Initiative Campaign

An event made possible by Bell Canada's gift to thee Queen's University Initiative Campaign. Featuring Dr. Heather Stuart, Bell Canada Mental Health and Anti-Stigma Research Chair and award-winning author James Fitzgerald.

The RBC Queen’s University Water Initiative is a ten-year program bringing together researchers and industry partners to expand research, training, and outreach activities focused on sustainable watershed science, education and protection. It will provide hands-on learning for graduate and undergraduate students within a world-class research and teaching environment. Led by Dr. Kent Novakowski and Dr. Geof Hall in the Department of Civil Engineering, and in partnership with the Departments of Mechanical and Materials, Chemical, and Electrical Engineering and the Faculty of Arts and Science, the initiative will include community programs and onsite research and learning at the Kennedy Field Station, with the goal of safe guarding freshwater supplies for now and for the future.

The Initiative Campaign is about investing in the people of Queen's who — like the generations before them — will not waver in their pursuit of excellence. It's about unleashing the potential of our thinkers and doers. It's about bolstering our reputation nationally and internationally by focusing on what we do best. Together, we will grow stronger and make a difference, not only to Queen's, but to the world around us.

Dr. Heather Stuart has been fighting to reduce the stigma associated with mental illness since the late 1990s. Where, historically, studies of the stigma attached to mental illness focused on the beliefs held by the general public, Dr. Stuart has been working to describe and understand the experience of stigma from the inside — from the perspective of people who have a mental illness and their families — with the goal of reducing the stigma and ensuring that those who experience a mental illness can get the help and support they need. Dr. Stuart is the Bell Canada Mental Health and Anti-Stigma Research Chair.

When he learned he would become the 20th principal of his alma mater, Daniel Woolf felt a mixture of "shock, elation and a little bit of fear." It was an honour and a challenge he looked forward to when he began his five-year term in September 2009, and one he thoroughly enjoys.

On September 29, 2012, CNN's Chief Business Correspondent Ali Velshi, Artsci'94, returned to campus to emcee the launch of the Initiative Campaign. This special video report produced at CNN headquarters opened the event.

The Initiative Campaign is about investing in the people of Queen's who — like the generations before them — will not waver in their pursuit of excellence. It's about unleashing the potential of our thinkers and doers. It's about bolstering our reputation nationally and internationally by focusing on what we do best. Together, we will grow stronger and make a difference, not only to Queen's, but to the world around us.