And we're back for Winter 2015

The University of Waterloo is chipping itself out of the ice and warming back up for a new year and a new term - Winter 2015.

Food Services locations are back up and running today. Check the locations and hours page for details.

Athletics facilities are open from 7:00 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. Monday to Friday and Saturday and Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.

The Book Store, Waterloo Store, and Write Stuff are open today at 9:00 a.m. Special extended hours will be in effect for the first week of January, with the locations staying open until 6:00 p.m. Monday to Thursday, and Saturday from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

WatCard, Campus Tech, and Media.Doc also open their doors today from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Check the Retail Services hours page for a full listing of their extended hours.

The Dana Porter and Davis Centre libraries are back to their regular hours for January, with Dana Porter open from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Monday to Friday and 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. on weekends, and the Davis Centre open from 8:00 a.m. to midnight on weekdays and 11:00 a.m. to midnight on weekends.

Feds Used Books is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday to Friday and will be open Saturdays and Sundays as well until the weekend of the 17th.

Winter Orientation is now in full swing for all incoming students - first years, exchange/study abroad, transfer and graduate students.

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Nominations open for student senate seats

The Secretariat & Office of General Counsel has issued a call for nominations for several undergraduate student seats on Senate.

Faculty seats:

• One student elected by/from the full-time undergraduate students in the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences, term 1 May 2015 to 30 April 2017.
• One student elected by/from the full-time undergraduate students in the Faculty of Engineering, term 1 May 2015 to 30 April 2017.
• One student elected by/from the full-time undergraduate students in the Faculty of Mathematics, term 1 May 2015 to 30 April 2017.

At-large seat:

• One student elected by/from the full-time undergraduate students of the University, term 1 May 2015 to 30 April 2017.

Each Nomination form needs to be signed by the required number of members of the constituency from which the member is to be elected. For undergraduate students elected from a single faculty, the required number is twenty-five; for undergraduate students elected at large, the required number is one hundred.

Completed nomination forms should be submitted to the Chief Returning Officer, Secretariat & Office of General Counsel, Needles Hall, Room 3060, no later than 4:00 p.m. on Monday, January 19. Elections, if necessary, will coincide with the annual Federation of Students elections.

Information about Senate and its committees/councils is on the Secretariat & Office of General Counsel's website.

Undergraduate student senators completing their terms of office as of April 30, 2015 are: Nickta Jowhari (applied health sciences), Allyson Francis (engineering), Tristan Potter (mathematics) and Christos Lolas (at large). All are eligible for re-election (members of Senate shall be eligible for re-election save that an elected member shall serve for no more than two consecutive terms).

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Bad boss bad boss, whatcha gonna do?

Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

An estimated 50 per cent of people will experience an abusive supervisor during their working lives—potentially causing anxiety, depression, and illness. A researcher from the University of Waterloo studying the cause and prevention of bad boss behaviour is among those who received a federal grant announced in late December.

Professor Douglas Brown from the Faculty of Arts will receive an Insight grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) worth $246,000. It will help him further his research about toxic bosses and address the gaps in understanding of their destructive behaviour, which costs the North American economy billions of dollars each year. 

“Very little is known about why supervisors are abusive to their employees. What we do know is that they often don’t realize the impact they’re having on employees and my research is aimed at uncovering how to teach supervisors to resist behavioural impulses and substitute negative behaviour for something more positive, such as coaching,” said Professor Brown.

Waterloo researchers received 30 Insight and Insight Development grants, totalling more than $4.7 million.

“These grants are long-term opportunities for researchers to further their work and foster research excellence and innovation at Waterloo,” said D. George Dixon, vice-president, university research at Waterloo. “The funding will also support one of Waterloo’s world-class centres and institutes, the Water Institute, where internationally renowned researchers are tackling global challenges with world-wide impact.”

Professor Robert de Loë, of the Faculty of Environment and the Water Institute at Waterloo, will use his Insight grant to inspire new ways of governing water. He wants to change the way we think about water issues by exposing the connections between water and related areas such as energy, food, finance, security and trade.

“My research will focus on why we have been dealing with the same water problems for decades, with too little progress in many cases, and determining how we can reframe water issues to move forward,” said Professor de Loë. “This grant gives my team and me an extraordinary chance to step back, re-evaluate, and take a strategic approach to research that I hope will make a difference in water governance around the world.”

The goal of both the Insight and Insight Development grant programs is to support new approaches to interdisciplinary research on complex topics to mobilize research knowledge with the potential for intellectual, cultural, social and economic impact.

For more information on these awards, please visit the SSHRC website.

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Remembering Donald Mackay

Retired professor Donald Mackay of the Chemistry department died December 11, 2014.

Mackay was one of the University of Waterloo's earliest faculty members, joining the fledgling Faculty of Science as an assistant professor in 1958. In 1962 he was appointed associate professor.

A native of Aberdeen, Scotland, Mackay specialized in organic chemistry.

In 1982 Mackay was one of the inaugural members of the university's 25-Year Club, which honoured those faculty and staff who had been with at Waterloo for its first 25 years.

He retired from Chemistry in 1996 and was named Professor Emeritus.

He is survived by his wife Isobel and his children and grandchildren.

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Summit Centre training course; other notes

The Waterloo Summit Centre for the Environment in Huntsville will be offering the Ontario Benthos Biomonitoring Network (OBBN) Family-level ID training course from February 24 to 26. Program participants will learn how to identify benthic invertebrates to the family level in preparation for the Society for Freshwater Science's taxonomic certification exam. For more information, check out the Waterloo Summit Centre's Web site or get in touch with the Environmental Education Co-ordinator, Jody Andruszkiewicz at jandrusz@uwaterloo.ca or 705-571-0259.

Human Resources is reporting that the following staff members have retired, effective January 1:

• Vasanti Ramdial, who started working at the University in February 2000 and retired as Accounts Payable Clerk in Retail Services; and
• Patricia Conaway, who started at Waterloo in February 1992, retired as Accounts Receivable Clerk – Retail Services.
  
  

Human Resources is also reporting that Professor Thomas Brenner of Renison University College's Social Development Studies and Social Work program retired effective January 1. Brenner started at Renison in September 1985 and retired as Associate Professor and Academic Dean at Renison University College.

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