Abbreviation CFES Official language English, French | Founded 1967 | |
Type Organizations based in Canada Location Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Membership 75,000 (est.) students in 51 engineering societies | ||
The Canadian Federation of Engineering Students (CFES) (Fédération canadienne étudiante de génie in French) is the national association of undergraduate engineering student societies in Canada and exists to organize activities, provide services and interact with professional and other bodies at the national and international level for the benefit of Canadian engineering students. The organization is a bilingual non-profit corporation based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, managed by a volunteer team of engineering students and recent graduates from across Canada.
Contents
CFES Congress
The flagship event of the CFES, Congress serves as both the Annual General Meeting of the Federation, as well as a leadership development forum for engineering students from across Canada. Congress is typically held in the first week or January, spanning a full week of leadership development sessions, informational presentations, guest speakers from industry, a career fair and culminating in plenary, the decision making body of the CFES. At congress, the CFES National Executive and other officer positions are elected, and bids are made to host other CFES activities.
Host schools
Publications
The CFES Project Magazine, also known as Promag, was a magazine published by the CFES and distributed to member schools. ProMag has been discontinued in 2012 due to a shifted interest in providing an online journal that is more easily accessible. Additionally, the content of ProMag did not any longer satisfy the desires of CFES members. Subsequently, Promag was replaced by the CFES Publication (also called the Pub), which is an online publication that is focused on promoting the research and super-curricular activities of Canadian undergraduate engineering students. The Pub is a service provided by the Federation, and is no longer up for bid at Congress.
Project Magazine host schools
Canadian Engineering Competition (CEC)
The Canadian Engineering Competition (CEC) (Compétition canadienne d'ingénierie in French) is an annual competition involving more than 150 of the best and brightest engineering students from across Canada.
All competitors at the CEC qualify for the competition through one of four regional competitions:
Competition categories
The CEC includes competitions in a variety of topics. Individual competitors can be entered in any one of the following competition categories:
Host schools
As the CEC has a national scope, engineering schools wishing to host the competition must win a competitive bid process through the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students. Schools that have hosted the competition since its inception in 1985 include:
Complementary Education Courses (CE Courses)
Complementary Education, or CE Courses, provide an opportunity for engineering students to extend their education beyond the basic engineering curriculum. CE Courses focus on a specific academic or development topic, such as Biomaterials, Nanotechnology and Professional Development. In addition to the academic component, CE Courses offer a number of social activities, and are a great way to explore a new city.
At the moment, the CFES does not host its own Complementary Education courses. The Board of European Students of Technology open their CE courses to students of CFES member schools, allowing them to apply as a registrant of the course or as an organizer.
CFES Conference on Diversity in Engineering (CDE)
The CFES is proud to offer the Conference on Diversity in Engineering (CDE) as a valuable service to its members. CDE aims to encourage discussion and collaboration between engineering students and professionals around the theme of diversity in engineering. Previously known as the National Conference on Women in Engineering (NCWIE), CDE aims to develop knowledge surrounding a variety of cultures found within engineering environments and instill a notion of positivity and togetherness in employing the differences between groups of engineering students and professionals. CDE delegates will not only leave the conference with a solid understanding of the issues cultural minorities encounter in the engineering profession, but they will also be equipped to appropriately address these issues.
NCWIE began in 1990 as a local conference at Queen’s University and in 2003 it became a national event. Other Canadian universities were invited to host it after the 2007 conference. The University of Western Ontario was the first school after Queen's University to host the event in 2008. Shortly thereafter, NCWIE was made a service of the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students.
The first year that the CFES Conference on Diversity in Engineering is offered is 2015, denoting the end of the National Conference on Women in Engineering.
Host Schools
Members
The membership of the organization consists of engineering student societies, rather than individual engineering students. Eligibility for membership is limited to those societies located at a Canadian university that has at least one engineering program accredited by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board and represents engineering student concerns to the school's administration and engineering faculty.
The member societies are divided into four geographic regions for the purposes of representation on the Federation's board of directors:
Board of Directors
As a corporation, the Federation has a board of directors that is responsible for managing the business and property of the organization. The board consists of 3 individuals elected at the annual meeting (the President, and the two National Councillors) and four regional ambassadors, selected using regionally-determined methods: