This summer Ontario Tech and Trent have combined forces once again to created an Ontario Tech-Trent Women in Chemistry group at our institutions! Here is our birth story.
This all started when a few Ontario Tech graduate students attended the LOGIC retreat (leaders overcoming gender inequality in chemistry) put on by USask Women in chemistry right before CCCE2019 began. Myself and fellow colleagues were very inspired and motivated by this retreat and wondered if we could bring something like this to our school community. This had us thinking and inquiring about starting our own chapter so we could some of these things. These chapters are part of a bigger network called Canadian Women in Chemistry.
We knew that we didn't have a critical mass of chemistry students (or students in the chemical sciences in general) so we thought it was only natural to join with Trent University. Our Materials Science program is joint between Trent and we already have the means to collaborate! Perfect!
After running into some fellow Mat Sci students at CCCE 2019 we decided that we should collaborate and open a (much needed) chapter for our school communities!
We started getting everything together all summer so that we could have our events planned and ready to go for the whole school year (and fundraise some money). It had be a wonderful experience working with these ladies to create something very cool for our faculty, staff, postdoc, undergrads, and graduate students in our school communities.
Our first event that we have planned is called Chem Coffee Chats where once a month we will host a coffee hour! It is an open event for students, staff, and faculty. Our goal is to spend some time talking about interesting news in chemistry and provide a place for mentorship, socializing, and community building within our institutions. But don't worry this isn't all! you will have to following along to find out about out other events on social media ;)
So here is it! Our website and socials are linked below! If you are reading this and are part of either school community and you want to know about our events, fundraisers, or become a general member please check out our website below! The girls have worked so hard this summer to pull this off for the upcoming year and we are so excited to have a chapter at our universities!
Website: https://ottwic.wixsite.com/ott-wic
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OTTWIC
Instagram: @OTT_WIC
Twitter: @OTT_WIC