The video, about 10 minutes long, was filmed in the GCH1140 course during the winter 2013 semester. “(The film shows) Patrice Farand, faculty lecturer and co-manager of the bachelor's program in chemical engineering, in real-life situations, guiding his first-year students through a reflexive process on the 12 qualities and the key role they play in the students' training,” Ms. Ducharme explains. In turn, the students — Inès, Georges, Réginald, Audrey-Anne and Mathieu — show concrete applications of the 12 qualities in chemical engineering. Also featured is Stéfanie Vo, a Polytechnique graduate and now a process engineer with the firm Hatch, speaking about the relevance of these qualities in her own work.

Seen close up, these qualities are intrinsic to the engineering profession:  

1)      Engineering knowledge
2)      Problem-analysis skills
3)      Investigation skills
4)      Design skills
5)      Use of engineering tools
6)      Individual work and teamwork
7)      Communication skills
8)      Professionalism
9)      Understanding the impact of engineering on society and the environment
10)    Ethics and fairness
11)    Cost-savings and project management
12)    Continuous learning 

A committee at Polytechnique has been working to incorporate teachings about these 12 qualities into the curriculum since the fall of 2010.  Yves Boudreault, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of Computer Engineering, is the committee coordinator. Professor Boudreault says: “The main role of the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) is to ensure that engineering schools and faculties are properly preparing their future graduates. The CEAB used to almost exclusively use accreditation units. Now it wants to measure the impact of courses on the students, not only from a knowledge acquisition point of view, but also in terms of developing the qualities in question.” He adds: “The new standard imposed for all bachelor-level engineering programs represents a challenge for Polytechnique and for its teachers. Essentially, we need to ensure that everyone has the same interpretation of the qualities. The BAP video supports us in this process, and helps us lay the groundwork for the endeavour.” 

Anastassis Kozanitis, the BAP academic advisor assigned to the project, adds: “It makes sense to start talking about the 12 qualities during the very first course, to help make the link between the course content and the qualities more obvious for students.”

With the introduction of the PDF (programme de formation, or training program) in 2005, Polytechnique began relying on skills acquisition, particularly written and oral communication and design. The 12 qualities represent another key step toward improving the education of our engineers at Polytechnique and across Canada.

A workshop on evaluating the 12 qualities will be held on June 6 as part of the 8th Journée de l'enseignement (teaching day).

Thanks to the entire production team, especially Sylvain Lefebvre, academic advisor at BAP, and Vanessa Abahir for photography direction.

Click here to watch the 12 qualities video (in French only).

For more information, contact Anastassis Kozanitis at extension 3229.

See also:
Bureau d'appui pédagogique (teaching support centre, or BAP) Website (in French only)
Engineers Canada, Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) website
CEAB accreditation criteria and procedures website
Website for the 12 qualities grid (in French only)