About Us

Who we are

We are a volunteer, informal, grassroots group of engineers, engineering educators, and engineering students from across Canada. What began as a passionate discussion about the Iron Ring Ritual at a 2022 engineering education conference grew into a working group to bring together conversations taking place across the country. We welcome to our table anyone with an interest in this topic, and you can find out more about engaging with us here.

Our Goals

Our goal is to inform, engage and connect Canadian engineers interested in supporting the development of a retooled ritual that PRESERVES THE IRON RING and all the strong associations that it has for us, while aligning the ceremony with the content of present day engineering education and the evolution of our ethical perspectives as a profession.

Frequently Asked Questions / Discussions

What has emerged from our conversations and from those reaching out to us with their stories is that there are key points that we feel are worth building on:

The Iron Ring is valued by Canadian Engineers and recognized internationally, this is worth preserving.
Many groups within the engineering community are speaking (and have been speaking up for years/decades), up in a variety of ways, about the need to address the issue of the Ritual itself, and bringing those voices together will facilitate bringing about change.
The iron ring ritual is coming up to its 100th anniversary in 2025: many believe this is a timely opportunity to ensure that the ring and the ritual continues to resonate with the Canadian engineering community for generations to come. However, this is not a reason to delay change. We don't expect a new ritual to be written overnight, and we appreciate the goal of 2025, but we also don't expect ceremonies to continue going forward without acknowledging the call for change.
Many engineers have little or no recollection of the ceremony itself, and so often they are surprised to learn of the disconnect between the Ritual and the meaning that they ascribe to their Ring. We have been encouraged by the response to conversations in person which quickly go from “why are you asking for this?” to a thoughtful an engaged discussion of what changes could be made. We hope that this hub will be a place to encourage more of these conversations.
If done with care, the process of retooling the Ritual could bring the profession together and allow us to acknowledge and understand what has come before while creating a common vision of where we wish to go from here. Such a process will require engagement with the engineering community as a whole, a willingness to have some uncomfortable conversations, and a commitment to finding common ground.
We are advocating for an engaged and inclusive change process, and do NOT intend to present an alternate. Our goal is to ensure that our whole community is included in this important discussion, and to support the change process being engaged, inclusive and transparent.