Engineering to establish Diversity Outreach Award
Engineering News | January 3, 2012
By Heather Travis
Two Western Engineering faculty and staff members aim to revive a student award that lapsed in 2008 – formally known as the Montreal Memorial Award – with a goal of honouring students committed to improving diversity and inclusiveness in the Western Engineering community.
The idea for the newly established Western Engineering Diversity Outreach Award was based on the Montreal Memorial Award, which was awarded from 1990 to 2008. The Montreal Memorial Award was supported by the Women’s Caucus at Western and was awarded to a female student in the Faculty of Engineering who demonstrated academic excellence in her second year of study. The award was named in honour of the 14 women who were killed at Montreal's École Polytechnique in 1989.
The award lapsed in 2008 and Jan Shepherd McKee, Undergraduate Services associate director, and Michael Bartlett, Civil and Environmental Engineering professor at Western, teamed up to ensure the historical link was not broken.
“We agreed that it would be appropriate to move forward by recognizing a Western Engineering student, female or male, who had made positive contributions to improving the diversity and inclusiveness of the Western Engineering community,” Bartlett says. “Western Engineering students do a lot of extracurricular outreach initiatives … to make groups that are traditionally not well represented in our student cohort more aware of the opportunities offered by a career in engineering.
“These are extremely positive and valuable initiatives that deserve recognition.”
The Western Engineering Diversity Outreach Award will be awarded to a full-time student in third- or fourth-year of any program in Western Engineering, who has an academic standing of 80 per cent or better, and demonstrates a commitment to improving the diversity and inclusiveness of the Western Engineering community.
The recipient will be selected by the Engineering Awards Committee in the Faculty of Engineering. The goal is to establish the award in perpetuity. If fundraising is successful, the first award of $1,000 would be granted at Western Engineering’s Fall Awards Ceremony in 2012.
“Engineers are sometimes seen as being technically focused and so their potential contributions to society are overlooked,” Bartlett says. “To address the current challenges on our planet (global warming, growing population, resource depletion), technically-based solutions are necessary. But, individuals who are committed to improving diversity and inclusiveness will be the most successful in leading the implementation of these solutions.”
In order to become successful leaders in society, Western Engineering students must show a strong commitment to improving diversity and inclusiveness, he adds. Knowledge of technology will no longer be sufficient.
Those interested in contributing to the Western Engineering Diversity Outreach Award should contact Virginia Daugharty at 519-661-4209 ext. 84209 or e-mail vdaughar@uwo.ca for more information.
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Contact
.: Allison Stevenson
Spencer Engineering Building, Room 2074
T: .519.850.2917
F: 519.661.3808
contactwe@eng.uwo.ca
