McMaster songbook fallout continues

The report on the McMaster engineering society is out — and it is far from flattering. The report was commissioned after the existence of a highly offensive book, of profane songs and chants, was brought to the attention of university officials.

An independent investigation is now complete, when investigators took a close look at Mac’s engineering society — and the so-called Redsuits who volunteer to represent the faculty, and organize events to promote engineering — they found that the offensive song book — was the least of their problems.

They are best known for the good things they do; hauling buses for charity, and welcoming new students by helping them move in to residence. But when Mac’s engineering society was connected to a book filled with profanity-laced, misogynist songs — the University took swift action — launching an independent investigation. But the songbook, proved to be much less troublesome, than other engineering society activities.

McMaster V.P. Of Academics is David Wilkinson: “At the end of welcome week there was a party put on by the engineering students — that’s the Redsuits — in which alcohol was made freely available. Most of the students were underage. That’s clearly not acceptable.”

And, it gets worse. While the summary of the investigation mentions under-age drinking in numerous citations — in one specific incident in which new engineering representatives were presented with their redsuits — many were encouraged to remove their other clothing,first. According to the report — 30 to 50 percent of them, did.

David said: “It was disturbing to see the extent of the behaviour.”

More disturbing still — senior members of the McMaster engineering executive, and their representative Redsuits were primarily responsible for driving that behaviour. The investigator found that the engineering society knowingly violated event risk policy, continued to use inappropriate chants from the songbook off campus, used insufficient financial management and records to keep track of spending on parties that may have been inappropriate and — once misbehaviour was uncovered — deliberately hindered the investigation, and removed and hid information of interest to investigators.

While much of this activity was conducted off campus, and deliberately concealed from University officials. McMaster intends to put a stop to it:

David said: We’re going to be taking a larger role as an institution and the administration, in controlling the way welcome week operates.”

While they say they’ve done all that they can for the moment — Mac administrators admit — this is a moving target, and they will have to monitor welcome week much more stringently in the future, than they have in the past.