You would never guess that Dean Mary Wells was, in her words, “extremely shy” as a child.
From the moment she greets me in Waterloo’s bustling Williams Fresh Cafe, she is talkative, funny and warm, exuding an energy that is infectious.
When I ask if I can get her a coffee, she insists on getting it — but makes it a chai latte. “I don’t drink coffee, never have,” she says brightly.
The café, which is steps away from the University of Waterloo’s engineering campus, has a decidedly student vibe. Menu items are scrawled on a blackboard near the entrance. And though we are still a few days away from the school year commencing, university-age students have been cycling in and out since I snagged a table at lunch time.
‘Tragic things can happen’
Wells’ path to leading one of Canada’s most prestigious engineering programs is in some ways unlikely. She turned down an opportunity to study in the program as an undergrad because she worried it would be too difficult.
“To be honest, I felt unsure if I would have academically succeeded at Waterloo,” she tells me once she is seated. “So it’s ironic that now I’m the dean here,” she adds and we both laugh heartily.
Instead, Wells chose to study engineering at McGill University — in part to remain close to her mother, who was tragically widowed when Wells’ father died in a car accident.
Unsurprisingly, that experience was formative to the 13-year-old Wells. Seeing her mother suddenly forced into the breadwinner role, she began to think “more pragmatically” about what to focus on in CEGEP and university.
“Where can I get a reasonably paying job?” she says she recalls thinking. “Tragic things can happen in life … I may need to take over taking care of the family.”
Wells pauses to thank the server who delivers her latte in a large white mug. I sneak in a sip of my half-finished smoothie from an earlier lunch meeting.
Wells, who speaks rapidly, returns to her narrative. Wells’ mother had encouraged her and her three siblings to take math and science courses. Her father had always wanted to be an engineer himself, but chose medicine to please his family.
He hated it, Wells recalls with a laugh. “He was not an empathetic doctor, he was more like House,” she says, referring to the misanthropic Dr. Gregory House from the popular TV series House MD.
This combination of influences made engineering a “natural pathway” for Wells, who graduated from McGill in 1987 with a degree in metallurgical engineering.
Thereafter, Wells went to work for the steel company Stelco in Hamilton, Ont. Her three years at the plant prompted “an early-life crisis,” she says with a peal of laughter. “I was freaking out.”
“I saw people who had been there 30, 40 years, and I’m like, I don’t want my life to be like this.”
A visit to the plant by two University of British Columbia professors ultimately steered her onto a path she has loved: academia.
I ask whether she felt like a trailblazer pursuing a career in such a male-dominated field.
To my surprise, she says she almost never thought about gender before the 1989 Montreal Massacre, when an anti-feminist shooter murdered 14 women at the École Polytechnique.
“Up until that time, we never talked about being women in engineering.”
“When [the massacre] happened, I was like ‘Oh my god, why would someone target these women because they were engineers?’ … I had always just viewed myself as an engineer, [not a woman engineer]… I don’t remember ever thinking about it objectively, like, ‘Wow, there’s not very many women here.’
“Nobody said ‘Oh, you’re a trailblazer.’ Nothing like that at all.”
Wells acknowledges that she did, at Stelco, notice some differences in how the male plant workers treated her. But her approach was to focus on gaining their trust.
“You’d go into [the plant workers’] offices and they’d have all these calendars of naked women. I thought, ‘I’m not going to make a big deal about it, because I need these guys to be on my side.’ I was thinking pragmatically.”
“They would always want to help me carry stuff. ‘Okay, let them help me,’ I thought … They really embraced me, and kind of protected me and wanted to see me succeed.”
Would she still say this is the right way of approaching things?
“I don’t know,” she says, clearly torn.
She mentions an incident where her eldest daughter had wanted to report a male colleague’s comment about her outfit. Wells encouraged her to let it slide.
“I still feel my tendency is [towards] the approach that worked for me. But I realize — and my daughter has told me very clearly — that that’s not okay. So I kind of am unsure, now, of the right approach.”
‘Great joy’
As dean, one of Wells’ priorities has been making Waterloo’s engineering program more diverse.
One initiative — which Wells describes as a “passion project” that “brings her great joy” — is a university-funded PhD fellowship for Black and Indigenous students.
“It is so wonderful to see all these students [and] the network they’ve created among themselves. I wanted this to be a model of what a PhD program could be like.” The fellowship’s founders seem to have succeeded: the program has expanded to 19 universities across Canada.
Wells has also prioritized initiatives to draw young women into engineering.
Today, about one-third of Waterloo’s 11,000-person engineering program is female. While some engineering fields — such as those involving health or the environment — have achieved gender parity, more traditional fields like mechanical, electrical or civil engineering have not. And it is these programs that account for the largest share of the class.
“I did quite a bit of work looking at, in high school, what kinds of courses students are taking,” Wells says. “If you look at who is graduating from Grade 12 physics in Ontario, we’re only at 34 per cent women. We’re not going to get to parity if they’re not taking physics.”
Another insight came from conducting research for a book Wells wrote on women innovators.
“We looked at their motivations for study engineering … In every case, these women had someone in their lives who encouraged them.”
This insight has informed her view that authentic mentorship — by relatives, teachers or close friends — is invaluable.
“Many people have a mental model of what an engineer is, what they look like, what they do. The reality is there’s a diversity of things you can do as an engineer, that can range from very technical solutions to much more people-focused solutions.”
Good mentors, she says, can help mentees “see themselves for, not who they are today, but who they could be in the future.”
To that end, the university participates each year in a program that educates young women — and their parents — on engineering.
When she speaks to parents, Wells says she encourages them to avoid giving their daughters the impression they lack what it takes to succeed. Yet, she wryly admits she herself fell victim to this tendency when her eldest daughter chose to pursue engineering.
“Even though I’ve been telling parents ‘Don’t ever do that,’ I was doing it! … I was suddenly anxious for her,” she says with a laugh. “I did the opposite of what I told them all to do.”
Despite this self-acknowledged misstep, Wells proudly notes both of her daughters have since flourished in engineering.
T-engineer
Wells’ energy and rapidfire delivery are overwhelming my ability to take complete notes. I am silently praying my recording is clear amidst the noisy café.
Another one of Wells’ priorities as dean has been training students to bring breadth and depth of knowledge to their work — a model she refers to as the “T-engineer.”
“The problem at Waterloo is a very [narrow] breadth and a very, very deep depth [in the course curriculum]. I’ve been advocating that we need to change and let [our students] become the kind of engineers they want to be,” she says. She points out that many engineers ultimately pursue careers in business or policy.
Has this shift faced resistance among faculty?
“Yes,” she says definitively, setting her mug down. Universities tend to be quite resistant to change, she notes. And professors, who are themselves highly specialized, often prefer to lead highly specialized courses.
But in Wells’ view, the ability to think broadly is essential in today’s changed landscape.
“In the ‘70s and ‘80s, most of the engineering that was around us … was really civil engineering, physical infrastructure … There were huge regulations about our physical safety.”
“Nowadays, there are no regulations … when you think about our psychological safety. [W]e have engineers … thinking ‘Can I make this technology?’ But they also need to ask the question, ‘Should I make it?’
“We never had to ask that question before. So we do need to educate a different kind of engineer today.”
“Look at screen time with the kids,” she says, pointing to one example of a recent engineering and regulatory failure. “Now, they’re seeing the very negative consequences of all this addiction to screens … It’s really deteriorated human relationships.”
Wells sees the effects firsthand.
“The students we see coming [into universities] … They’re really socially immature … They don’t see themselves as adults at all.
“They are terrified — terrified — to take on any responsibility or decision-making for themselves. They’re constantly talking to their parents, their parents are still directing them a lot… And the parents are anxious too.”
‘Baby robots’
Wells’ energy levels seem to be dipping — a trait that, as an introvert myself, I am quick to recognize in others. I wrap up with a few last questions.
But as we stand — my smoothie still unfinished — Wells surprises me with an offer to provide a tour of the faculty’s newest building: a modern, seven-floor structure just across the parking lot.
As we walk through the impressive building, we pass rooms with “baby robots” and airy lecture halls with enormous screens. Wells speaks excitedly about the building’s features and school’s program, and I can feel her energy returning.
As we part ways, I have no doubt she will soon be pouring her energies into the new school year — with warmth, vigour and good humour.
