And I’m not talking about the large ship (see reference: Anchorman, 2004). This past weekend I attended the Annual General Meeting of the Engineering Student Societies’ Council of Ontario, henceforth referred to as the “ESSCO AGM”. The conference content focuses on governance of ESSCO, as well as hosting sessions to develop the Engineering Societies of various universities across Ontario.
Though there was a vast array of sessions being offered, one of the sessions that I particularly enjoyed was a session about “EngSoc Image”. This session was essentially focused on how Engineering Societies can improve their events, services, representation and general runnings in an effort to create a more positive atmosphere for their members, the engineering students in Ontario.
Though there were many great ideas being discussed in the session. The thing that caught my attention was the consistency in opinion, from school to school, that EngSocs cater to a homogenous group of people, whose personality traits are often described as outgoing and socially focused. Although those students exist at every school, many people identified a lack of participation from a large subset of their students who do not identify with this personality.
I was definitely impressed to discover that Waterloo’s EngSocs were doing a lot more than other EngSocs to combat this problem. Our executive and directors seems to have already identified a need for a culture shift in this direction, and have broadened our events and services to try and cater to a wider variety of personalities.
This doesn’t mean that the traditions and services we already offer need to change. It just means that we need to refocus our efforts on starting initiatives. This is where we need your help. If you have any feedback about how we can better serve a more diverse student population, contact us. If you would like to run an event or service that benefits a group of students not currently represented, contact us and we can help provide resources and guidance.
Leave a Reply