Women remembered

Kaylee Shannon is the president of the Dalhousie Sexton Undergraduate Engineering Society. “It is important to continue with our dream of becoming engineers," she said. (Bruce Bottomley Photo)

Wendy Gentleman was a first-year mechanical engineering student at McGill University in Montreal the night of December 6, 1989.

News reports on the radio initially said the gunman who shot down 14 women in their engineering classroom at École Polytechnique had fled to a park located right behind Dr. Gentleman’s residence. She recalls locking her door and huddling in fear in her dorm room. As the evening progressed, her family called her, relieved to hear her voice and to know she was safe.

Dr. Gentleman, voice shaking, recalled the events of that December night to a modest crowd of nearly 50 people who gathered in the Student Alumni Lounge on Sexton Campus for a candlelight memorial service to remember the 14 victims of the Montreal Massacre.

Kaylee Shannon, president of the Dalhousie Sexton Undergraduate Engineering Society, was only 20 months old on December 6, 1989. A civil engineering student originally from Bathurst, New Brunswick, she has participated in the memorial service for four years. She feels a strong connection to the young women who lost their lives in the name of their education.

“We must be strong and brave and stand shoulder to shoulder with our male colleagues,” said Ms. Shannon. “It is important to continue with our dream of becoming engineers. We need to do well because of these women, they died for us to be here.”

Both Ms. Shannon and Dr. Gentleman have experienced their fair share of discouragement for their chosen career path. The engineering world is still male dominated, but is changing. Currently, there are 12 female professors in the Faculty of Engineering at Dalhousie. Women also represent 20 to 25 per cent of the undergraduate student population.

Fourteen female students participated in the memorial, representing the 14 women who lost their lives. These 14 students were no doubt going about their days, maybe thinking about the holidays or feeling the pressure of upcoming exams, much like the 14 women they were paying tribute to.

One by one, the names of the victims were read. The students representing the women were presented with long-stemmed white roses and lit candles in remembrance. After the names of the 14 victims were read, everybody in attendance lit candles and proceeded outside for a moment of silence in front of a memorial plaque and tree in the courtyard outside of the main building on Sexton campus.