Editor’s note: Western Engineering dean Andrew Hrymak, chair of the Council of Ontario Deans of Engineering, and Mary Wells, chair of the Ontario Network of Women in Engineering (ONWiE), penned the following letter on behalf of Ontario faculties of engineering commemorating the victims from École Polytechnique on the 25th anniversary of the tragedy.
This weekend, we remember 14 young women who lost their lives 25 years ago. On this day, known now as the ‘Montreal Massacre,’ an enraged gunman roamed the corridors of Montreal’s École Polytechnique and killed 14 women, 12 of whom were engineering students.
Details of the event outlined how the gunman went into a classroom of engineering students on the last day of classes before exams began. He separated the men from the women and opened fire on the women. Many of these women were in their final year of study in their engineering programs and would have graduated in May 1990.
In 1989, it was an unusual choice for a woman to decide to enrol in and study engineering in Canada. To put things in perspective, enrolment reports from 1989 indicate that of the 33,000 students enrolled in undergraduate engineering programs across Canada, only 13 per cent (or 4,900 of the students) were women. Statistics Canada numbers also show, at this time, there were just over 3,300 faculty members teaching in these engineering programs with a very small fraction of these, less than 2 per cent, being women.
The Montreal Massacre sparked renewed interest and commitment to promote women in engineering and technology, to end violence against women and to strengthen Canada’s gun laws. In a more focused vein, the events of Dec. 6, 1989, forced the engineering community, both in Canada and around the world, to pause collectively and reflect on what the experience must be like for women in engineering and to understand why women were not choosing to study engineering in greater numbers. Additionally, in 1991, the Canadian government established Dec. 6 as a National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women (White Ribbon Day).
Following the Montreal Massacre, the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers issued its groundbreaking report, More Than Just Numbers, in April 1992, documenting the barriers young women faced when entering the engineering profession. This ignited a number of initiatives aimed at encouraging women in engineering. Through the 1990s, the numbers of women enrolled in engineering programs across Canada steadily climbed. However, in 2001, the trend reversed. This may have been related to the overall decline in engineering enrolments that followed the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000-01.
In response, in 2005, all of the Ontario faculties and schools of engineering and applied science made an unprecedented decision to work collaboratively to address the persistent low enrolment of female engineering students across the province through the creation of the Ontario Network of Women in Engineering (ONWiE). This initiative was led by professor Valerie Davidson who, at that time, was the Ontario region Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Chair for Women Science and Engineering.
The Council of Ontario Deans of Engineering (CODE) was so impressed with ONWiE, and the value of a collaborative impact approach to support and encourage women in engineering, that they committed to supporting the network financially to ensure its viability. Considering all of the engineering and applied science schools across Ontario educate approximately 40 per cent of all the undergraduate engineering students across Canada, this represents a significant and focused effort toward addressing issues around women in engineering. For the past nine years, ONWiE has provided a platform to work in partnership with respect to outreach programs to youth, as well as best practices in positive messaging of the engineering profession and its diversity. The network is seeing success.
Fortunately, over the past few years, we have again begun to see an upward trend in the number of women studying engineering across Ontario and Canada. In September 2014, record high numbers and percentages of women entering first-year engineering programs were seen across Ontario.
While good work has accomplished much over the years, it never hurts to remind ourselves we can do more to ensure our engineering and applied science schools and faculties are inclusive, equitable and safe for all members. We also can use this occasion of remembrance to express our commitment to strengthen our progress on issues related to women in engineering and ensure all of our schools and faculties continue to foster a safe and supportive campus community for all faculty, staff and students in engineering.
And, finally we remember those 14 young women who so tragically, and needlessly, lost their lives 25 years ago. We will not forget them.
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IN REMEMBRANCE
On Friday, Western Engineering will gather at 11 a.m. in the front foyer of the Spencer Engineering Building for a candle lighting and wreath laying in remembrance of the female students killed at École Polytechnique on Dec. 6, 1989, and Lynda Shaw, a third-year Mechanical Engineering student at Western, who was murdered near Highway 401 in 1990.
The University Students’ Council will be holding a National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women ceremony at noon in UCC 269. Check its website for more information on speakers and event details.