Our Unique Newspaper – Since 1980

Every Waterloo Engineering student over the past three decades has had the chance to read a copy of the official newspaper of the Engineering Society, The Iron Warrior. Most have taken the time to read an issue or two, whether to stay informed on the news or keep entertained by doing a crossword. Some have contributed articles, while others have even taken the reins and run the newspaper for a whole term as Editor-in-Chief. But why is it that the University of Waterloo is the only school in Canada with a full-length Engineering newspaper that has a serious focus while being published regularly year-round and run entirely by a volunteer staff of students? To answer that, you have to look all the way back to the beginnings of UW.
Back in 1957, when UW was in its infancy, Engineering was its only faculty. Shortly after, the students of the Faculty of Engineering formed the Engineering Society, now the oldest student society on campus, which was at the time a mostly social organization that would not get a constitution for another 14 years. Many things were different back then: A-Soc and B-Soc were referred to as A-Term and B-Term, and terms were three months long instead of four. As the Engineering Society became more structured, it was able to financially support a publication (while advertising revenue also covered a portion of the cost). And while the origins of The Iron Warrior don’t go back that far, the roots of the first Engineering Society publication, Enginews, date back to those early days.
Enginews was originally started in 1959 as a newsletter to keep students informed about events. It eventually folded into the campus newspaper, The Coryphaeus (later The Chevron), but made a return in 1967 amongst complaints that The Chevron was not serving students or representing their views. This reborn version of Enginews was wholly different: It was meant to be a humorous and irreverent publication. It was published several times throughout the term, contained a questionable mix of news and humour, was the self-proclaimed “best and most exciting (and frequently most disgusting) publication on campus,” and claimed to represent the uncensored image of the engineer.
Indeed, its tongue-in-cheek content was criticized by some as being sexist, racist, and generally offensive. While at one time Enginews was distributed all throughout campus, by the late ‘70s and into the early ‘80s, the Engineering Society became more mindful of its content, and its distribution was restricted to Engineering students – spawned by complaints from students from other faculties and administration. It even attracted national attention in 1983 when a female employee at the printing plant where Enginews was published took offence to its content, refused to do her job and was consequently fired. In 1985, Enginews was finally shut down, never to be officially resurrected. This action actually brought good publicity to UW, as it became one of the first universities to axe its crude Engineering student publication.
The most obvious reason for the death of Enginews over 20 years ago is that its content was offensive to a wide variety of people, including Engineering students, and not just because they didn’t “get” the content, but because it stereotyped engineers as crude, drunken hooligans. But there is also a deeper reason. Satirical and humorous content does not have to be offensive, even if it is about a “touchy” topic. The problem is that it is not viable to produce a high-quality humorous publication on a regular basis. As a result, to fill content, the editor of such a publication has to resort to lowering its editorial standards, resulting in the type of low-class content that puts the paper in the gutter. The simple fact of the matter is that a tasteless student newspaper that is trying to be funny reflects badly on the editor, the students, the school, and engineers in general.
It was in the shadows of Enginews that the Engineering Society decided to begin publishing The Iron Warrior back in 1980. “A Forum for Engineering Concepts” is what the original masthead contained, and at the onset, the newspaper was published twice (and shortly after three times) each term, containing informative articles about the on-goings of UW and features on the profession of engineering. It quickly blossomed and found a large readership, with its content ranging from opinion pieces on current affairs and social issues, to features on student entrepreneurs, professors, student teams, and Engineering Society events, to outspoken editorials, to even cartoons and humour, done the right way. It quickly became apparent that a newspaper like this, without the pressure of trying to be funny, was more feasible to be printed regularly, served a wider audience, and promoted a better impression of students, the school, and the Engineering Society. As such, the resources (monetary and otherwise) of the Engineering Society were and continue to be well-spent on a professional publication.
In the five years that The Iron Warrior co-existed with Enginews, the Engineering Society supported both publications, but as the latter started to fall out of favour with most, the former began to win praise from students, faculty, the University, and even Deans of Engineering at other schools. While Enginews was cutting back its distribution, The Iron Warrior began distributing copies to other faculties’ buildings. In 1983-84, it even began to receive attention from Imprint, UW’s official student newspaper. Nathan Rudyk, an Imprint staff member and Arts student, wrote a letter to the editors of The Iron Warrior, the President of Engineering Society “B” and the editor of Imprint. The letter shows what a refreshing impact the publication had at the time, and how it radically changed the way people thought of the students in this faculty:
Reviewing the archives of The Iron Warrior, I want to congratulate [the staff] for a fine paper. Events, investigative reporting, and human interest stories were all of high quality and made a very vital, engaging impact as I flipped through the pages. Not once was I persuaded to think engineers are assholes as I frequently have been by other student engineering publications . . .
It was this standard which was set almost 30 years ago that The Iron Warrior has tried to maintain over the years. Copies of the newspaper are distributed to many buildings on campus (though circulation is only 2000 due to the paper’s limited financial resources) and sent to engineering societies and Deans of Engineering at other schools, and other persons of interest. The Waterloo Engineering Society seldom receives publications from other engineering societies, it may be because most other schools’ engineering society publications are either in the satirical mold, or not relevant enough to warrant distribution beyond their own student population.
It is for this very reason that The Iron Warrior, which was another innovative Waterloo idea, is unique and stands out among its peers. The fact that each year sixteen full-length issues of a newspaper can be produced with a miniscule budget and fully volunteer staff speaks volumes about Waterloo Engineering, and gives students, faculty, and staff alike something to be proud of.
As you leaf through The Iron Warrior archives, you realize that there are some traditions that just don’t die for generation after generation – and at the University of Waterloo, a quality Engineering student newspaper is one of them.