The Schulich School of Engineering is an accredited engineering school located in Calgary, Canada. It currently has 3,700 enrolled students at both undergraduate and graduate levels, and over 150 faculty members[1]. The school offers nine engineering degree programs.
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The Schulich School of Engineering was originally conceived on September 28, 1964 at the first meeting of the Engineering Council, as the Faculty of Engineering. The new school was officially accredited and given faculty status on April 1, 1965 and officially opened its doors for the fall semester of the same year, with a total first year enrollment of 59 students, taught by 2 faculty members.
Over the 40 years that the faculty has been operating, it has expanded drastically to its current size, as well as several new wings to the engineering building, now more accurately a complex, and an entirely new building to house the software, computer, and electrical engineering department. Before the 2005-2006 fall and winter semesters, Mr. Seymour Schulich made a $25 million donation to the faculty, which was matched by another $25 million from the Alberta provincial government. At this point, the name of the faculty was changed to the Schulich School of Engineering in honour of his donation. Dr. Wirasinghe stepped down as dean of the school on June 30, 2006. Dr. M. Elizabeth Cannon, the former head of the geomatics engineering department assumed the position of dean on July 1, 2006. Dr. Cannon was appointed to be the president of the University of Calgary on the 1st of July 2010 and her previous position as dean is now held by Dr. Guy Gendron.
In 1993, the School started an Internship program with Dr. Michael Ward, former civil department head and the vice-president research of the University, as the founding director. Schulich School of Engineering now has one of the largest engineering internship programs in the country. Approximately 70% of Schulich engineering students will go through the optional internship program.
An event started by a group of mechanical engineering students in 2011, every Friday, students dress in business attire. It is a play on casual Fridays commonly found in white collar jobs. The event was started by third year students, Benjamin Ringrose and Colin Stanger.
The Schulich School of Engineering is located in the northern section of the University of Calgary campus in a complex that consists of three main buildings.
The first main engineering building (labeled EN in the map to right) houses all of the departments with the exception of the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering and the Department of Electrical, Computer and Software Engineering (which are housed in separate buildings). The majority of engineering specific courses are also held in the variety of lecture halls found in this building. Other notable facilities in the main building include the Machine Shop, the M.A. Ward Civil Engineering Labs, the Engineering Students Society office, "The Engg Lounge", and Allegro Cafe. As many of the first year engineering courses (which are identical for all departments) take place here, a principle hallway in this building is often referred to as "The First Year Hole".
The machine shop in the Schulich School of Engineering came into existence with the school in 1966, and provides a variety of mechanical construction services to the students and faculty members. The shop provides a variety of services, including CNC machining, manual machining, fabrication, and carpentry.
The civil engineering laboratory is located in a cavernous space in the south-westernmost block of the main complex. It is the main experimental space for the civil engineering faculty (along with the bay in CCIT) and can supports many separate endeavours at one time. While it is generally closed off to the main student body, there are always viewing windows on the second floor.
The Engineering Students Society (ESS) is a non-profit organization that is run by students within the faculty to provide student activities, academic help and student-professional interaction. It is a member of the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students and sends representatives to various conferences and meets throughout the country.
Supercow is a prominent figure in school spirit activities that boost team building and trust among engineering students moving toward a professional career in engineering. Supercow travels to numerous national engineering conferences and competitions, hosted by the Western Engineering Students' Societies Team[2] and the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students[3]
Supercow appears in many publications created by the Engineering Students' Society. Supercow has appeared on the cover of the 2003 through 2009 Cogwheels, a daily planner created by engineering students for engineering students, including forty pages of common engineering formulas. The 2007 - 2009 Engineering Students' Society sponsorship packages, sent to professional engineering firms in the city of Calgary, also contain a picture of Supercow[4]. Supercow is featured on various pictures in the Engineering Photo archive[5]
The Engineering Student Lounge is the central social gathering area at the Schulich School of Engineering. During the fall and winter semesters, especially at 12:00 PM, the lounge is normally a hive of activity, as a vast majority of students come by to socialize and eat. The lounge is also notable for P.O.E.T.S, or Piss On Everything, Tomorrow's Saturday, a weekly Friday gathering of engineers (Beginning at 3:00pm, and ending at 6:00pm), originally created by Dean Rhodes and put on by the Engineering Students Society. P.O.E.T.S is a place for engineering students (and even sometimes professors!) to unwind at the end of the school week and enjoy "cheaper" cold beer and occasionally live music, as well as a weekly event such as Minnow Races, Jeopardy, Engg Olympics, etc. In recent years, interest in POETS has decreased thus it has now been moved to Thursdays in hopes of garnering more interest. The acronym has been changed accordingly now standing for Piss On Everything, Thursden's Soon in reference to the campus bar "The Den" and the Thursday student appreciation night commonly known as Thursden.
Allegro's is the small café located in the engineering lounge. It is commonly thought of as the closest place to engineering that serves edible meals. It serves a variety of food including sandwiches, pop, nachos, hot dogs and a daily special. Popular choices among students include the Famous "Breakfast Special" for $3.45 (no longer available because of some fire hazard reasoning or something), as well as the fast-going daily lunch specials: chicken burgers, soup and subs, lasagna, chili, burritos and a student favourite, sausage and perogies. It is owned by Tom, a former graduate of the Haskayne School of Business, who is personally present some of the time and is always interested in talking to engineering students. The cafe is run by two nice ladies and takes paper currency and student cards.
The ICT building (labeled ICT in the map at right) is shared by the Schulich School of Engineering with the Department of Computer Science from the Faculty of Science. The building houses the majority of the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Software Engineering in the form of several lecture halls, computer labs and electronics labs. ICT also houses the design labs for Minds In Motion and the first year design courses.
The ground level of ICT is arranged as a food court themed meeting area, frequented by many faculties. Commercial services such as Family Mart, Good Earth Cafe and Apex Credit Union occupy the bottom floor.
The ICT building features ultramodern electronics labs for electrical and computer engineering students. These include labs for second year students as well as third year students, and the Telus Microwave Research Laboratory for microwave antenna design and research.
The design labs take up half of the second floor of the ICT building and are used to teach a two-semester design course to first year engineers. This course is taught in collaboration with the English and Arts Faculties at the university, in order to provide students with a full comprehension of design. Among the projects done in the course are a product completion, from concept to creation in the first semester and both a Lego robotics project and a project in collaboration with an industry partner.
The Mechanical Engineering Building (marked as MEB on the map to right) houses the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing at the Schulich School of Engineering. It was donated to the faculty of engineering back in the day by Petro-Canada. Unlike the rest of the engineering faculty, it is not physically connected but in fact resides in a separate building across 32nd Ave. NW. in the universities research park. It contains many labs and offices for faculty and grad students, as well as the Mechanical Engineering Shop. It also functions as the headquarters for the University of Calgary's Formula SAE and Baja SAE racecar teams. The buildings contains three computer labs with over 40 computers in total, a study room, and a newly renovated recreation room.
The MES is located at the easternmost end of the ME building and contains a variety of tools and equipment for building and testing research projects in the mechanical engineering department. As of 2010, the mechanical engineering shop has been severely downsized with a reduction in staff and equipment. Various labs for the mechanical department are held here such as doing tests on an old four cylinder Toyota engine that barely runs but is used because it was donated to the school. Measuring wet bulb temperature in the shop is done by reading a thermometer with a shoe lace tied around it dipped in water.