Increasingly present on the benches of Polytechnique Montréal, women could be the key to transforming the engineering profession, which is trying to recover from several years of scandals in Quebec.
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This is what Maud Cohen, the first woman to direct Polytechnique Montréal, the establishment affiliated with the University of Montreal and which is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, said.
Ms. Cohen has a professional background closely linked to the engineering institution, having herself been a student at this school in the 1990s. Her appointment in 2022 was a strong symbol for students in this field, including one in particular.
“In the main atrium, there were portraits of the former directors general of Polytechnique and they were only men,” recalled the general director. “A young woman came to me in tears and said, ‘I saw these men every day, and then I asked myself, do I belong here?’”
Looking for models
Currently, Polytechnique has 30% women at the bachelor’s level, 32% at the master’s level and 34% at the doctorate level out of more than 10,000 students on campus, explained Ms. Cohen. At the time, less than 20% of them studied in this field.
As tragic as it was, the femicide of December 6, 1989 at Polytechnique had played a role in the registration of women in engineering, as was the case for Maud Cohen who discovered the profession during the tragedy.
Photo Agence QMI, JOEL LEMAY
“I remember, people talked to me about law, medicine, even accounting, but never about engineering,” she said.
In this male profession, she especially wants to encourage women to become models. “We are able to have women who are able to show that it is possible to act a little on behavior around them,” she insisted.
Moreover, 15% of the members of the Order of Engineers of Quebec are women, four times more than 30 years ago.
Ms. Cohen nevertheless recognized that there is still a long way to go, especially in the development of its 17% female faculty.
“That’s where the problem lies,” assessed the director. “If we really want role models, we will have to work harder and have a minimum of 30% women in our teaching staff within the next few years.”
To do this, additional positions were opened in order to try to recruit more women.
“It’s a constant effort,” she admitted.
A profession not about to disappear
Between the Charbonneau commission, the SNC-Lavalin scandal and several dismissals from the Order of Engineers of Quebec, the profession has not had the best reputation in recent years.
“All professions go through these moments one day,” argued the woman who was president of the Order from 2009 to 2012.
“It is regular questioning of good practices that is important and the line between the law and moral ethics is often difficult to grasp,” she mentioned.
“There was a great awareness of the community following these events,” she said.
Optimistic, Ms. Cohen believes that “the profession is here to stay”, evoking issues such as artificial intelligence on everyone’s lips currently or the broad question of climate change, which is still relevant today.
“We have always seen the next generation want to change the world, but if there is a moment in the history of humanity when it is important, it is today,” she maintained.