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For the victims of 1990 Ecole Polytechnique shooting of 14 women students. I remember the day the I heard the news on radio, shocking and sad. 
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Walking tall in the footsteps of a tragedy
Industrial engineer student Julie Savage-Fournier reflects on the memorial at Ecole Polytechnique.
Photo: Christinne Muschi/ The Globe and Mail
Industrial engineer student Julie Savage-Fournier reflects on the memorial at Ecole Polytechnique.
By INGRID PERITZ and CAROLINE ALPHONSO
From Monday's Globe and Mail
UPDATED AT 2:47 AM EST Monday, Dec 6, 2004
Advertisement
Montreal and Toronto ― Julie Savage-Fournier recalls the day when she was nine years old and heard the radio news reports about the shooting of 14 female engineering students in Montreal. Her most vivid memory was that of her mother, herself an engineer, with a devastated look on her face.
Ms. Savage-Fournier doesn't know if her determination to break into Canada's hard-hat fraternity began on that convulsive day, 15 years ago today. But these days, when she strides through the hallways of the École Polytechnique, she knows she walks in the footsteps of 14 women who were very much like her.
After the shootings on Dec. 6, 1989, Ms. Savage-Fournier's mother began to wear a white scarf to work in honour of the 14 Polytechnique victims. They were killed by 25-year-old Marc Lépine, who entered the school with a Sturm Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic assault rifle, knives and bandoliers of ammunition, and a grudge against women.
This week, Ms. Savage-Fournier wears a white ribbon on her shirt.
"I don't want to carry the burden of the victims, because then I'd have no right to make any mistakes," said Ms. Savage-Fournier, a fourth-year industrial engineering student. "If we continue to be melancholic, it would be handing that man [Mr. Lépine] a victory.
"Still, everyone remembers them. As women, one thing hasn't changed: We still just want to be treated like everyone else."
After the shooting, universities across Canada joined together to recruit young women such as Ms. Savage-Fournier.
It was a collective rebuttal to the deranged vision of Mr. Lépine, who blamed "feminists" for his failures.
Scholarships of around $1,500 each are offered every year at the Polytechnique to 14 female entrants in memory of the ones who were killed. A chair has been created to promote the engineering profession to women. Elsewhere across the country, engineering deans have special advisers on women's issues, and officials visit high schools, run mentoring programs and host summer camps to introduce young women to what many say is a still a relatively mysterious profession in the eyes of high-school girls.
Despite the efforts, women such as Ms. Savage-Fournier remain the exception, not the rule, on engineering campuses across Canada. At a time when women have stormed traditional male academic bastions such as law and medicine, they still remain a distinct minority in engineering.
Enrolment among women in engineering programs stands at around 20 per cent, a number that has remained constant for the past few years. Some engineering schools even report a slight drop in female enrolment in the past two years, a surprising change, considering that women outnumber men in faculties of medicine and law and even on Canadian campuses over all. They make up nearly 60 per cent of the undergraduate population, according to Statistics Canada.
"I'm used to being one of only five or six girls in a class of 60 guys," Ms. Savage-Fournier said. "The guys are respectful, even protective. But I've gotten used to not wearing skirts, because it attracts too much attention."
A year after the 14 students were killed, female enrolment at the Polytechnique climbed to 25 per cent, up six percentage points from the previous year. In trying to explain the brief surge, Jacques Gervais, manager of special projects at the school, said: "I would suspect young women said: 'We will show that we can. We will not show any fear.'."
Since then, however, enrolment among women has dropped to 22 per cent.
University officials say misconceptions about engineering have slowed the closing of the gender gap.
"Female students believe that engineering is all about fixing cars or designing cars. They don't understand all the good things that engineers can do for society," said Lisa Anderson, co-ordinator of the Women in Engineering program at Ryerson University.
"It's an uphill climb against stereotypes."The recent drop in women entrants to engineering programs has left many university officials worried and even a bit puzzled. The percentage of women in the program at the University of Alberta, for example, has dropped to 19 this year, from 21 two years earlier. A similar pattern is observed at the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo.
Adel Sedra, dean of engineering at the University of Waterloo, is at a loss to explain what has happened. He has set up a task force to look at admissions, and one of its outcomes, he said, may be to cut back on the large number of prerequisites needed to enroll in the program.
"All engineering schools have been trying to attract more women simply because we're missing out on half of the population," Dr. Sedra said.
It is hoped that a new engineering course, expected to start next September, will attract more women because it combines chemical and electrical engineering with biology and physics, Dr. Sedra said. Women tend to have a stronger presence in chemical or bioengineering than in mechanical engineering.
The University of Toronto is looking at offering an engineering major with a minor in life sciences or business.
"This opening up of engineering into other disciplines, emphasizing the links between engineering and other areas of application, I think will bring more women," said Anastasios Venetsanopoulos, dean of applied science and engineering.
For the young women of Montreal's École Polytechnique, the reminders of the killings 15 years ago are inescapable. A black granite plaque on the outside of the engineering building bears each victim's name. Room B-311, where the gunman stomped down the aisle shooting women hiding between the rows of desks, is the only classroom with blue chairs instead of red ones. They were all changed, along with the desks, after the carnage.
The campus suspends all classes each Dec. 6, out of respect for those who were killed.
"We all know what happened, but it just doesn't affect me day to day," said Catherine De Blois-Villeneuve, a chemical-engineering student who was 6 when the shootings occurred. "Things have evolved since then. I don't feel inferior to anybody. I've never felt inferior because I'm a woman."
These women chose engineering because it never dawned on them that they couldn't.
Bell Globemedia
© 2004 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
***********
Walking tall in the footsteps of a tragedy
Industrial engineer student Julie Savage-Fournier reflects on the memorial at Ecole Polytechnique.
Photo: Christinne Muschi/ The Globe and Mail
Industrial engineer student Julie Savage-Fournier reflects on the memorial at Ecole Polytechnique.
By INGRID PERITZ and CAROLINE ALPHONSO
From Monday's Globe and Mail
UPDATED AT 2:47 AM EST Monday, Dec 6, 2004
Advertisement
Montreal and Toronto ― Julie Savage-Fournier recalls the day when she was nine years old and heard the radio news reports about the shooting of 14 female engineering students in Montreal. Her most vivid memory was that of her mother, herself an engineer, with a devastated look on her face.
Ms. Savage-Fournier doesn't know if her determination to break into Canada's hard-hat fraternity began on that convulsive day, 15 years ago today. But these days, when she strides through the hallways of the École Polytechnique, she knows she walks in the footsteps of 14 women who were very much like her.
After the shootings on Dec. 6, 1989, Ms. Savage-Fournier's mother began to wear a white scarf to work in honour of the 14 Polytechnique victims. They were killed by 25-year-old Marc Lépine, who entered the school with a Sturm Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic assault rifle, knives and bandoliers of ammunition, and a grudge against women.
This week, Ms. Savage-Fournier wears a white ribbon on her shirt.
"I don't want to carry the burden of the victims, because then I'd have no right to make any mistakes," said Ms. Savage-Fournier, a fourth-year industrial engineering student. "If we continue to be melancholic, it would be handing that man [Mr. Lépine] a victory.
"Still, everyone remembers them. As women, one thing hasn't changed: We still just want to be treated like everyone else."
After the shooting, universities across Canada joined together to recruit young women such as Ms. Savage-Fournier.
It was a collective rebuttal to the deranged vision of Mr. Lépine, who blamed "feminists" for his failures.
Scholarships of around $1,500 each are offered every year at the Polytechnique to 14 female entrants in memory of the ones who were killed. A chair has been created to promote the engineering profession to women. Elsewhere across the country, engineering deans have special advisers on women's issues, and officials visit high schools, run mentoring programs and host summer camps to introduce young women to what many say is a still a relatively mysterious profession in the eyes of high-school girls.
Despite the efforts, women such as Ms. Savage-Fournier remain the exception, not the rule, on engineering campuses across Canada. At a time when women have stormed traditional male academic bastions such as law and medicine, they still remain a distinct minority in engineering.
Enrolment among women in engineering programs stands at around 20 per cent, a number that has remained constant for the past few years. Some engineering schools even report a slight drop in female enrolment in the past two years, a surprising change, considering that women outnumber men in faculties of medicine and law and even on Canadian campuses over all. They make up nearly 60 per cent of the undergraduate population, according to Statistics Canada.
"I'm used to being one of only five or six girls in a class of 60 guys," Ms. Savage-Fournier said. "The guys are respectful, even protective. But I've gotten used to not wearing skirts, because it attracts too much attention."
A year after the 14 students were killed, female enrolment at the Polytechnique climbed to 25 per cent, up six percentage points from the previous year. In trying to explain the brief surge, Jacques Gervais, manager of special projects at the school, said: "I would suspect young women said: 'We will show that we can. We will not show any fear.'."
Since then, however, enrolment among women has dropped to 22 per cent.
University officials say misconceptions about engineering have slowed the closing of the gender gap.
"Female students believe that engineering is all about fixing cars or designing cars. They don't understand all the good things that engineers can do for society," said Lisa Anderson, co-ordinator of the Women in Engineering program at Ryerson University.
"It's an uphill climb against stereotypes."The recent drop in women entrants to engineering programs has left many university officials worried and even a bit puzzled. The percentage of women in the program at the University of Alberta, for example, has dropped to 19 this year, from 21 two years earlier. A similar pattern is observed at the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo.
Adel Sedra, dean of engineering at the University of Waterloo, is at a loss to explain what has happened. He has set up a task force to look at admissions, and one of its outcomes, he said, may be to cut back on the large number of prerequisites needed to enroll in the program.
"All engineering schools have been trying to attract more women simply because we're missing out on half of the population," Dr. Sedra said.
It is hoped that a new engineering course, expected to start next September, will attract more women because it combines chemical and electrical engineering with biology and physics, Dr. Sedra said. Women tend to have a stronger presence in chemical or bioengineering than in mechanical engineering.
The University of Toronto is looking at offering an engineering major with a minor in life sciences or business.
"This opening up of engineering into other disciplines, emphasizing the links between engineering and other areas of application, I think will bring more women," said Anastasios Venetsanopoulos, dean of applied science and engineering.
For the young women of Montreal's École Polytechnique, the reminders of the killings 15 years ago are inescapable. A black granite plaque on the outside of the engineering building bears each victim's name. Room B-311, where the gunman stomped down the aisle shooting women hiding between the rows of desks, is the only classroom with blue chairs instead of red ones. They were all changed, along with the desks, after the carnage.
The campus suspends all classes each Dec. 6, out of respect for those who were killed.
"We all know what happened, but it just doesn't affect me day to day," said Catherine De Blois-Villeneuve, a chemical-engineering student who was 6 when the shootings occurred. "Things have evolved since then. I don't feel inferior to anybody. I've never felt inferior because I'm a woman."
These women chose engineering because it never dawned on them that they couldn't.
Bell Globemedia
© 2004 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
