Premier visits campus today

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is visiting the University of Waterloo's main campus today as part of a 10-day tour of the province's colleges and universities.

While on campus, the premier will participate in an interactive session with students at Engineering 5, participate in an interview with Imprint, and then attend a social event at Wilfrid Laurier University.

Premier Wynne (pictured at right with Feridun Hamdullahpur in 2013) launched her tour of Ontario campuses last Friday in Ottawa.

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Pharmacy students don white coats

by Natalie Blagden.

On Thursday, January 8, a new class of Doctor of Pharmacy students received their white lab coats to celebrate the beginning of their professional journey.

In the Humanities Theatre, proud family and friends gathered to watch 120 students cross the stage to be “robed” in personalized coats, signifying their entry to the School of Pharmacy, and the professional community. The Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) program starts in January, rather than September, and the White Coat Ceremony is a highlight of orientation week. 

“It’s an honour to wear the coat,” says class of 2018 student Paulina Bajorek. “I’m excited to enter the profession and start my four years here.”

During the ceremony, students pledged their commitment to ethics and integrity as well. “The white coat represents the trust that the patient has in the pharmacist, and their responsibility,” says Dr. David Edwards, Hallman Director for the School of Pharmacy and Associate Dean in the Faculty of Science.

Dr. Edwards and other guest speakers emphasized the expanding role of pharmacists, as key members of collaborative healthcare teams, as patient advocates and medication experts. With Pharmacy technicians taking on drug dispensing responsibilities, pharmacists can now focus more on medication therapy management for patients.

The class of 2018, dubbed Rx2018, is the second cohort to begin the new PharmD program. 

Congratulations and welcome Rx2018!

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Scholar joins Arts as Diefenbaker Chair

by Wendy Philpott.

Along with fresh snow and a new year, the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies (GSS) welcomes their newest colleague, Ann Marie Rasmussen, a respected scholar of medieval, gender, and literary studies - and UWaterloo’s new Diefenbaker Memorial Chair of German Literary Studies.

“Professor Rasmussen will bring a career’s worth of innovative teaching, research, and programming not only to our department, but to Canadian German studies as a whole” says Prof. James Skidmore of GSS.

Mandated to lead the discipline of German studies in new directions, the Diefenbaker Chair was endowed to GSS by a private philanthropic foundation in 2007 after a Canada-wide competition to find a host university.

Prof. Rasmussen joins UWaterloo following 26 years at Duke University in North Carolina. Her scholarship is highly transdisciplinary, often extending and combining medievalism and language studies with gender studies and a variety of other approaches, including manuscript studies, the anthropology of gift-giving, visually studies, sexuality studies, and material culture. 

During her visit to UWaterloo last March, Prof. Rasmussen presented “Why Do Medieval Badges Matter?” a talk based on her current book project that digs deep into the meaning of the mass-produced badges of the high and late Middles Ages.  She says the badges are not merely sacred or profane representations of allegiance, but can be understood as an early form of media.

In both her teaching and research, Prof. Rasmussen makes connections between the historical past and the present moment. And she welcomes new collaborations: “I’m interested in fostering interdisciplinary, collaborative conversations about adaptation and appropriation in literature across time, culture, and media” she says.

“With colleagues at Duke University, I’ve begun exploring an ancient art form that is booming in popularity in contemporary culture,” she cites as another example of her research. “These are story worlds, or an open-ended story universe around a familiar set of characters or events that grows and changes over time. Also called story cycles or serial fictions, they have advanced into realms of storytelling opened up by television, cinema, graphics, and video games. Yet at the same time, the art form of creating story worlds has a very long history.”

Beside her accomplishments as a researcher, she is a particularly enthusiastic teacher. “In a conversation we recently had,” says Prof. Grit Liebscher, chair of GSS, “Professor Rasmussen told me how excited and happy she is to be joining an institution where teaching is so valued.”

Undergraduate and graduate students in GSS and other programs will have some unique opportunities to learn with Prof. Rasmussen in courses such as Identity and Nationhood: the Myth of Siegfried the Dragonslayer in German History & Culture, Images that Shock, and Sex, Gender & Love in Medieval German Literature.

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Student feedback sought on communication

by Ryan Connell.

We all have important messages to share with students. A student communications survey launches today to gather student insight, and help us better understand how students prefer to receive information from the university.

The survey will delve deeper to understand communication preferences beyond email, to include social media, digital screens, LEARN, and more. The Student Success Office hosted a survey in late 2013 asking for student input about email communications. The results from that survey helped to formulate a best practices document that lays out how to craft an effective email to UWaterloo students.  

The 2015 survey results will be shared with interested campus partners to support the continued construction of relevant, student-focused communications. Student consultation groups will also be hosted later this month to gather further feedback on student communications.

Staff and faculty are encouraged to share the survey with students. Students have the chance to win 1 of 100 prizes of $20 added to their WatCard. Questions can be directed to Kirsty Budd, Manager, Integrated Communications.

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Tuesday's notes

Winter Welcome Week continues today with a Leadership Lunch featuring several of the University's senior leaders, including President Feridun Hamdullahpur, who will don aprons and heft tongs and burger flippers as they serve lunch in the Great Hall of the Student Life Centre from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. Other events include:

• James Cunningham presents Funny Money in the SLC Great Hall from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
• Winter Wonderland with horse-drawn carriage rides from the Student Life Centre to the Columbia Icefield from 8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. Jingling all the way, I would imagine.

Electrical power will be shut off in several rooms in Engineering 3 on Monday, January 19 from 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. as new breakers and a panel are installed as part of an ongoing renovation. Rooms 2108, 2109, 2110 and 2110C will be affected. Plant Operations reminds faculty and staff that computer equipment in the affected rooms should be shut down in an orderly fashion.

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