Students, faculty and staff gathered solemnly at different places on campus Thursday to commemorate the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.
The events marked the 29th anniversary of the shooting deaths of 14 women, with injuries to 10 other women and four men, by misogynist Marc Lepine at École Polytechnique de Montreal on Dec. 6, 1989.
They also remembered Lynda Shaw, a 21-year-old Western Engineering student who was murdered near Highway 401 in April 1990.
The sombre day was marked with a morning remembrance in the Amit Chakma Engineering building, followed by a wreath-laying near memorial magnolia trees on campus.
Brescia University College paid tribute in the Beryl Ivey Library as they read the slain women’s names and lit candles in their honour.
At CHRW Radio Western, a special All Women’s Voices paid tribute, along with a moment of silence at 11 a.m.
The young women – the eldest among them was 31, and all but one were students – were:
- Geneviève Bergeron, mechanical engineering student
- Hélène Colgan, mechanical engineering student
- Nathalie Croteau, mechanical engineering student
- Barbara Daigneault, mechanical engineering student
- Anne-Marie Edward, chemical engineering student
- Maud Haviernick, materials engineering student
- Maryse Laganière, budget clerk in the École Polytechnique’s finance department
- Maryse Leclair, materials engineering student
- Anne-Marie Lemay, mechanical engineering student
- Sonia Pelletier, mechanical engineering student
- Michèle Richard, materials engineering student
- Annie St-Arneault, mechanical engineering student
- Annie Turcotte, materials engineering student
- Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz, nursing student
