[Ssphrstaff] SSPHR Update, end of Summer 2026

[Ian Milligan]

Dear SSPHR colleagues,

Happy September 1st!

I hope that despite what I know has been a (uniquely, in some cases) busy summer, you've had some time to rest, relax, and enjoy some of our (often!) beautiful weather.

I want to start by giving a huge shout out to our associate directors, our area heads, and our amazing staff who have been so busy over the summer in terms of getting SSPHR off the ground (and building on the foundation left by so many of you, and in particular your department chairs, in advance of July 1st). We’ve had our challenges, notably around staff vacancies as we work to hire and bring our team up to its full size. But I am happy to note that we are almost there and staffed up, and we’ll send out some information once that’s complete. In the meantime, we all worked as a team across SSPHR with some help from our friends in the Arts Undergraduate Office too, and I hope we can all take a deep breath that we made it.

You may have seen the national<https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ottawa-taps-64-leading-scientists-and-scholars-to-bolster-canadian/> (and international<https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/world/canada/canada-universities-hire-us-researchers.html>) coverage of the Eddie Goldenberg Research Chairs (formerly the “Impact+ Research Chairs”) and the scholars coming to Canada. A special shoutout that SSPHR is home to one of them! Professor Talia Bettcher started today in our Philosophy area<https://uwaterloo.ca/school-social-political-historical-research/news/welcome-talia-bettcher>, so please say hi if you see Talia!

A few other updates from my end.

Governance


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For our first School Council meeting in September (September 25th at 2:30pm), I will discuss our proposed approach to Annual Performance Reviews (APR) for faculty members. A few points:
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The plan for this cycle is to use each Area’s previous departmental addendum, and combine them together to serve as SSPHR’s performance addendum for this cycle.
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Your area heads will be in discussion with you all about the approval process and some required revisions to performance addenda for this cycle. The big change is that Faculty Relations Committee has recommended that such addenda explicitly state what constitutes outstanding (i.e. “2.0”) or less-than-satisfactory (i.e. less than 1.0) performance.
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When we select our School APR committee, the UW/FAUW MoA limits us to director plus five members. I will walk you through our approach to ensure representation and proper contextualization for these files, which will involve both formal representation on the committee as well as framing comments from your area heads.
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None of this is settled and I think best discussed at our first meeting as a School. However, I know not all of you can make this meeting, so I will also distribute material in advance for discussion and awareness.
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The area heads, associate directors, and myself have been discussing how we will arrange the School Tenure, Permanence, and Promotion Committee (STPPC) for the 27/28 cycle (the 26/27 cycle is running with the departmental committees that were established before the merger). We have time, and I want to get this right, so I am currently working to understand the realm of possibilities under Policy 77.

Operations


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I want to stay positive, so I won’t say much about Workday, other than to say that we ALL know that this cycle of TA offerings was not ideal and caused stress to our graduate students. It is far from a silver lining to note that this was the case across the whole University and not just an SSPHR or even Arts thing. We have all passed our experiences up the line and if your students or colleagues are running into trouble, let us know.
     *
One genuine upside is that every day I learn about a new button in Workday that I did not know existed. But then sometimes you open up Workday, and there’s a brand-new interface, and then you get to learn it all again. It’s like my comps all over again. Anyways, no more Workday in this email.
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Thanks for all of your help with submitting instructor constraints forms as we schedule W27. I remember when 2027 seemed like the future and I am sad that it is only four months away.
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Space moves for staff continue. We’re almost there! Once we’re settled, we can send an email out with everybody’s coordinates.
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Mail rooms! The volume of print mail has precipitously declined over the last few years, and Central Stores is consolidating service points. The plan:
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Political Science and Philosophy: a shared point on the third floor of HH;
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Anthropology, Sociology/Legal Studies, and Religious Studies: a shared point on the second floor of PAS;
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History: no change as they are alone on the first floor of HH;
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Classical Studies: joining SCCH’s point on the second floor of ML.
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A few thoughts on this:
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This does require some new keys and maybe some furniture moves (sorry again about your suddenly vanished mailboxes, Anthropology, I think they are on their way back), and as with everything at UW, requires more coordination than you would imagine. So stay tuned.
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My brother works for Canada Post so when I explained the falling volume of mail and the problems it was causing Central Stores, he glared at me.
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As we get into September, I will begin setting up 1:1 meetings with faculty members. I’ll be starting with faculty colleagues who are pre-permanence/pre-tenure, but I will give you all a few weeks to settle in.

I said “a few updates” and then I ended up writing an essay. If only my academic writing flowed so effortlessly.

I think I will close it there and for those of you teaching next week, good luck with your first classes. The first-day butterflies will go away. For our staff colleagues heading into the September rush, thank you in advance for getting all of us here in SSPHR through it.

I try to wander around the halls of SSPHR at least once or twice a week, if only to get some steps, and if you find yourself up on the third floor of HH (I am in HH 316) do come say hi.

Ian

Ian Milligan
Director, School of Social, Political, and Historical Research
Professor of History
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