Integrating Indigenous knowledge into all McMaster faculties would open opportunities for moving beyond symbolic gestures of reconciliation
Education is a necessary component of reconciliation, which cannot be achieved without acknowledging the uncomfortable truths about Canada's past and present actions. Education is a key call to action outlined in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report. One way to improve education is to build Indigenous knowledge into university courses and curricula.
Indigenous knowledge systems are complex bodies of wisdom and skills developed over centuries and passed down through generations. Unlike Western knowledge, where humans sit at the centre, Indigenous knowledge considers everything in the natural world to be an essential part of an interconnected whole.
Integrating Indigenous knowledge into every faculty and department at McMaster would open new opportunities to learn things through traditional perspectives. Shifting beyond only discussing reconciliation to taking real action would also help students learn lessons about colonialism, residential schools, intergenerational trauma, and Indigenous resurgence among many other topics.
Dawn Martin-Hill, the chair of McMaster's Indigenous Education Council and a Mohawk of the Wolf Clan, spoke about how the integration of Indigenous studies could be realized at McMaster.
“The university students that I teach are incredibly enthusiastic, but they just want this information, especially the environmental students and the natural science students. I get frustrated because we could conquer the world if we actually had a path to work together,” said Martin-Hill.
The university students that I teach are incredibly enthusiastic, but they just want this information, especially the environmental students and the natural science students. I get frustrated because we could conquer the world if we actually had a path to work together.
Dawn Martin-Hill, chair, McMaster's Indigenous Education Council
Currently there are two significant barriers to the distribution of Indigenous information.
First, because students pay for their education, they may not support the integration of Indigenous studies if they don't think it will be relevant to their degree. However, learning about Indigenous ways of life is a moral obligation to remedy our relationships with those native to Canadian lands. And, Indigenous knowledge is applicable to all subjects within both the sciences and humanities.
“I didn’t know I would love engineering so much because I liked the way they think. It’s similar to Indigenous thinking in a weird way because they just want to solve problems. They want to execute things in a way that is efficient,” explained Martin-Hill.
The second barrier is a more structural one that Martin-Hill has been working to resolve for many years. Indigenous peoples are relied upon to lead the integration of their knowledge into university curricula, but there are not yet enough academics available to do this work at McMaster.
“It’s a lack of human resources because we were in residential schools and not in mainstream schools. There’s a lot of reasons why they’re just now populating these spaces,” said Martin-Hill.
Martin-Hill expressed that students have the power to make demands to resolve these barriers. McMaster is depriving students of opportunities to learn about the land they study on and the locally based Indigenous ways of knowing.
“Students have a lot of agency and authority and what frustrates me is I feel like they don’t know. They could change this space in a minute if they just got together, mobilized, and said, ‘Look, we demand. We want this information. Why is it not being given to us?’” concluded Martin-Hill
Students have a lot of agency and authority and what frustrates me is I feel like they don’t know. They could change this space in a minute if they just got together, mobilized, and said, ‘Look, we demand. We want this information. Why is it not being given to us?'
Dawn Martin-Hill, chair, McMaster's Indigenous Education Council
In the face of contemporary issues like the climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a lot to be learned from Indigenous peoples. Although they make up about five per cent of the global population Indigenous peoples protect 80 per cent of the Earth's biodiversity. Their knowledge and work plays a critical role in the maintenance of a healthy planet.
To learn more about Indigenous knowledge, McMaster's Indigenous Health Learning Lodge is facilitating a series of lectures called Sharing Notable Indigenous Pedagogy & and Education. The SNIPE lectures are all about Indigenous ways of thinking in relation to interdisciplinary subjects. The first lecture in the series, covering how Indigenous knowledge can mitigate health and wellbeing, was hosted Wednesday, November 15. The date for the next lecture has yet to be determined, but more information can be found on their website.
How tenures detrimentally impact the student body’s satisfaction with their education
C/O Erol Ahmed
Imagine this: you just finished a gruelling midterm. Every part of you is sweating and it is taking every ounce of energy in you not to cry. Instead, you pool your remaining bodily resources in order to absorb the shock of what just happened.
You slug past the next couple of hours as you wait for the (inevitable) fury of students rushing towards the Mac subreddit to vent away their frustrations while folks in similar positions give their sympathies. You are an audience member to that subreddit and you wonder to yourself: how on Earth is *insert professor* employed?
For many new students in a challenging university like McMaster University, this thought surely has crossed students’ minds plenty of times with each evaluation season. Once you’ve been in the education system too long, it is easy to get desensitized towards just how odd this phenomenon is in post-secondary learning.
Despite the countless negative student evaluations and scathing Rate My Professor reviews, why does it appear that many faculty members appear to evade any consequences? After all, is it not the case everywhere else that if you do a bad job then you are bound to face the consequences?
Despite the countless negative student evaluations and scathing Rate My Professor reviews, why does it appear that many faculty members appear to evade any consequences?
One word: tenure.
It took me a while to really understand the concept. Essentially, tenures are the ultimate mode of job security an educational institution can possibly offer to its professors and is a process by which an academician can become a permanent faculty member of an institution without fear of reprisal due to their academic interests.
Since tenures are highly sought after, an academician must undergo a gruelling process to prove their worthiness and demonstrate why they deserve tenure to a larger committee.
Although being tenured may be an ideal position for an academic intellectual who has dedicated their life to pursuing a field of study, I strongly believe that the way tenure stands now serves to greatly disservice the student body.
While I am absolutely in favour of hardworking professors reaping the fruits of their labour and enriching our universities with their expertise, tenure can definitely be done in a manner that protects the professors from unjust treatment without compromising on taking student critique seriously.
While I am absolutely in favour of hardworking professors reaping the fruits of their labour and enriching our universities with their expertise, tenure can definitely be done in a manner that protects the professors from unjust treatment without compromising on taking student critique seriously.
I believe that addressing student opinion surrounding a faculty member should be done promptly and in a manner that makes student voices heard is the best way to change our places of learning for the better.
It is too often that students internalize the hopeless, long processes required to bring any matter to attention and instead bicker among themselves until there is a negative stigma around specific faculty members, departments and courses.
Tenures indirectly allow student criticism to increase and grow more and more severe against particulars of an institution throughout the years. This fosters an incredibly negative student opinion of certain faculties, which in turn allows for students’ perceptions of the reputation of the department and its members to supersede their passion for the subject.
If universities want to remain relevant as legitimate institutions of learning, we have a collective responsibility to change the culture of silencing student criticisms and adopting a student-first approach. It is students who drive it forward and if we wish to make progress in student satisfaction, it must start with a strong reevaluation of the outdated tenure system.
By: Eden Wondmeneh
Faculty representatives and Maroons can shape incoming students’ initial impression of the McMaster University community. They guide us through Welcome Week and are meant to play the role of mentor and role model.
A few days into Welcome Week, new students grow accustomed to the vibrant suits and are well-aware of the colour distinctions of each faculty. Suddenly the suit, which at first glance may appear as a horrendous fashion statement, is at the top of many first-year students’ wish lists.
For some students who hope to mentor and inspire incoming students, becoming a faculty representative during Welcome Week is not feasible.
Even if they do make it through the competitive application process, they are unable to participate due to representative fees that candidates are not made aware of at any point during the application process.
On Jan. 22, a call was released on the DeGroote Commerce Society Facebook page for 2019 business faculty representatives. Applications were due by Feb. 1, with prospective green suits contacted for interviews.
The role requires faculty representatives to attend two training sessions prior to summer break and another session the week prior to Welcome Week. Green suits are also highly encouraged to participate in May at Mac and Shine-o-rama, both orientation events running during the summer break.
Despite the large time commitment and the cost of the $60 green suit itself, students who made it through the application process and ultimately became a green suit, were immensely excited about the experience to come.
This excitement, however, was soured with the introduction of a representative fee of over a hundred dollars that was not advertised at any point during the application process.
The representative fee is a confusing, hidden fee that prospective and new faculty representatives are appalled by. The fee is estimated to be around $120.00, but with the McMaster Students Union funding cuts, new representatives expect this to be a low-ball estimate and have yet to be informed of the final cost.
This cost is said to cover training, food and participation in Welcome Week. This contribution to Welcome Week especially annoys students who never signed up to subsidize part of Welcome Week that as first-year students we already paid a mandatory $120.98 First-Year Orientation levy for.
For business students fees to join clubs specific to their faculty is not uncommon. Most clubs require students to pay a small fee for registration.
However, in the case of the representative fee that impacts all faculty reps, the fee is substantial, and no one made them aware of the fee prior to joining. With a lack of discussion of financial support, some students are genuinely happy they didn’t make the cut.
It is simply unfair for students who underwent the incredibly extensive process to become a faculty representative to be cut from the position because of an inability to pay for the high fees.
The faculty representative fee ensures that those who are willing and chosen to volunteer their time to enrich and support incoming students secure their spot by coughing up money.
If this is the inequitable model the green suits and other faculty society representatives decide to rely on, then they should at least be transparent to their applicants.
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McMaster University is currently taking its second employment equity census to evaluate the diversity of McMaster’s staff and faculty.
The voluntary census is open to all McMaster employees and identifies the representation of five target groups: women, visible minorities, persons with disabilities, Indigenous peoples and LGBTQA2S+ employees.
The census comes three years after the first census, which was taken in 2016 and produced the first employment equity report and led to the development of McMaster’s employment equity framework.
According to the report from the 2016 census, 43.07 per cent of all McMaster staff and faculty participated. Of that 43 per cent, only 2.12 per cent across the institution self-identified as part of the LGBTQA2S+ community.
In a number of high participation-rates groups, less than two per cent per cent identified as Aboriginal, 10.18 per cent indicated they were members of visible minority groups and less than four per cent indicated that they had a disability.
61.93 per cent identified as women.
According to the report, the representation of women was above representation in the overall Canadian labour force statistics, while internal representation of Indigenous individuals and individuals with disabilities fell below them.
The visible minority representation was far below external representation.
One recommendation from the first census was that McMaster form an employment equity implementation team to promote the employment equity framework.
Since 2017, May-Marie Duwai-Sowa, the university’s employment equity specialist, has been working closely with Arig al Shaibah, the associate vice president (Equity and Inclusion), to improve McMaster’s employment equity.
According to Duwai-Sowa, over a thousand faculty members, chairs and directors have undergone training for equitable hiring and recruitment practices. The EEIT will also run Indigenous cultural competency training for many McMaster employees on March 8.
One pilot project that has been implemented by the EEIT is a self-ID survey for interviews within certain faculties, where applicants were asked to identify their background.
“If you have candidates from diverse backgrounds that meet the requirements, there should be no reason why they should not make your long or short list,” Duwai-Sowa said. “The focus is still obviously hiring excellent candidates that meet the bar of excellence and meet the requirements that are in the posting.”
Duwai-Sowa also pointed to McMaster’s efforts to reach applicants from different backgrounds. For example, McMaster is ensuring its jobs are posted on Indigenous Link, a website to help Indigenous communities find employment.
“It is really about making sure our workforce is diverse now so we are meeting the needs of our students because our student population is also diverse,” Duwai-Sowa said.
One key recommendation from the 2016 report yet to be implemented is a systems-wide review of current hiring and retention practices and policies. This is expected to begin soon and be released by the end of 2019.
Noticeably absent from both the 2016 report and the upcoming 2019 employment census is race-specific data.
Many major Canadian universities still do not collect data on the race of their faculty and students.
“We are currently working on incorporating disaggregate breakdowns of radicalized groups and Indigenous peoples for both the employee census, applicant self- ID survey and student self ID survey, which is planned to be initiated this fall,” said Duwai-Sowa.
The equity and inclusion team is hoping to release the results of this year’s employment census in the upcoming fall.
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By: Kashyap Patel
The safety and wellbeing of the student population should be the top priority of any respectable university. On Jan. 29, McMaster University chose to prioritize profits over the safety of their students.
Despite heavy snowfall and icy conditions, McMaster remained open because “crews [had] spent the night clearing snow and cleaning walkways.” The university simply advised their students to take care when travelling to campus.
Crews have spent the night clearing snow and cleaning walkways. The University will open for classes this morning and all events and activities will take place as scheduled. Please take care travelling to campus.
— McMaster University (@McMasterU) January 29, 2019
McMaster’s Storm Emergency policy states that the university will be closed “when severe weather poses a danger to students, staff and faculty while on campus or if the weather would prevent large numbers of them from coming to campus or returning safely to their homes.”
For students living on-campus, the inclement weather did not pose as serious of a concern. However, for students and staff who live off-campus and commute, this decision put their safety at risk as roads and pathways leading to the campus were not adequately cleared.
In the opinion of many students on social media, the cancellation of classes should have been deemed a necessity. Students used the closure of the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board schools, which are located in the same area as McMaster, to support their views.
Due to the inclement weather, all schools and administrative buildings are closed and transportation is cancelled today, Jan 29. All exams scheduled for today will be written tomorrow, Jan 30.
Enjoy the snow day! ❄️ pic.twitter.com/WpmHYJnFAD
— HWDSB (@HWDSB) January 29, 2019
Many students could not make it to campus due to Go bus cancellations and delays. The university clearly overlooked these legitimate concerns despite the potential negative impacts on students’ academic standings.
This incident begs the question: does McMaster value profits over the safety of its students? Given this instance, I believe the answer is yes. This decision was careless and irresponsible considering that most students attending McMaster either commute or live off-campus. These severe weather conditions also made it impossible for students using accessibility devices to safely reach campus.
Furthermore, many students that braved the conditions and commuted to campus found out that their instructors had cancelled their classes. The lack of coordination between the university and its faculty led to students unnecessarily putting their safety at risk.
Students also pointed out that several walkways on-campus were not cleared even though the university claimed otherwise. McMaster should be more truthful about the statements they disseminate to the public. Students use this information to make decisions about their commute and how they navigate the campus in a safe manner.
https://twitter.com/obeng_lily/status/1090300759802109952
It is difficult to pinpoint what sources of information the university used to inform their decision. The weather forecast predicted a snow storm at approximately 4 p.m. the day prior. The local facilities in Hamilton such as the YMCA and public libraries were also closing for the day. Buses and trains were also delayed or canceled in several locations throughout the southern Ontario area.
McMaster University should take a multi-faceted approach when making weather-related closure decisions. Transportation, safety and the effectiveness of the clearing crew needs to be evaluated before making a decision that can impact the safety of thousands.
Student safety should be of paramount importance to educational institutions. There seems to be a disconnect between McMaster and its students regarding the implementation of the inclement weather policy.
McMaster should re-evaluate the actions it took on Jan. 29 and learn from this incident. Students need to know that their safety is valued and plays a key role in the decision-making processes of their university.
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By: Natalie Clark
The definition of “Thrive” is most simply put as “to progress toward or realize a goal despite or because of circumstances.” This definition embodies the true meaning of McMaster’s first ever Thrive Week, beginning Feb. 4.
Thrive Week is a week-long series of events focusing on improving and maintaining good mental health of students, staff and faculty on campus.
Events include yoga, Zumba, meditation circles, stress management workshops and various panels for students to get information on a variety of topics such as career planning and suicide awareness.
Although Thrive Week is new to McMaster, the wellness event has been a part of many schools around Canada for the past 10 years.
“Thrive began at [University of British Columbia] in 2009 and since then, a number of Canadian colleges and universities have adopted the spirit of Thrive,” mentioned McMaster wellness educator, WilPrakash Fujarczuk.
“The wellness education team decided to join these schools for a number of reasons… one reason is to connect students to pre-existing services on campus… we know that there are a number of departments that promote mental wellness in ways that may not be so obvious,” said Fujarczuk.
Fujarczuk mentions “Sketching Thursdays” at the McMaster Museum of Art, which is a weekly event that allows students to distance themselves from their devices and work on mindfulness and creative expression.
Thrive Week is intended to promote events similar to “Sketching Thursdays” on campus and add additional resources and events throughout Thrive Week for students to participate in to further their mental health journey.
“Thrive is also an opportunity to bring in community partners to showcase the valuable expertise that Hamilton community resources have to offer,” mentioned Fujarczuk.
Some of the community partners that are taking part in Thrive Week at McMaster include Healing Together Yoga, The AIDS Network and Asian Community AIDS Services.
Body Brave, another Hamilton-based organization, will also be taking part in the event to introduce students and staff to their off campus support system. Body Brave’s main purpose is to address the major gaps in resources for eating disorders, raise awareness and reduce the stigma around eating disorders, particularly with those who are over the age of 18.
Kelsea McCready, a McMaster student who holds the position of secretary on the board of directors at Body Brave, mentions the barriers that individuals may face when struggling with an eating disorder and are looking for help.
“Programs within Ontario as a whole have a limited capacity which means that many individuals who are struggling are left on long waitlists without any kind of specialized support,” mentioned McCready.
McCready notes that although Body Brave is not a direct replacement for professional specialized support for eating disorders, the organization offers a variety of affordable treatment programs such as workshops, individual treatment and support groups.
“It is a priority for Body Brave to engage more with the McMaster community as an off-campus support in addition to on-campus services,” said McCready.
Body Brave’s involvement in Thrive Week is important for those who may be suffering from an eating disorder and are wary to seek out support. Thrive Week introduces programs and organizations to the McMaster campus that are similar to Body Brave in order to make these services more accessible to students.
“Given that it’s our first year running Thrive, we are hoping to use it as an opportunity to evaluate programs and build on for future years,” said Fujarczuk.
While Thrive events will only be taking place for a week, the path towards bettering the mental health of the McMaster community needs to be addressed and explored on a consistent basis. Thrive Week is the first step towards shedding light on the services available on-campus and in the community.
Thrive Week will be running on campus from Feb. 4 to Feb. 9. More information about the event can be found on the Student Wellness Centre’s website, which includes the Thrive Week schedule and other mental health resources found year-round on campus.
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By: Justin Temple
Waiting for final grades to be posted is a terrible experience defined by an abundance of anxiety coupled with the constant refreshing of Mosaic. Usually, this biannual waiting game ends before the new year for fall term grades and before the beginning of May for winter term. At that point, the "grade anxiety" faced by so many students, myself included, has subdued.
This time around, however, I am still waiting on a final grade nearly two months after the course ended. A situation like this should never occur at McMaster University and needs to be addressed by mandating grade submission deadlines for course instructors.
Such a mandate is not without precedent. Carleton University requires that instructors submit their final grades within 10 calendar days of the course's final exam. The University of Western Ontario grants instructors even less time, requiring submission of final grades within a week of the final exam.
Besides Carleton and Western, the University of Regina, the University of Victoria, the University of Windsor and Ryerson University are other postsecondary institutions which have implemented grade submission deadlines for instructors. It is evidently not a new idea.
Despite this, McMaster currently has no policy that requires instructors to submit final grades by a specific deadline. This is beyond an inconvenience and only serves to complicate students’ lives.
For example, should an instructor fail to submit marks by the drop-and-add deadline for a prerequisite course, students' registration in a secondary course may be thrown into limbo.
Simultaneously, students planning on taking a second course based on their performance in the prerequisite class are withheld critical information that would likely dictate their decision to take the second course or not.
Even more alarming, a long delay in the submission of final grades can create a negative impact for students eyeing graduate studies. Given that grades are required to be reported to an applicant's desired graduate school as early as late December, an instructor sitting on their hands can put prospective graduate students in a completely unnecessary pinch.
With so much riding on those applications, McMaster is doing a disservice to its students by failing to force accountability onto its faculty.
Moreover, McMaster’s mission to promote health and wellness amongst its students could be furthered by mandating a grade submission deadline. As the time between when a student finishes a course and subsequently receives their final grade is variable and can last for weeks in length, existing academic anxiety is worsened.
A mark deadline could quell some of the existing anxiety by limiting the amount of time students spend worrying about marks they have yet to receive. Additionally, a grading deadline would provide students with a much more concrete timeframe to expect their marks, limiting any anxiety derived from the uncertainty of when grades will be uploaded.
As students, we should not have to deal with the mental and bureaucratic turmoil created from the inability of instructors to submit our marks promptly. Such issues could easily be averted by requiring instructors to provide their final marks by a specified date. Besides, as instructors demand us to submit our assignments on time, is it not time that they get a taste of their own medicine?
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By: Jordan Graber
There tends to be a certain amount of stereotyped differences between the two programs, which seem to exist in the shadow of science, technology, engineering and math programs. This creates issues with equal representation for programs at McMaster and career opportunities for students’ experiential development. STEM faculties seem to gather more attention and interest than their artistic counterparts.
As a humanities student, whenever I get the question, “What kind of job can you get with that?”, it is upsetting to have to repeat the same response. This question might be a product of the perceived levels of difficulty within different programs which seems to define the kinds of people who might reside in each program. However, it is this exact perception that creates minimal representation for students who are not STEM majors.
Humanities programs are often perceived to be “easier” than STEM programs and are given less respect in terms of faculty representation on campus.
In no way am I trying to discriminate against the STEM faculties, as these programs lead to important careers that will create a change in society. However, other faculties deserve to be commended for their dedication to careers that are not valued as much as others.
Ultimately, it is not for others to decide which faculty or program will define one’s personal enjoyment or success. Discrimination amongst majors is a growing problem and needs to be addressed, as it essentially degrades one’s expectations of the future.
This is an issue in many universities and this trope has been adopted somewhat unanimously. While the STEM programs are extremely important to the progression of society, there is also equal importance in the majors associated with the arts. Despite this knowledge, there continues to be the association that one is inferior to the other. This assumption makes things more difficult for students in humanities, social science or related faculties, especially considering that we are just starting out and have a fraction of a clue of what we’re doing.
Ultimately, it is not for others to decide which faculty or program will define one's personal enjoyment or success.
The stereotype that discusses the differences between faculties does tend to be displayed through college and university events such as career fairs, as shown in the one that was held last week. On Feb. 1, Mac participated in another career fair for students looking to find opportunities to gain career-oriented experience. The fair was meant to provide opportunities for all interest and all needs, including internships, co-ops, summer positions, part-time positions and even full-time opportunities. This was meant to give students insight to where their degrees would take them in the future, as well as open doors to finding career related work experience in Hamilton. However, upon attendance, it seemed that most of the companies that attended were STEM-related, unless you are a post-grad who is looking to teach in Taiwan. As a student in humanities, I find that the lack of equitable faculty representation to be rather unfair.
As one of the main outlets to find jobs during the summer break, it should be ensured that these career events hold a diverse number of options for all faculties to ensure that students are proud of whatever program they choose to represent.
As this career fair was not a faculty specific one as some faculties have, equitable representation and opportunities were expected. Though the Student Success Centre attempts to provide work-related opportunities for all students, McMaster needs to do better in making all programs feel equipped for the future and valued as students.
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The Canadian Union of Public Employees 3906, the union representing McMaster employees, will hold a strike vote from Oct. 24 to Oct. 26 for all unit two workers, which is comprised of sessional faculty.
A strike vote does not guarantee a strike, but gives the union the blessing to potentially call a strike at later time.
Sessional faculty have had discussions with administration since July. They are mainly concerned with improving job security for sessional faculty.
For more information, visit the CUPE 3906 website.
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After multiple delays and high anticipation, the multi-million dollar Gerald Hatch Centre for Engineering Experiential Learning is almost complete. With the referendum by the faculty’s students years ago to raise money for the new space, it only grew in function and scope as interest and funding increased for this central hub of student-focused experiential learning initiatives.
The building is separated with each floor serving a particular function. The basement and penthouse serve as a separately funded space on sustainable energy.
Despite dedicated sections, Dr. Ishwar Puri, Dean of Engineering, mentioned the importance of sustainability throughout the building and the priority towards it.
“It’s not only a building that was designed with sustainability in mind, but it was also designed as a living laboratory because there will be panels and other readouts that will be accessible to students so that they will actually be able to see how sustainability works in a technical sense.”
The first floor, known as the build floor, will be primarily focused on workshops and a large build space for clubs and teams to work on large format projects in addition to housing the David Wilkinson Lounge and the relocation of The Drain, a store run by the McMaster Engineering Society.
The second floor, known as the meet floor, will feature the offices for the MES, clubs and teams in addition to meeting rooms and an open social space called The Junction.
The third floor, known as the support floor, will feature academic counseling, Engineering Co-op and Career Services and a collaborative learning room.
“It’s a recognition that no one discipline will solve the problems of the world. The world creates issues, problems and requires solutions. Engineers, by themselves, are not going to solve all of the world’s problems. They will need to work with others.”
Dr. Ishwar Puri
Dean of Engineering
Despite these functions that would be more commonly associated with engineering students, one of the things that Puri hopes is achieved with the new space is increased integration between the faculty and other disciplines around campus.
“When we build these spaces, we expect them to be collision spaces. It’s an extension of our philosophy — how we built a collision space outside of the John Hodgins Engineering Building, the lobby of the engineering building. You don’t have to have an engineering student ID to be there.”
These collision spaces have the benefit of allowing additional faculties to use the area in a way that benefits both non-engineering students and engineering students.
“It’s a recognition that no one discipline will solve the problems of the world. The world creates issues, problems and requires solutions. Engineers, by themselves, are not going to solve all of the world’s problems. They will need to work with others,” said Puri.
One of the other indirect benefits of the building was the student feedback on the project. With the previously mentioned referendum and funds put by students towards the building, they continue to have a large deal of influence when it comes to the building’s function and design.
Puri considers them to be equal stakeholders. This student feedback and influence allowed them to work through a large-scale project, have the ability to receive the benefits and make difficult choices along the way, which is an experience that cannot be understated.
“Not all of the faculties’ suggestions were incorporated into the final design, and not all of the students’ because you have a wish list, but once you have a wish list, then you have to prioritize. … It’s very easy to put in. It’s very painful to take out,” said Puri.
He also mentioned that he reminds all of his staff workers and faculty members that it is all about the students. Their feedback, experience and learning are always the top priority for the faculty and will continue to be a top priority.
One of the issues that has come with this, however, is the demand for space in the building.
“We now realize that, because there is such a strong culture for experiential learning and just the example of the building encouraged others to form clubs, teams and extracurricular experiential learning opportunities, the number of requests the MES is getting for occupancy far exceeds the capacity of the building. What we need is another Hatch centre.”
Moving forward, these priorities on sustainability, collision spaces and students will continue to be important for Puri and the rest of the faculty. The hope is that the centre will be fully completed by the time students arrive in September.
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