Mark Seasons, Interim Dean for the Faculty of Environment, is now offering transparency through weekly blog updates.
“In an effort to keep everyone informed of the activities originating from my office I’m posting weekly updates at http://environment.uwaterloo.ca/deansupdate.”
Enjoy.
Starbucks is one of those brands that get a lot of attention for what they do and what they don’t do. Here is a taste of what you might read about them in this regard:
Put down that grande non-fat caramel macchiato or whatever Starbucks concoction you’re drinking. Turns out the coffee giant has a nasty history of being anti-barista, anti-union, and thus anti-Employee Free Choice Act as well. – The Huffington Post
(Image from Adbusters – not the University of Waterloo.)
Now they are making their entrée at the University of Waterloo, securing space in the ‘to-be-completed-March 31, 2011’ and highly anticipated LEED Platinum Faculty of Environment Building #3.
Some questions have been asked.
Meetings have been held.
The minutes from a November 11, 2010 meeting attended by Mark Seasons (Interim Dean, Faculty of Environment), Lee Elkas (Director of Food Services), Jonathan Pinto (Masters Student, School of Planning) and Vanessa Minke-Martin (Vice President, Operations of Environment Students Society) are now available for you to read. Enjoy.
Congratulations on joining one of Canada’s leading and most innovative planning programs. Your Association of Graduate Planners (AGP) is thrilled to introduce you to the University of Waterloo’s graduate planning program. We are confident that your experience within the Faculty of Environment will be both enjoyable and enriching and we are committed to making it the best experience possible.
The AGP is your representative student body, the student voice that interacts on behalf of graduate planners with the U of W planning administration, OPPI, and CIP; works on funding opportunities to support student life; and last, but not least, organizes events and activities for planning students to kick back, get to know one another, and have a good time.
First we would like to get you prepared for “Master’s Frosh Week” starting September 7th, 2010. The AGP and the Environmental Graduate Student Association will be holding important introductory sessions, socials, TA workshop and your mandatory milestone component during this week.
We would also like to introduce to you some exciting events that will be occurring in 2010/2011. Most importantly, the AGP led a successful bid to host the Canadian Association of Planning Students (CAPS) annual conference, here at the University of Waterloo in February 2011. The theme for this year’s conference is “Resilience: Planning for Dynamic Futures.” The three day conference brings together planning students from across the country; creating an opportunity for students to showcase their research, learn about modern planning issues and opportunities from leading professionals in the field, and mingle with hundreds of fellow planning students. This is truly an exciting opportunity for the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo to shine, and we need your help to make this event a great and lasting success.
There will be many opportunities for you to become involved this year from joining the AGP Executive to volunteering at and in preparing the CAPS conference. Check out the CAPS website (http://caps-aceau.org/) for conference developments and take a look at the AGP website (https://uwagp.wordpress.com/) to “meet” the AGP executive, find out what is new in the world of Waterloo planning.
On behalf of the AGP, we would to once congratulate you on your decision to attend the University of Waterloo, and we welcome you to the School of Planning Community. Please contact either of us if you have any questions at all. We look forward to meeting you in the September. See you at the Grad House!
On behalf of your AGP Executive,
Warm regards,
Kathryn Randle & Brad Bradford
2010 Co-Presidents
Executive Council
Association of Graduate Planners
University of Waterloo
In the name of growth, expansion and efficiency, big change has a way of finding big solutions.
The Faculty of Environment is growing. The growing pains are hoped to ease by the construction of a 3rd building (EV3). But in the shuffling it appears that perhaps the Map Library might have to seek exile in the Dana Porter Library.
In one way, this is a rational choice of centralizing library activities and utilizing productive space (i.e. less space for students and basic research within the Faculty, replaced with activities by the Centre for Teaching Excellence and the Centre of Knowledge Integration). Researchers are not losing access to the resources, as the move will merely get rid of its users enjoying the amenities within the Faculty.
Questions arises
Responding to Growth
Responding to Growth at student, faculty, university, neighbourhood, city, regional, national or international levels – be it institutions, malls, apartment buildings, height and density targets, population moves or natural resource extractions – is a choice, at least until it affects you directly. Planners have a tendency to be interested in planning-related decisions, and planner’s engagement has more than once been argued to be what is needed to bring about an educated, engaged and productive community.
This, our friends, is a chance to form an opinion and have a say, because planners of tomorrow will not be the ones to only plan and not engage themselves. You may as well start getting involved now, sooner rather than later. Likely, doing good planning requires the ability to personally and communally foster energy and motivation to nourish a life of active engagement. This is indeed the stand the AGP takes, as we increasingly feel committed to involve ourselves and our organization in planning matters internationally (Haiti), nationally (CIP’s Planning for the Future, and the Conservative’s scrapping of the Long Form), and locally (relocating the Map Library).
So, what do you think? Let us know by posting comments or sending emails…
Like so many others who attended a most enjoyable Charity Ball arranged by the Association of Graduate Planners (AGP) and the Environmental Graduate Student Association (EGSA) at Tyrone Restaurant and Ultralounge Uptown Waterloo March 10th, 2010, I received a ‘thank you’ letter from Habitat for Humanity the other day.
The disastrous January 12 earthquake in Haiti displaced or made homeless an estimated 1.2 million people. Our Charity Ball raised $2,970 in support of Habitat for Humanity’s continued efforts in the rebuilding of Haiti.
Charity Ball organizing involves students organizing, delegating responsibility and collaborating to set out a vision, securing the venue, marketing, scheduling the itinerary, ticket sales, inquiring and collecting donations and hosting at the night of.
Moreover, it requires a community of social interaction, individual passion and local supporting institutions and businesses – the easily underestimated power of generosity.
To all who participated: we wish to express a heartfelt “thank you”, and we hope arranging the Charity Ball will be a continued tradition for the AGP and the EGSA at the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Environment for years to come.
There are many events coming up in 2010. It is almost a job in itself to be on top on all the deadlines for participating. Below is a little sample of what one may find interesting, if interested in planning.
Tuesday January 12
Thursday January 14
Global Warring: How Environmental, Economic, and Political Crises Will Redraw the World Map
Signature Lecture with Cleo Paskal
Thursday, January 14 – 7:00 p.m.
CIGI – 57 Erb Street West, Waterloo
Free Admisission, RSVP online at www.paskal.eventbrite.com
With the world watching the UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen, geo-political expert Cleo Paskal looks at how environmental changes will affect more than just the weather. We live in interesting times. The biggest Western economic institutions are crumbling, what were once marginalized voices are now dominating international negotiations, and touchstone climate events are failing. Everywhere you look economic, geopolitical and environmental assumptions are being shaken to the core. The world is changing. Fast.
February 4-6
The Canadian Association of Planning Students – L’Association Canadienne des Étudiants en Aménagement et en Urbanisme (CAPS-ACEAU)
2010 Conference in Guelph, Ontario
For more information: http://caps-aceau.org/
February 8
The University of Waterloo Graduate Student Research Conference (GSRC): Sharing Discovery
Call for papers/abstracts deadline is February 8, 2010. The conference takes place April 26-29, 2010.
For more information: http://www.grad.uwaterloo.ca/Conference/index.asp
March 1
Ontario Professional Planners Institute (Southwestern Ontario District)
Paul Bedford Research Grant
This grant will be awarded to a student who is doing research related to the impacts of aging on housing and researching how we can address the many emerging issues our communities will be facing.
VALUE: $1,000.00
and
Gerald Carrothers Graduate Scholarship
VALUE: $1,000.00
For more information: http://www.ontarioplanners.on.ca/content/Awards/scholarships.aspx
The year 2010 is here (Year of the Tiger), and the AGP welcomes it.
New Year Resolution
This year the AGP seeks to actively use the blog to connect and communicate ideas about urban and rural planning across disciplines and geographical locations. First and foremost the blog is meant to benefit planning-minded students at the University of Waterloo. However, the blog also has the potential to reach out and greet with other like-minded individuals and groups locally and internationally. We’ll see where the road takes us…
January 4
Classes start Monday. Social events are to be expected. Meetings will be held. More pictures, new faces, dates to be remembered and topics of interest will be shared…here at this very blog.
The holidays are almost over, but only almost…
Association of Graduate Planners (AGP): University of Waterloo 