For the first time, the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Waterloo will have a female dean at its helm.
Professor Pearl Sullivan, the current chair of the school’s department of mechanical and mechatronics engineering, will take over the job July 1 and will serve a five-year term.
“The exemplary reputation of Waterloo [engineering] fueled a lot of international interest in this position,” the university’s president Feridun Hamdullahpur said in a press release.
“We were thrilled that, in the end, one of our own professors was the best person for the job. Faculty and students both here and elsewhere have the greatest respect for [Sullivan], a striking example of the top-quality educators and leaders we have in our own community.”
Sullivan said the school’s engineering faculty wants to be the “destination of choice for the most talented students.”
“We will continue to create opportunities for them to reach their career aspirations to become practitioners, researchers or entrepreneurs,” she said in a press release.
The appointment of a woman to the top job in the faculty could serve as an indicator for a growing number of women in a program that’s historically been dominated by men.
Leah Morrell, a first-year civil engineering student at Carleton, said Sullivan’s appointment is a step in the right direction for women’s representation in the field.
“It’s great that a woman is going to be dean and we like seeing more women authority figures in engineering,” she said. “This seems to be a reflection of the changes in generations, and when our age group gets to the workforce level, it will probably be pretty equal/accepted.”
There is a difference in the representation of each gender in the engineering workforce, as well as the school programs, Morrell acknowledged.
While engineering programs are stereotypically dominated by men, Kristen Balogh, a first-year architectural conservation and sustainability engineering student at Carleton, said she notices an even split of men and women in her program, but it all depends on the course, she said.
“In large classes like math and [Introduction to Engineering], there are around 20-30 other girls out of maybe 150 students,” Balogh said.
