Hello and welcome from your Waterloo Engineering Endowment Foundation (WEEF) Directors! Congratulations on making a great choice and joining the incredible tradition of Engineering at the University of Waterloo! In your time here, you will meet fantastic people, learn from cutting-edge professors and become some of the most coveted graduates in Canada! You will also be taking classes with the best and brightest students that Canada has to offer (including you!).
Waterloo prides itself on innovation and resourcefulness, and a prime example of this attitude came in 1990 when a group of Waterloo students created WEEF. They were frustrated with aging lab equipment and a lack of support for student teams and departmental upgrades so they decided to do something about it! The fund started out with $1 million and has since grown to nearly $10 million, making it the largest student-run endowment fund in the world! Every term, WEEF takes approximately $60,000 of interest earned on this principal and puts it towards enhancing the Engineering Undergraduate experience. Each term, the Funding Council, made up of elected representatives from each class, evaluates proposals and determines where the WEEF funding will have the most impact.
In a few days, most of you will be introduced to the WEEF lab in Carl Pollock Hall. While this lab is the most obvious example of WEEF’s contribution to first years, WEEF is proud to have funded many students teams like Midnight Sun Solar Race Team and Clean Snowmobile and helped purchase 3D printers and distillation columns for various departments. WEEF also made a donation of $1 million for the Student Design Centre in the Engineering 5 building. As of WEEF’s 20th birthday in 2010, WEEF has contributed a total of $4,365,883 to Engineering Undergraduates.
So now, it’s time to get involved. If you think that you would like to help manage part of $10 million by deciding who and what gets funding, then you should run in your class election for WEEF Representative. If the WEEF Rep position isn’t for you, but you see somewhere WEEF can make UW Engineering better, then submit a proposal for funding and get it fixed! Wondering how? Check out www.weef.uwaterloo.ca or email us atweef@eng.uwaterloo.ca.
Cheers,
Laurin and Brock
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