Off the heels of National Engineering Month, the Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering (ILead) celebrated U of T Engineering’s emerging student leaders on April 3.
ILead’s annual Leaders of Tomorrow (LOT) Appreciation Night was an opportunity to build community and student engagement, while acknowledging the many ways its students, staff and faculty enrich the engineering experience.
Guest speaker Emily Moore, Director of Water Technology at Hatch and esteemed ILead board member, delivered a moving speech. Moore underscored the importance of building engineering leadership capacity to engage the broader world more effectively, as well as marshalling people around ideas fuelled by passion.
“I’ve always encouraged my employees to be asking questions, not just ‘What do I need to do?’ But ‘How does that fit into things? How does this fit in the bigger picture? How does my organization work? How does my neighborhood work? How do I make change?’” said Moore.
“If you continually ask those questions, you will become a leader. That’s what leaders do. That’s how you identify those opportunities that you can develop and apply your passion,” she added.
Speaking to ILead’s diverse programming, which teaches students the process of leading through experiential learning, Dr. Moore had encouraging words:
“If you keep this up, Toronto will be the engineering capital of the world. U of T is absolutely stellar in the academics. When you add leadership education on top of that – it’s world-leading.”
ILead Director, Professor Doug Reeve (ChemE), carried on the spirit of the event, speaking to the Institute’s groundbreaking research around engineering leadership in industry, as well as its ambitions to have even more impact with students across the Faculty.
Professor Reeve ended the celebration of engineering leadership with a call to think big. “We want to open your thinking to not just the ‘How?’ and ‘What?’ questions, but beyond that, to the ‘Why?’ question. Why do you do what you do?”
ILead’s vision is for engineers leading change to build a better world. Learn more about ILead and leadership education at U of T Engineering
