Between the purple shirts, inspiring seminar and conversation, and fun summer barbeque, Waterloo engineering deserves a hand for showing its Women in Engineering (WiE) pride. June 25-29 marked UW’s unofficial Women in Engineering week, where successful women were celebrated and Waterloo engineering enthusiasm was shared between all genders.
As one of EngSoc’s WiE directors this term, I can say that I’m pleased at what positive reception WiE events have on campus. Based on feedback from previous WiE awareness efforts, we have tried to make this year’s WiE events open to a wider audience, including males and females, graduate and undergraduate students. We also tried to reach more students with a whole week of activities in different locations in the engineering buildings.
The week began with unisex t-shirt and bandana sales, which looked great on guys too. Although some guys were hesitant about wearing a ‘”women in engineering” t-shirt, they realized that the shirt’s message “This is what a Waterloo Engineer looks like” is about removing labels and embracing our diversity, not about promoting one thing over another. Breaking down stereotypes is a major objective of WiE, and where you find gender discrimination, you also find other forms of discrimination. Thank you to everyone who wore the purple t-shirts during WiE week, but especially to the guys because they were so open-minded and weren’t afraid to support our cause.
We also had a fabulous turnout to hear Diane Freeman, P. Eng, talk about her vision of the “Renaissance Engineer”. Diane has thus far had a remarkable career after graduating as a Waterloo civil engineer, working for Conestoga Rovers, being president of PEO, and being a Waterloo City Councillor. Her talk was about how engineers need to consider how best their work can help all people of a community, not just solve the problem that was put in front of them. Her leadership experience and interesting local case studies made for a very inspiring talk with lots of follow-up discussion. Diane spoke to a packed room and it was great to see a mix of undergrads, grads, and professors in the audience.
Anyone who visited our table in CPH or E5 would have also seen some bios of the many successful female engineering faculty members. There were also 2010 UW female engineering enrollments statistics that caught some people by surprise (hint: chem eng does NOT have the most females and comp eng does NOT have the fewest). Many passersby took the time to enter our WiE Trivia Challenge and learned cool facts. For example, Grace Hopper was the inventor of the COBOL programming language, and that Pearl Sullivan is UW’s first female dean of engineering. Genius Bowl participants would have known all of this already from this term’s WiE trivia round!
One fact I feel is particularly important is that female enrollment in Canadian undergraduate engineering programs is actually trending downwards from its peak of 20.7% in 2001. With all of the positivity surrounding WiE Week and success of WiE’s community outreach to Girl Guides and high school girls, it would surprise some to hear that still, a remarkably small amount of young females are considering becoming engineers. Many women still face workplace gender barriers and are limited by occupational and gender stereotypes. This is echoed in workplace studies, statistics, and in personal stories shared at past WiE discussion forums. This is why it is important to have awareness events and generate open and critical minds. More engineers need the sensitivity to identify discrimination and the courage to stand against it.
WiE Week was the product of undergraduate and graduate WiE collaboration, so a new event WiE tried this year was a graduate-undergraduate student meet and greet. Participants were from all types of engineering from nanotechnology to mechanical and more. The idea was to foster mentorship and allow students to ask questions about future career interests. Professors were also there and bubble tea was sold to beat the heat and create a casual environment.
The week ended with a barbeque where lots of people lined up for delicious food, WiE stickers, and more purple t-shirts. Dean Sedra dropped by to chat during his last day on the job and there was a constant line of customers. It was impressive how many editions of WiE t-shirts I saw throughout the week (gotta catch ‘em all) and I hope to see them on a regular basis! Overall, WiE week had a great turnout. It could not have been possible without our dedicated volunteers and WiE supporters who came out.
What’s next for WiE? Your directors would love your ideas for new events and promotional tools. Your feedback about how we can improve on those things is extremely valuable! We are working on a brand new blog to spark discussion about women in technical fields, plus a web page with useful links and info about WiE at UW. We are always looking for new volunteers for these projects, so give us a shout at av2lee or egruber@uwaterloo.ca. Stay tuned for future WiE events, like our UW Women in Engineering facebook page, and thanks for a great WiE Week!
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