Queen's commemorates 30th anniversary of l’École Polytechnique massacre
December 6, 2019
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The Queen’s community marked the 30th anniversary of the killing of 14 women at Montreal’s l’École Polytechnique on Friday.
To commemorate the Dec. 6 tragedy and to promote the work of female engineers across Canada, Engineering Deans Canada invited each of the Canadian engineering schools that offered an accredited engineering program in 1989 to put forward the story of an engineering alumna who graduated within three years of the massacre (1986-1992), and whose career exemplifies the value that women bring to the engineering profession and to society. Queen’s is represented by Andrea Baptiste (Sc’88), an accomplished senior executive and entrepreneur who currently leads the Startup Ecosystem for Canada at Amazon. Her profile, and the other successful nominees, can be viewed at 30yearslater.ca.
During the ceremony, organized and hosted by the Engineering Society of Queen’s University, engineering students, staff, and faculty held roses, lit candles, and read brief statements about each victim and their accomplishments.
The event, held in the lobby of the Integrated Learning Centre, was attended by dozens of Queen’s community members, including students, faculty, staff, and administration members.
Twelve female engineering students, a nurse, and a faculty member were killed in the 1989 massacre. Three years after the attack, Dec. 6 was declared the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.
Following the event, Kevin Deluzio, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, announced the design that has been selected for a permanent Dec. 6 memorial in the Integrated Learning Centre. Created by Haley Adams, a third-year civil engineering student, the piece will be installed in 2020.
A call for designs, open to all members of the Queen’s community, was issued earlier this year by Dean Deluzio and the Engineering Society’s Memorial Design Committee.