“I think the STEM environment is really intimidating for women,” says Anaëlle Drai Laguéns, an international student from France who just completed her second year in the Faculty of Engineering.
The gender gap in her field was something Drai Laguéns kept in mind when she was deciding where to go to university. “McGill quickly caught my attention because I knew that 30 per cent of Engineering students at McGill are women and that meant something to me,” she says, adding that this ratio was noticeably higher than what she was seeing at other schools.
Indeed, less than 18 per cent of newly licensed engineers in 2019 were women, according to Engineers Canada. And across the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), female students continue to be significantly underrepresented.
After working part-time to support herself during her first year at McGill, Drai Laguéns was thrilled to discover that she had won a prestigious award – the McGill Alumnae Ethel Hurlbatt Scholarship – established by the McGill Women’s Alumnae Association (MWAA).
“It changed my approach to a lot of things,” says Drai Laguéns, who is majoring in software engineering. “It made me feel more welcome and supported in a mostly male environment. And it also made me feel proud to be part of a community that helps women succeed.”
With more time on her hands, Drai Laguéns was able to participate in extracurricular activities. She began volunteering as an orientation leader and as a note-taker with the Office for Students with Disabilities. She also signed up for coding challenges and case competitions.
“It encouraged me to take advantage of every opportunity McGill had to offer,” she says.
With seven of her Engineering friends, she even decided to take on an issue that has plagued the area around McGill’s student residences for years. “We noticed that, especially during move-in and move-out season in Montreal, a lot of clothes are thrown away in the streets because students don't know where to give them and where they can help,” explains Drai Laguéns.
Using her newfound skills in software engineering, she is working with her team to develop an app that will reduce waste and make it easy for students to donate unwanted items. The platform, dubbed “GiveEZ”, will match students with local non-profits that are looking for donations and will also provide a pick-up service. By improving communication between donors and non-profits, the app will help ensure that organizations like homeless shelters receive quality items that will be useful to the communities they serve.
Hoping to launch their app by the end of this summer, the GiveEZ team has received seed funding from McGill as the winner of the Winter 2021 goLEAD case competition, and as a recipient of the Global Challenges Award in the Faculty of Engineering.
Drai Laguéns says that, above all, receiving the Ethel Hurlbatt Scholarship has increased her confidence and sense of financial security, which has convinced her to continue her studies at the graduate level. Currently, she is considering doing a master’s degree in artificial intelligence and hopes to someday become a professor.
A new scholarship for a new generation of students
The scholarship Drai Laguéns received is one of many awards at McGill that were created by the MWAA – a group that is celebrating its 130th anniversary this year. To mark this milestone, the association aims to raise $130,000 to create a new scholarship for female students entering STEM programs.
Founded by McGill’s first eight female graduates, the MWAA has a long history of empowering women. Since 1935, they have awarded $475,000 in scholarships to nearly 2,000 deserving students.
“The McGill Women’s Alumnae Association proudly honours and continues the legacy of those first eight very committed and dedicated women who graduated from McGill – think of it! – 130 years ago,” says Anelia Wright, DIP(PTH)’57, BSc(P&OT)’58, one of the co-chairs of the MWAA 130th Anniversary Fundraising Campaign. “We have to admire their sheer determination to receive a McGill education and we continue to support their commitment to ensure that higher education is passed on to future generations of McGill women.”
As McGill celebrates its bicentennial year, Wright and her campaign co-chair Susan Czarnocki, MA’89, point out that this anniversary comes with a caveat: for over 60 of those 200 years, women were not allowed to study at the University.
“Women have had to earn the right to get into university in the first place. Then we got to show our capabilities and became the majority undergraduate population,” says Czarnocki. “We want to continue that progress into those nooks and crannies where women would like to excel but haven’t had the social and peer group support.”
The last Canadian census revealed that only 15.3 per cent of women with bachelor’s degrees had studied in a STEM field. The new MWAA entrance scholarship will contribute to reducing this persistent gender gap by encouraging talented young women to choose STEM.
“If they know that they're getting support, it really helps them to make the decision,” says Czarnocki. “It tips the balance into going into those fields where they don't feel absolutely comfortable and welcome.”
“An entrance scholarship is a wonderful way to encourage and celebrate the academic achievements of women entering STEM programs from high school and CEGEP,” says Scholarships and Student Aid Office Director Cara Piperni, BCom’94, who has seen firsthand that this is an area where more funding is needed. “The efforts of the MWAA are very much aligned with the commitment to remedy this underrepresentation at McGill.”
Drai Laguéns is an enthusiastic supporter of the 130th anniversary campaign and believes the new scholarship will motivate more students like herself to “take the leap.” “I think it's really honourable for the MWAA to encourage young women to dare to study in these fields and maybe inspire other women – and open the way to a more gender balanced environment,” she says.
Over nine months into their yearlong fundraiser, the volunteer-run MWAA has so far received $74,000 in donations towards this initiative. They need to raise another $56,000 to ensure that the funds will go towards creating a scholarship that can be awarded annually – and in perpetuity – to women in STEM.
“Every little bit counts!” says Wright.