Engineering Society: Difference between revisions

The Engineering Society was formed as a learned society in 1885 with the support of Professor John Galbraith, having grown out of a desire from engineering students of SPS to participate in the annual "conversazione" held by the University College Literary and Scientific Society. Prior to the formation of the Engineering Society, engineering students of SPS were members of the UC Lit, a natural arrangement at the time due to the proximity of the SPS building (where the Medical Science Building currently stands) to the main UC building located on the North side of Front Campus. Up until 1889, SPS was "practically the Applied Science Department of University College" (Cold Iron and Lady Godiva, W.G. MacElhinney).  

The first draft of the constitution outlined the Society's objectives as follows:

a/ The encouragement of original research in engineering;

b/ the preservation of results of such research;

c/ the dissemination of these results among its members;

d/ the cultivation of a spirit of mutual assistance and co-operation among the members of the Society in the preparation for, and in the practice of, the profession of engineering;

e/ the provision of an official means of communication between the student body and the Faculty Council, the university authorities, and the students of other faculties.  

With the formation of the Engineering Society, engineering students presented research papers, technical in nature, to students and faculty staff for discussion. By the end of each year, the Engineering Society would publish those papers in what was an early form of the Engineering Society's Transactions Book (later evolving into what is presently known as Skulebook). These publications and papers would inspire the need for the Engineering Stores, one of the Engineering Society's first and major projects still operating today.