Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS), is the

engineering society An engineering society is a professional organization for engineers of various disciplines. Some are umbrella type organizations which accept many different disciplines, while others are discipline-specific. Many award professional designations, s ...

at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

. It organizes Engineering department events but is perhaps best known for practical jokes (STUdeNT projectS) it has played in the past, including hanging the frame of a

Volkswagen Beetle The Volkswagen Beetle—officially the Volkswagen Type 1, informally in German (meaning "beetle"), in parts of the English-speaking world the Bug, and known by many other nicknames in other languages—is a two-door, rear-engine economy car, ...

off bridges. The members of the EUS are known for their pride of being engineering students and conspicuous displays thereof. EUS members often incorrectly refer to themselves as Engineers even though they are Engineering Students (cf. Engineer-in-Training and Professional Engineer). The EUS belongs to several larger student organizations. On the local school level the EUS belongs to the

Alma Mater Society of the University of British Columbia The Alma Mater Society of the University of British Columbia Vancouver, otherwise referred to as the Alma Mater Society or the AMS, is the student society of UBC Vancouver and represents more than 58,000 undergraduate and graduate students at UB ...

, and at the national level, the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students.

Mission

The mission statement of the organization is "support the academic, professional, and social needs of engineering students, encourage excellence in all aspects of student life, and celebrate the accomplishments of its members."

Government

The EUS Board of Directors is the decision-making body for the engineers within the Faculty of Applied science at UBC. The EUS Board consists of the EUS Executive (President, Vice-president Spirit, Vice-president Finance, Vice-president Communications, Vice-president Administration, Vice-president Student Life, Vice-president Academic), a representative from each of the 12 departments and a representative from the first year engineering students. The Board directs the Executive on how to operate throughout the year, while the Executive carries out these tasks. Non-voting members of council include the Faculty of Applied Science Student Senator, the AMS rep and a member from each of the Ex Officio Clubs. The president of the EUS, along with one other elected representatives, sit on the Alma Mater Society of UBC Student Council, representing engineering to the other undergraduate student societies at UBC.

Departments within Engineering at UBC

Biomedical Engineering Biomedical engineering (BME) or medical engineering is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology for healthcare purposes (e.g., diagnostic or therapeutic). BME is also traditionally logical sciences ...

*Chemical and Biological Engineering *

Civil Engineering Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewage ...

Electrical and Computer Engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

* Engineering Physics * Environmental Engineering * Geological Engineering * Integrated Engineering *Manufacturing Engineering *

Mechanical Engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...

* Materials Engineering *

Mining Engineering Mining in the engineering discipline is the extraction of minerals from underneath, open pit, above or on the ground. Mining engineering is associated with many other disciplines, such as mineral processing, exploration, excavation, geology, and ...

*First Years (PPs) *Ex Officio Clubs. (Sigma Phi Delta Engineering Fraternity; Alpha Omega Epsilon Engineering Sorority; Engineers Without Borders; IEEE UBC Chapter; UBC Women in Engineering; UBC ACCEPT; UBC Queers and Gears)

Institutional Reform

Established in 1918, the EUS has always placed a large emphasis on furthering traditions much like a fraternity. Unlike a fraternity the EUS membership was never gender specific. These traditions primarily involve socializing, drinking and ritual. It had been a long-held view that these behaviours were tolerated and encouraged by the Engineering Faculty and engineering profession as they imbue engineering students with a sense of identity as engineers and that this identity leads to a more cohesive professional body. Many of these traditions were identified as being sexist Senate Debate over Godiva Rides, 1982
/ref> by those outside the Engineering Department, and in the last two decades have gradually been eliminated. In the most recent decade, however, criticisms of the organization's legitimacy and function arose from within its own members. The organization was seen as archaic and antiquated due to changing student demographics and greater emphasis on equity and diversity throughout the university. In 2008 a Constitutional Referendum led by then President

Bowinn Ma Bowinn Ma, MLA is a Canadian politician, who was elected to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia in the 2017 provincial election.

Stunts

Collecting details of past stunts is difficult because they are carried out by anonymous teams of students. The general knowledge of stunts includes hanging the frame of a

off bridges including the Golden Gate (2001) and the

Lions Gate Bridge The Lions Gate Bridge, opened in 1938 and officially known as the First Narrows Bridge, is a suspension bridge that crosses the first narrows of Burrard Inlet and connects the City of Vancouver, British Columbia, to the North Shore municipali ...

(several times)."Gun prank flops as car drop scores"
, Vancouver Province, Feb 5, 2008 Engineering students led by Johan Thornton also modified the lights on the Lions Gate Bridge to blink out in

morse code Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of ...

"UBC Engineers Do it Again" and in 1992 they stole and later returned the Rose Bowl trophy from a trophy case at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

. Other stunts involve well known objects from around British Columbia. These include the ''borrowing'' of the speaker's chair from the BC Legislature"I prank, therefore I am"
, Macleans.ca, Nov 16, 2007 and the Mile-Zero sign from the Alaska Highway. In 2008 the UBC Engineers were accused of hanging another VW Beetle shell off the Lions Gate Bridge as well as of painting and disabling the Nine O'clock gun in Stanley Park. Although they have not denied the VW shell hanging, their official statement on the topic insists that the Society was not involved in the vandalism of the gun. In February 2009 five UBC Engineering students were arrested while trying to hang a VW Beetle shell off of the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge. The shell fell into the Burrard Inlet during the prank. Prosecutors considered charging the students but ultimately decided not to. In April 2012 it was reported that UBC engineering students were thought to be responsible for the placement of a red VW beetle on the pier of the Golden Ears Bridge. In February 2014 UBC engineering students repeated a past prank by placing a red VW Beetle on top of the Ladner Clock Tower on the UBC campus, which is 121 feet tall. They also renovated the office of the dean of engineering into a janitor's closet. Other pranks in the past have involved the Massey Tunnel and the wooden rollercoaster at the PNE.

The Cairn

The

Cairn A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehis ...

is a large concrete object that symbolizes the Engineering Undergraduate Society's contribution to student life on campus. Normally it is painted white with a red 'E' for engineering, however it is common for many other faculties on campus to re-paint it in their own colours or otherwise deface it. Though the repainting is often done by faculty students, it also gets attacked by other groups such as the Totem Park 2009 Turkey Cairn stunt when the Cairn was remodelled for Thanksgiving Sunday by the fifth floor of Haida. In 1980, a wooden replica was constructed and placed atop the Bloedel Conservatory in Vancouver's Queen Elizabeth park. Cairn at UBC with E for Engineering

The current Cairn as well as all predecessors exists not because it was installed in accordance with UBC's planning and building process, but because the engineering students simply put it there. Its existence is virtually guaranteed by its size, mass and incorporation into traditions. Myths surrounding the cairn also include the cairn containing full propane tanks to discourage attacks by pneumatic drill and a Faculty of Forestry "Omar", a pickup truck bought by the Faculty of Forestry for Forestry week, in the bottom of the concrete base. It is said to be made of high strength steel reinforced concrete ever since it was blown apart in the 1990s. The Cairn is currently 8 feet high.

Cheeze

The EUS is housed in a building known as ''The Cheeze''. The Cheeze or Cheese Factory is a former cheese factory located at 2335 Engineering Road, UBC—east of the Cairn. The building, built in 1919, was the oldest wood-frame building on campus and had been modified for use by the EUS. The Cheeze has been replaced by a new and larger student building designed to better accommodate the needs of the engineering students, whose numbers cannot be supported by the small size of the Cheeze. The Engineering Student Centre Project was led by former Vice-president Communications & Administration, Andrew Carne. Demolition of the Cheeze took place on April 24, 2014, in one day. The construction process of the new Engineering Student Centre was completed in the summer of 2015.

Godiva

Consistent with traditions at other Canadian universities the EUS historically paid a woman (often a professional stripper) to ride naked on an animal or a chariot through campus. The practice was called the Lady Godiva Ride in reference to

Lady Godiva Lady Godiva (; died between 1066 and 1086), in Old English , was a late Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who is relatively well documented as the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and a patron of various churches and monasteries. Today, she is mainly reme ...

, the 'patron saint of Engineers'. The ride drew vocal and diverse protests in the UBC Senate, in the BC Legislature, from the AMS, students and student groups. A central issue of the protests was gender, and to counter that argument the engineers also paraded a naked man in 1982. In 1986 the EUS bowed to protests and replaced the annual March ride with a mock funeral procession, only to stage a strip show in the Hebb Theatre. An aspect of the tradition was the publication of photographs of the 'Godiva' in the newspaper of the EUS aka 'Red Rag' -- not to be confused with the current nEUSpaper. Much debate focused on censorship and the scope of a university's duties to be inclusive. This practice continued throughout the 1980s in spite of the rise of modern

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

and ended on all Canadian campuses after the École Polytechnique massacre."Students scrutinize Lady Godiva ride"
CBC Archives, Feb 4, 1990

Red jackets

A UBC Engineering jacket is often termed a 'Red' or a 'Red Jacket'. It is a red wool jacket with white details, and has UBC ENGINEERS on the back. The Red Jacket is used to show pride in the faculty and usually has many patches sewn on, many of which have to be earned by the wearer of the jacket, although some may be purchased. The tradition of wearing Engineering Red goes back many years to when all the faculties on campus wore their colours. Now the EUS and SUS (the Science Undergraduate Society) are the only faculties who sell jackets, with the EUS jacket being far more popular.

Engineer's Hymn

The

hymn A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hymn'' ...

is generally sung by the UBC engineers in various events, although it is an international engineering song. The hymn itself is about 64 lines in total. Various versions of the hymn exist although they all share the same chorus. The following is the chorus of the hymn. "We are, we are, we are, we are, we are the Engineers! We can, we can, we can, we can, demolish forty beers. Drink rum, drink rum, drink rum, drink rum, drink rum, and follow us, For we don't give a damn for any old man who don't give a damn for us!"

Notes

External links

* *
An outline of past pranks undertaken by UBC Engineers

Beetle Overboard! VW hung off GG Bridge in prank: Coverage of a Prank that UBC Engineers committed in San Francisco
{{DEFAULTSORT:Engineering Undergraduate Society Of The University Of British Columbia University of British Columbia Engineering societies based in Canada Professional associations based in British Columbia