The search begins for Waterloo's next CERC

a news release from the media relations department.

The University of Waterloo is one of eight Canadian universities selected to nominate prestigious Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERCs).

The Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State (Science and Technology) announced yesterday that of the 11 CERCs that institutions across the country will begin recruiting for, Waterloo has been invited to nominate a world-renowned researcher in the area of Security and Privacy for the New Digital Economy.

Waterloo currently hosts a Canada Excellence Research Chair in Ecohydrology, held by Professor Philippe Van Cappellen, and a Canada Excellence Research Chair in Quantum Information Processing, held by Professor David Cory. Both reside in the Faculty of Science.

"It is very exciting that Waterloo has been selected to recruit a third Canada Excellence Research Chair, and fitting that it is in this subject area that has tremendous potential for innovation and universal impact," said Feridun Hamdullahpur. "The CERC program represents excellence and pre-eminence, and we look forward to bringing yet another top researcher to this campus to do groundbreaking work while mentoring and providing valuable research experience to graduate students. This will not only be of great value to Waterloo, but to Canada in general."

Universities receive up to $10 million over seven years for each CERC recruited and Waterloo will invest an additional $17 million to support the CERC which includes faculty positions, renovations, and student support. Traditionally, a chair is a scientist or scholar who is an international leader in his or her field.

"In today's highly connected world, personal information is collected, processed, shared, stored and sold easily by internet providers, cloud service providers, mobile phone companies and others," said Ian Goulden, Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics. "This CERC will create innovative approaches to realize the benefits of social networks and the digital economy, while enhancing security and personal privacy."

There were 46 research proposals submitted by 27 universities, and there is a lengthy peer-review process. The intention of this program is to attract Canadian and international researchers in priority research areas that will create social and economic benefits for Canadians, allow Canadian universities to attract world-leading researchers and showcase Canada as a destination of choice for top researchers.

 

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This Sunday, don't forget to remember

No words can add to their fame, nor so long as gratitude holds a place in men's hearts can our forgetfulness be suffered to detract from their renown. For as the war dwarfed by its magnitude all contests of the past, so the wonder of human resource, the splendour of human heroism, reached a height never witnessed before. — Arthur Meighen, prime minister of Canada, 1921

The Waterloo community, along with the rest of the country, will pause to remember Canada's war dead on Sunday, November 11, at 11:00 a.m.

Though Remembrance Day falls on a weekend this year, it will be recognized on campus today, with the Engineering Society organizing a ceremony that takes place in the foyer of Carl Pollock Hall at 10:50 a.m. The ceremony will last approximately half an hour.

As national leaders mark the occasion in Ottawa, local dignitaries will place wreaths at the Cenotaph beside Waterloo City Hall on Regina Street, and veterans will parade, in a ceremony that starts at 10:15 a.m.

Ceremonies will also be held at 10:55 a.m. at the Kitchener Cenotaph on Frederick Street, at 10:30 a.m. at the Cenotaph on Queen's Square a block from the Architecture Building in Cambridge, and at the Cenotaph in downtown Stratford at 10:45 a.m. The Waterloo Region Record has a complete list of local ceremonies.

On campus, an act of remembrance will be included in Renison University College's Sunday mass at 10:30 a.m.

The official date of the Remembrance Day commemoration is always November 11, the anniversary of the day in 1918 when the guns fell silent at the end of the First World War. Much of the imagery of the day is connected to that war, including the poppies, worn in lapels, that are sold by the Royal Canadian Legion as a fund-raiser. They recall the wildflowers that grow in the fields of Flanders, north Belgium, as mentioned in the poem by Lt.-Col. John McCrae of Guelph that is read at many Remembrance Day commemorations.

The Registry Theatre has been running a production of "Vimy" this week in the run-up to Remembrance Day, and one of the leads is being played by first-year St. Jerome's arts student Jennifer Adesso. The play's final performances are on Saturday, November 10 and Sunday, November 11.

 

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Who shot the goose?

Waterloo Regional Police reports that around 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, November 6, they received report of a gunshot in the area of Columbia Lake. While searching the area, they discovered a Canada goose with a single gunshot wound about 25 metres north of the lake.

It is, of course, illegal to hunt within the city limits. And according to Environment Canada, Canada Geese are protected under the Migratory Birds Convention Act of 1994, which prohibits people from harming the birds except under specified conditions (this sense of invulnerability might explain why the geese strut around like they own the place). However, it is currently open season on Canada Geese, according to an Environment Canada chart.

And apropos of nothing, were you aware that the University of Waterloo has a firearms policy on the books? Well, it does, and the policy states in part that "because of the specific nature of this community and the University's concern for the welfare of all its members and visitors to the campus, it is forbidden to possess firearms and other offensive weapons on the campus without the express permission of the Director of Police & Parking Services."

But back to the incident, which is generating local interest on Twitter and is being followed by local media. It's the area's greatest ornithological mystery since the Millie the Muscovy Duck went missing in 2002. After discovering the shooting victim, police conducted a further search, but no suspects were found. Police also report that no vehicle was seen in the vicinity at the time of the incident.

Looks like this bird's goose *puts on sunglasses* was cooked. YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHH...

 

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Friday's whys and wherefores

Two new exhibitions have opened this week at the University of Waterloo Art Gallery. In Gallery One is "Polizei" by artist Matthew Carver, who started work on a series of paintings after he "began to notice the increasingly militarized presence of local law enforcement at public gatherings and protests." His work puts viewers "in the uncomfortable position of facing down assertive and increasingly anonymous military forces."

And in Gallery Two is "The Russians" by Adad Hannah, a series of snapshots taken of subjects in St. Petersburg in urban and rural settings, filtered through a considerable language barrier, with subjects often unpredictably breaking character while attempting to follow the artist's directions to remain still.

Both exhibitions run until December 22. The art gallery is located in East Campus Hall and is open Tuesday to Saturday, 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

A few of you were asking about some rather heavy construction across the ring road in the neighbourhood of CPH and DWE this week. I have been told that the work was being done to provide a sanitary sewer connection to the DWE building.

And for those of you keeping track, as of today, I have been editing the Daily Bulletin for one full year. My output to date amounts to a five inch-thick stack of paper, single-sided. Of course, that pales in comparison to the multiple-volume archive of 18 years' worth of Daily Bulletins going back to 1993 under the editorship of Chris Redmond, but it's a start.

This is an opportunity for me, in advance of a more fulsome reader survey to be rolled out in the near future, to ask you, the Daily Bulletin's readers, about how I'm doing. Whether you're faculty, student, staff, alumni, retiree, or "other," I'd love to hear from you. Send me an email at bulletin@uwaterloo.ca and let me know how I'm doing, and what you'd like to see more of (and what you'd like to see less of) each day. Don't hold back in your feedback, but if you'd like, you can save your most scathing criticism for the anonymous survey.

Thanks for reading.

 

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