The senseless killing of George Floyd on a Minneapolis street has shaken society and forced people the world over to take a hard, honest look at anti-Black racism. Rest assured the impact has been keenly felt in the Faculty of Engineering, and we have heard our students as they ask what we are prepared to do to address this issue. As an educational community we have a responsibility to identify and report racism and then work to dismantle it and not remain comfortable with the status quo.
We have been reflecting and it has become clear that we can and should be doing more. We are committed to doing more. As we have begun to strategize about what our next steps should be, we find ourselves humbled to find how little good data we have to inform wise choices or the best strategies. Sometimes that is because we haven’t asked questions that, with hindsight, we should or could have asked. And sometimes that is because of a tangle of well-intentioned laws around privacy and human rights that prevent the collection of racial data that might be helpful right now.
It is an important start, though just a start, that our strategic plan for 2020-2025 has embedded at its core a commitment to diversity and equity throughout all programs, policies and processes, with particular emphasis on under-represented communities. We are acutely mindful, however, that such institutional declarations of good intentions aren’t worth the paper they are printed on unless there is consistent follow-through on the ground. We are also mindful that the kinds of strategies envisioned by the strategic plan may not be the best ones for the present moment.
We will be doing a lot of listening – to students, staff, faculty, the profession, and the wider community. And we will be listening with purpose – the purpose of understanding the needs of those affected and the extent of the problem so we can take informed, concrete action that will provide long-term solutions. We will schedule a town hall, to help determine next steps which may include more funding and supports for affected student groups and the provision of ways to hear from this group regularly.
We don’t have answers yet, but we are determined to get them and we will hold ourselves accountable for doing so. Although I am in the last month of my time as dean, I make this commitment on behalf of the Faculty confident that incoming dean Mary Wells shares my resolve to listen, learn and act with compassion. Please bear with us in the meantime, and know your help and input will always be welcome as we work to ensure nobody at Waterloo Engineering feels unwelcome, unsupported or discriminated against.
Rick Culham,
Interim Dean of Waterloo Engineering