Adelaide Student Politics

As printed in On Dit Issue 3, 2009 (Elle Dit). Note: This article could not have appeared in On Dit were it not for two women who gave up their allocated space to make room for it. Thanks to Hannah Mattner and Lavinia Emmett-Grey

As much I wish it were otherwise, the fact remains that few Engineering students regularly read your student magazine. And perhaps it is understandable. Engineering isn’t the easiest student culture to break into. The hours tend to be intense, and offer relatively little chance for socializing. Most engies will graduate after four years having not involved themselves in student culture beyond what is absolutely necessary. There is simply so little time.
Yet, we have not forgotten the Engies. We keep a close watch. And what we see concerns us greatly.

Engineering at Adelaide: Long hours, few women, and the AUES

Engineering is not a traditional area of study for women. This is the case at most Australian universities. Female engineering students at Adelaide University are outnumbered four to one. However, this figure averages different degrees which often have much higher or lower numbers of female students. AUES President Kristina Noicos gave me the impression that the figure was often as low as one in twenty in some courses, a figure backed up by other Engineers I have spoken to. In 2008, there were 1776 women to 7910 men in the Faculty of Engineering, Maths and Computer Science (18% female).

The Engineering faculty-supported club is the AUES (Adelaide University Engineering Society). It provides many academic services specific to Engineering students (eg. First-year Statics tutes, mock interviews, Careers Night), but the society is most famous for its annual pub crawl (‘the largest in the southern hemisphere’), and its barbecues held on campus once a term. Alcohol is at the core of these events, which are attended by both Engineering students and those from other faculties (approximately 30% of the AUES’ membership are not Engineering students). The events which prompted this article either took place at AUES events, or involved AUES members.

Originally, I was under the illusion that most Engineers joined or were in some way involved with the AUES. In the course of my interviews with rank and file engineers this misapprehension was changed. ‘I would suggest that the AUES represents true Engineering student culture as much as a beer bong represents the full depth and breadth of classical fluid mechanics’, says an anonymous Engineering student. The same student explained to me that ‘the basic engineering social unit is the Study Collective. These are groups of 8-15 people who study, party and attend lectures together, living in each others pockets. These groups will form in first year, and will remain essentially unchanged throughout the degree program for most students…The gang of engineers you see in the Unibar, or roaming the town, will usually be one of these groups trying to find some sort of break in the tyrannical workload’. AUES barbecues tend to be run during class-time, meaning many of the more studious engineers simply do not attend, free food and booze notwithstanding. Nonetheless, the AUES is huge. At the end of O’Week 2009 it had 700 members, making it one of the largest clubs on campus.

That gets the background out of the way.

The School of Engineering has received its fair share of complaints regarding harassment, especially that targeted by male engineering students towards their female colleagues, in recent months. These are some of the grievances.

The Megaphone

By far the most visible harassment perpetuated by engineering students involves their use of the megaphone, which is used at many AUES events to promote participation. The use of the megaphone is frequently abused. Typically, this involves an engie chanting into the megaphone for a passing female to ‘get your tits out for the boys’, or making disparaging comments on her appearance. Admittedly, it is only a small number of engineers who engage in this type of harassment. However, it is so public and persistent that its continued existence cannot be written off as the handiwork of a few bad eggs, but must be blamed on a student culture which finds such harassment acceptable. There is little response a girl can make to an engie with a megaphone, making these acts especially cowardly. Sarah Anderson, a student of the University who has witnessed the taunt, says that ‘using a megaphone to ask girls to ‘get their tits out for the boys’ constitutes a breach of the university’s Fair Treatment Policy which condemns sexual harassment. Such behaviours isolate and degrade female students and establish an environment in which women, particularly women in the engineering department, are isolated and thus are disempowered’. AUES Women’s Officer Peta Johannson took a stand when this occurred on the Monday of O’Week this year. ‘I actually spoke to the student who was doing it on Monday, because we had complaints, and I thought as the women’s officer it was my role. I’ve done the sexual harassment course, and I realize that that cannot go on. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, it was fine.’ It is worth noting that the Engineering megaphone was stolen early in this years O’Week.

The Email

In August of 2008, a female student at the University confronted some Engineering students about their behaviour. In response to this, an email was sent to an AUES mailing list, making disparaging reference about the female student’s appearance and sexuality. This action, at best a misuse of the mailing list and vile singling out of a student for speaking out, was only minimally punished. The student who had sent out the email was forced to write an apology.

The Scavenger Hunt

The AUES conducted a quiz night in October 2008 at the Unibar. One of the activities on this night was a scavenger hunt. One of the items on the list to be collected was the bra of a female student, who was named on the list. This list was widely distributed among those at the Unibar. This item of underwear was forcibly removed from the female student in question while she was wearing it. When I asked AUES President Kristina Noicos why no-one had stepped in to prevent it happening, she said ‘It was like, the blink of an eye. They were talking and then he just did it’. Kristina then went on to describe her shock at the incident. The student who committed the assault has since been expelled from the AUES.

The T-Shirts

All through 2009’s O’Week, the AUES sold T-Shirts to their annual pub crawl. On the Monday, some members of the society told some female students (drunk first-years from all accounts) that they could have free T-Shirts provided that they changed in front of them. Taken in conjunction with the other, more extreme, incidents, it is concerning. Undoubtedly, it puts the society in a very bad light, prompting Kristina Noicos to tell the students in question to stop on the Monday. They were threatened with removal from the lawns should their behaviour persist. There were no more reported incidents of this after that.

Why This Can Occur: The Culture

A female engineering student who is heavily involved within the AUES described it as ‘a real cultural problem. You have to be tough to survive. If you’re not, you probably don’t belong there…It’s not just within the society. This attitude is evident throughout all of engineering. It does, however, become more pronounced at AUES events where alcohol is involved’.

Other students I spoke to were very disparaging towards the AUES. One student wanted to make it clear that ‘what you see is not true engineering culture. it is merely a pimple of engineering counter-culture, comprised of the academic scum of the programme, and any response to these unacceptable acts sexual harassment must be directed at the AUES alone, not at engineers in general…most of us… understand what is and isn't appropriate behaviour for the 21st century’.

The student who was ridiculed in the email was similarly critical of the culture in the AUES. She described it as bullying, and said that it had always been thus. ‘They go through periods where they watch themselves, and then as soon as whatever got them in trouble blows over they go back to being the way they were’.

Peta Johannson is more optimistic. ‘I think slowly the culture is breaking. Now and again those boys club elements show up, which is, of course, when you get all the guys and they’re together with their megaphones’.

AUU President Lavinia Emmett-Grey described an anecdote to me that seems to sum up the culture: ‘Once when I confronted an engineering student about his [calling a girl a slut], his response was ‘I probably shouldn’t have said it, but it is still true’…All this is founded in the idea that you cannot have fun without giving people a hard time. It is often women who are victimised in this manner.’

In response to some of the incidents described in this article, Lavinia Emmett-Grey wrote a paper on the problems within Engineering at Adelaide University. This confidential report was sent to the Vice Chancellor, the Chair of the Gender, Equity and Diversity Committee, Birgit Lohmann, and the General Manager of Student Services, Judy Szekeres.

The Faculty Response

The Faculty of Engineering, Maths and Computer Science has been for more than a decade trying to increase the number of girls entering undergraduate Engineering programs. Last year, a ‘Women in Technology Challenge’ was held, which invited female students from years 10-12 to come to the University and try several practical Engineering projects, as well as receiving information about the Engineering degrees offered at the University of Adelaide. In the long-term, such strategies may do much to tone down the overt harassment that many female students receive. However, such courses of action have been pursued for years with little significant impact on the bullying and boys club mentality that pervades Engineering. As one male engineering student put it, ‘despite many efforts to increase the percentage of women in engineering throughout the last few decades, the proportions have barely changed, and the university ratios remain reflective of those in industry’. For girls who have been victimized, such long-term, measured responses add insult to injury, with many calling for a more proactive approach that directly addresses the problem to be taken.

The most damning thing regarding the university’s treatment of the situation however has been the breach of confidentiality that occurred when Ms Emmett-Grey’s confidential report was leaked first to the Dean of Engineering, which the Dean then read out at least some parts of to the committee of the AUES. ‘The response to the confidential paper fulfilled the worst fears of any victim of sexual assault about reporting, says Ms Emmett-Grey. ‘The first thing with such cases is to respect the confidentiality of the victim, and the second is not to take further action without their consent. I consulted with those on whose behalf I wrote the paper every step of the way. The Dean of Engineering’s actions violated both these rules.’ According to Ms Emmett-Grey, when she queried the General Manager of Student Services, Judy Szekeres, about the Dean’s action, Dr Szekeres did not seem to acknowledge a problem with the breach of confidentiality.

The AUES Response

Peta Johannson, the AUES’ women’s officer, when asked about the scavenger hunt incident, agreed with my assessment of it being ‘shocking. She also pointed out that ‘that’s just what some guys are like when they’re drunk,’ suggesting that while it was unfortunate there was relatively little the AUES can do but respond after the event. However, the question must be raised why the AUES allowed the Scavenger’s Hunt list to be distributed to every table with the item of clothing listed. The female student made a complaint, which Peta says was the right thing to do. ‘I know it’s been a bit of a bitch, it’s screwed us up for the year…but because it’s gotten the Dean [of Engineering] involved. Suddenly he’s become interested in the society and aware of what we’re doing, it’s toned down some things. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because we’ve started thinking of ways we can get rid of these kinds of issues within the club’. As stated before, the student involved in the complaint was kicked out of the society.

Ms Emmett-Grey thinks the problem lies not with the club, but with the School. ‘It is unfair to demand a standard of behaviour of the AUES when the Dean and General Manager of Student Services are not modelling appropriate behaviour’.

In her report, Ms Emmett-Grey called for widespread sexual harassment training as a way to educate the Engineering community as to what is and isn’t acceptable: ‘The University has recently placed an online Occupational Health and Safety Training module on My Uni. Why not do the same for harassment? Harassment requires empathy to identify it. Some engineers have a problem with this. I recommended that there be an educational approach to explain what is appropriate and what isn’t. Perhaps this is required for the staff as well as the students.’ This approach is also preferred by the AUES’ Treasurer Yasmin Freschi.

One male student I spoke to was much less willing to give the perpetrators the benefit of the doubt. ‘I don't buy all that 'sexual harassment training'. Most males don't need to be educated to know it’s disgusting behaviour. In many cases, those who do it just don't care’.