President: Aaaand We’re Back! (Part 1)

For those of you I have not met yet, my name is Hannah Gautreau, and I am your Engineering Society President this summer. I am in my 4A term of Management Engineering, and I’m so happy to be back on campus! My executive team and I are wrapping up our terms in office, and we want to make this summer amazing!

This term will be very exciting! The biggest thing that will be happening is the election of a new executive team. Last year at our Joint Annual General Meeting (JAGM), we passed a motion to adopt a new executive structure, and this is the first team that will be working with it! The new roles are President, VP Student Life, VP Academic, VP Communications, and VP Operations and Finance. For more information on these roles, you can check out our governing documents or the Executive Review Committee report on the website! We are in the middle of campaigning, so make sure to take the time to talk to the candidates and read about their platforms.

Council Review Committee

I have been spending the last nine months working with the Council Review Committee to evaluate the effectiveness of our Council. This was mandated at last year’s JAGM, and we will be proposing our changes at this year’s JAGM. Check out the website to review the proposed changes, and make sure to attend JAGM on June 26^th at 11 am to voice your opinion and to vote on these changes.

Leadership Award

Make sure to apply for the Engineering Society Leadership Excellence Award! This is a $1000 award given out every term to a student who has demonstrated exceptional leadership and improvement to engineering student life. You can find the criteria for this award on the Student Awards and Financial Aid website, and you can hand in your application to the EngSoc Office (CPH 3607) or email it to awards@engsoc.uwaterloo.ca.

First Council Meeting

We had our first council meeting on Wednesday May 11^th. Deanna Priori and Brian Schwan came to introduce themselves on behalf of the new Federation of Students Executive Team. Council passed the termly operating budget, as well as a number of policy changes. With these new changes, people who are planning to go on exchange can now run for executive positions in pairs, which will let a lot more great candidates run for exec positions.

Council also mandated the executive to push the faculty to improve course selection, to actively push the University to improve mental health services on campus, to investigate the implications of the new ranking system, and to take an official stance against increasing international student tuition.

For more information about council meetings, make sure to check the EngSoc website, and subscribe to the mailing list! If you have any questions about our council meetings please contact executive.b@engsoc.uwaterloo.ca and we would be more than happy to answer your questions. The next meeting will be held on Wednesday, May 25th at 5:30 in CPH 3607.

If you have any questions, or you just want to say hi, I am (almost) always in the EngSoc office and would love to chat!