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Global Engineering

July 7, 2014
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By Laurence Miall


This is an article from the forthcoming issue of Concordia Engineering News, the biannual newsletter of the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science. If you would like to receive a copy in the mail, please request one from laurence.miall@concordia.ca.

Thanks to a generous gift from Concordia alumni Susan Raymer, BA 71, and Ben Wygodny, BA 69, the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science is now able to build on its unique advantage in the way it teaches social responsibility, ethics and professional communication. Unlike other Canadian engineering schools, students learn these important complementary skills from disciplinary experts dedicated to teaching engineering and computer science students. As director of the Centre for Engineering in Society, Deborah Dysart-Gale, points out, “We tailor our course offerings to ensure they reflect an engineering perspective on issues. That’s our advantage.”

The gift has enabled the creation of the Global Engineering Initiative, which will give even more opportunities to engineering students to learn about the demands on their profession in a global context.
“What we’re better able to do now, thanks to this visionary gift from Susan and Ben, is to position Concordia as a catalyst for change,” says Dysart-Gale. “We’re providing all the essential elements to a new cohort of student leaders, ensuring they have not only the technical skills, but also the ‘big picture’ understanding needed to tackle the world’s seemingly intractable problems.”  

Funding will provide the opportunity for engineering students to collaborate directly with community clients in Northern Quebec, increasing their ability to communicate effectively with people across distance and cultural barriers. The gift will also allow the creation of a web-based, virtual global engineering hub, designed with collaborators from the United Kingdom and Australia.

“Students bring back so much new knowledge when they see how engineering issues play out elsewhere,” says Dysart-Gale. “They bring a new perspective to their professional practice back home and are also sensitized to how they can play a stronger role in tackling global problems.”

The initiative will also support “lunch and learn” events with high-profile keynote speakers; a new website that will serves as a clearing house for relevant articles and other resources on global engineering; as well as development of best practices in socio-tech assessments – methods for incorporating global engineering concerns into new projects. Concordia’s District 3 Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship will be a key partner in this, as students develop new products and services with social impacts in mind.

The new initiative has strong support already among students. Fourth-year mechanical engineering student Keena Trowell, who is also the co-president of the Concordia chapter of Engineers Without Borders, says, “Whether as an engineer, a designer or simply an active citizen, we must never forget that we’re in the service of others. That’s the thinking behind global engineering.”



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