Reunion 2014.

All are invited to attend a variety of activities offered at the Waterloo campus.

"The University of Waterloo is proud to be a part of Waterloo Region and are thrilled to include our neighbours in the excitement of this wonderful annual event," said Feridun Hamdullahpur. "It is my pleasure to once again welcome the community to come to campus and welcome back members of the growing family of Waterloo alumni."

Among the highlights, Heather Moyse, two-time Olympic gold medalist and Waterloo alumna, will deliver a free public lecture in the the Humanities Theatre. It begins at 3:00 p.m. Please note that because of space limitations, registration is required for this and some other events.

"I'm thrilled to be returning to campus for Reunion to speak to alumni, current students, staff, and people from the community,” said Moyse. “Not only is it a chance to give back to a place where I spent four great years of my life, but it makes me feel more connected than ever to Waterloo. There is something so inspiring about meeting the next generation of leaders."

Other highlights include:

• 29th Annual AHS Fun Run; from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and taking place at BMH. Grab your running gear, costume or casual weekend wear for a run or walk around ring road (registration required);
• Open Houses in Applied Health Sciences (BMH), Arts (HH), Engineering (E5), Environment (EV3), Mathematics (M3), Science (EIT), Optometry (OPT),

  UWaterloo Art Gallery (ECH) from 11:00 am. to 1:00 p.m.;

• 20th Annual East Asian Festival, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Experience the vibrant cultures of China, Japan and Korea with live performances, music, food, and educational booths. The Club That Really Likes Anime (CTRL-A) will be having a "family friendly" (hopefully tentacle-free) showing during the event.
• Alumni VIP Tent for Warrior Football vs. Western Mustangs from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. (1:00 p.m. kickoff). Cheer on the Warriors as they take on the Mustangs at Warrior Field.
• 11th Annual Traditional Pow Wow from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. at St. Paul's University College. Enjoy drumming, dancing and other elements of traditional Aboriginal culture.

For a full list of events and to register, please visit the Reunion 2014 website.

Free parking is available in parking lots A, B, C, L, R, N, W and X.

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Lifelong learning

This is the latest in a series of #UWCommunity weekly features that highlight Waterloo in the community.

As part of our very nature the University of Waterloo is committed to spurring a sense of curiosity, provoking thought leadership and fostering lifelong learning. As a leading academic institution it is Waterloo’s role to ensure that these values expand well beyond the walls of our campus and into our communities.    

As such, each year the University of Waterloo welcomes international thought leaders to our campus, fosters dialogue and discussion on current events and brings our experts out into our community providing opportunities for interaction, dialogue and lifelong learning. 

Through a 40-year partnership with the Kitchener Public Library the University of Waterloo provides bi-weekly lectures in our community as part of Issues and Ideas. 

These community-based lectures engage citizens on a wide variety of topics from politics to quantum computing. September 17, 2014, kicked off a new season with a lecture from Professor Shannon Dea on Women, Chastity and the Law. Dr. Dea’s lecture focused on prevalent themes from this year’s One Book One Community read The Massy Murder by Charlotte Grey. 

Additionally, the Faculties of Science, Applied Health Science and Engineering jointly hosted a public lecture to discuss the evolution, epidemiology and treatment of the Ebola virus. The sold-out lecture attracted a crowd of more than 500 attendees, which included students, staff, faculty and members of our community. This public lecture highlighted the unique and strong connection the University of Waterloo has to its community, as a leader in providing expert information on important issues that affect not only our local community, but our extended national and international communities as well.

The following evening, September 25, 2014, Conrad Grebel University College celebrated International Day of Peace, with a lecture by Distinguished Alumni Service Award winner Lisa Schirch (BA 1990). From a human security perspective, Schirch shared challenges and opportunities in her quest to bring peace to the Pentagon. "Every person in society has an active role in promoting human security," she explained. "We need to learn new skills, moving from protest to proposal, changing security forces from predators to protectors." Schirch is a research professor at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and Director of Human Security at the Alliance for Peacebuilding.

Finally, as part of our Reunion weekend, Waterloo is proud to host fellow alumnae and two-time Olympic gold medalist Heather Moyse for a special guest lecture on campus this Saturday September 27, 2014.  

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Friday's notes

University of Waterloo volunteers (pictured above) participated in this year's Take Back The Night march in Kitchener yesterday.

Confucius Institutes around the world will be celebrating Confucius Institute Day on Saturday, September 27, and the Confucius Institute at Renison University College will be no exception. The event will include an exhibition of paintings by artist Zhang Wang, a Chinese calligraphy demonstration and language workshops. Admission is free.

A limited number of spaces are still available for the University of Waterloo Staff Association's annual shopping trip, which is scheduled to take place from November 7 to November 9. Hosting the event are Peggy Day and Sue Fraser. This is the 10th anniversary of the event.

CBC’s Cross Country Checkup is coming to the Stratford Campus for a townhall hosted by Peter Mansbridge about the future of libraries in a digital age. 

The show will be broadcast from Stratford campus’ atrium on Sunday, September 28. Members of the public are invited to attend and participate in the show. Doors open at 3:00 p.m. and the broadcast begins at 4:00 p.m.

“Cross Country Checkup is thrilled to be broadcasting from the University of Waterloo's Stratford Campus.  It offers an opportunity to connect with people across Canada and peek into the future of knowledge and learning,” said senior producer Charles Shanks. “Our guest host, Peter Mansbridge, is very excited to join our special broadcast from Stratford, a town he knows so well.”

"This is an important and timely discussion not only for researchers and students but for all of us as digital access to information continues to increase,” said Christine McWebb, a guest on the show and academic director at Stratford. “Libraries, and universities for that matter, will have to adapt and many institutions are moving in very interesting and innovative directions."

In addition to Mansbridge and McWebb, the show’s guests include Ken Roberts from the Expert Panel of The Status and Future of Canada's Libraries and Archives. Roberts was Chief Librarian of the Hamilton Public Library from 1994 until his retirement in 2012.

Full details are listed on the event website.

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