I’ll start by saying what’s to follow is purely my opinion and may not reflect that of The Iron Warrior, the Engineering Society or the student body at large: since when is EngSoc such a raging political beast?
At the last meeting (two weeks ago), the main item on the agenda was ratifying acclaimed candidates for the executive elections. This is done to essentially have a vote of confidence in the candidates, because even though a position is acclaimed, it can still go unfilled.
There were a few other items from executive reports that caused a lot of aggravation from students in the council. I was fairly shocked to hear the amount of blatant blame throwing, name-calling and trap questions that were asked by members of the council directed to a particular individual. Now, I do not know to what extent this person has or has not filled his role on the executive committee but seriously? I recognize that if certain problems exist, and these problems cannot be dealt with by the immediate committee, then they need to be brought to the public forum. However, the sheer number of these comments and the unprofessional manner in which they were presented was astounding. We claim as a society that we want to present a professional image to the University, industry and the community, but what about our image to our peers and each other? Some common respect and good manners seemed to be lacking at this particular meeting. The EngSoc meetings are a great place to get involved and find out what’s going on in the engineering community, but lately it seems like anyone can get away with saying anything they want. I’m a strong believer in discussion, but not when the discussion takes more of a form of personal attacks than the issues facing the student body.
Additionally, the questions and discussion facing a particular exec candidate also seemed disproportionately long, targeted and sneaky when compared to questions posed to other candidates. Maybe I’m naive or idealistic about the way democracy works, but I thought this was to be more than a high school student council election. I felt that this particular candidate had a fair amount of experience that would be relevant to the position, but perhaps his past history and personal beliefs about certain topics are too different from the opinions of the student body (as represented by those present in the room) for students to accept that he will truly represent them well. This person has tried to run for an executive position in the past and did not succeed, which I think shows a lot about him. It would’ve been so easy to give up on EngSoc in the face of challenges and opposition, but this person has remained involved and seems to want to make an impact.
EngSoc has a reputation of being cliquey. It’s unfortunate, but something that I’ve observed in my time here. Yes, it is easy to get involved, but there’s still a huge intimidation barrier that makes it hard to be really in with the “in crowd”. It seems like when a new person comes up from nowhere, with a different perspective and perhaps with entirely different goals, the existing system can put up an extreme amount of resistance. Diversity does not make it easier to work with people, in fact it makes it harder. One of the questions posed to the candidates was “How are you going to represent students who do not actively participate in EngSoc?”. Well, I’d like to pose that question to the incoming exec (once elected) and to the council in general. Maybe changing the types of events might help EngSoc appeal to more students, but I think that the group should only try to broaden their horizons if they are then willing to honestly welcome those newcomers that attend.
Anyway, I know many of the people involved in EngSoc as friends and acquaintances and I will vouch for their characters, achievements and extreme dedication to the services, events and spirit of Waterloo Engineering. I just wanted to point out a dangerous group mentality that seems to be arising and I challenge everyone to change these attitudes.
4th-year SYDE
Hear, hear!