uOttawa News

OTTAWA, August 28, 2014  —  Every year, like clockwork, the University of Ottawa buzzes with excitement at the end of August. With a campus welcoming the equivalent of a small city each year (close to 43,000 students this fall) there’s a lot happening at uOttawa. Each year brings new students, courses, events, research funding and teaching approaches.

uOttawa will be welcoming 5,200 students who have left high school behind and are now entering the world of higher education. What’s more, over 800 international students will be studying in French, an increase of about 40% from last year.

Here are some of the many things happening on campus

• New student residence and Move-in Weekend
  August 30 to September 1^st
  9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Drop off areas: Parking lot K, near the 90 University residence, and parking lot X, in front of the Social Sciences Building.
  
  Move-in Weekend is a must-see! More than 3,400 students will move into the eight traditional and apartment-style residences on campus over the long weekend. Dozens of volunteers will be onsite, along with members of the Gee-Gees sports teams, to give students a hand. The sound of music and smiling faces will accompany all the hustle and bustle!
  
  This week, the first group of students will benefit from 400 additional spaces in a new residence a 10-minute walk from campus. The new uOttawa residence features single and double occupancy rooms, several common areas, kitchen and laundry facilities and storage space. This housing initiative will go a long way towards helping the University reach its goal of creating 1,200 new residence spaces in the coming years.

• Mixing technology with face to face teaching
  
  Higher education is currently undergoing a profound transformation. Technology plays such an important role in the life of students, and universities cannot completely meet students’ needs through classroom-based traditional instruction alone.
  
  As for new teaching methods, some professors opt for a “flipped classroom” model where students learn theory online and practice it inside the classroom, while others simply encourage the use of laptops to complement their classroom learning. One uOttawa professor has even created a series of online courses on YouTube!
  
  Recognizing benefits of blended learning (mixing online and on-campus classes), the University of Ottawa has decided to adopt it on a large scale to enhance the teaching and learning experience. For 2014, we will be starting 25 new blended courses, for a total of 65 blended courses at the University.

• International
  
  One of the University of Ottawa’s goals is to promote the use of French on the world stage. Our most recent initiative to substantially reduce tuition fees for foreign francophone or francophile students has proven successful. This fall term, over 4000 students coming from all corners of the world will be coming to the University of Ottawa.

• Shinerama
  
  Tuesday, September 2
  6 a.m. to 5 p.m.
  Downtown Ottawa streets
  
  Downtown workers looking for something sweet on Tuesday should save their loonies for the hundreds of uOttawa students who will be up at the crack of dawn to raise money for cystic fibrosis research. Shinerama participants will wind their way through the streets of downtown Ottawa, selling stickers and candies. More than 60 Canadian colleges and universities take part in Shinerama, the largest student fundraiser in Canada. Last year, uOttawa raised over $60,000 for the cause.

Visit the Welcome Week 2014 site for a full schedule of events organized by Community Life Service.

Students can log into uoZone, the University of Ottawa’s student portal, where they’ll find everything they need to know to get the 2014-2015 academic year off to a great start.

For more information or article ideas for the new academic year, journalists are invited to contact a member of the University of Ottawa’s media relations team:

Kina Leclair
Media Relations Officer
Cell: 613-762-2908
kleclair@uOttawa.ca

Danika Gagnon
Media Relations Officer
Cell: 613-863-7221
Danika.Gagnon@uOttawa.ca

Caroline Milliard
Manager, Media Relations
Cell: 613-240-0275 
Caroline.Milliard@uOttawa.ca

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