By Georgia Kat
October 2nd, 2017
[aesop_content color=”#000000″ background=”#ffffff” component_width=”600px” columns=”1″ position=”none” imgrepeat=”no-repeat” disable_bgshading=”off” floaterposition=”left” floaterdirection=”up” revealfx=”off” overlay_revealfx=”off”]Last Tuesday, our Atrium was filled with linen-covered tables, occupied by a mix of students and international business leaders, in a variety of roles, from a variety of backgrounds. The Weir Group is a transnational company of more than 150 years that has offices in 70 countries. They produce pumps that are later used for questionable extractions of minerals in the Middle East and Africa, along with other equipment that is used in mining or similar endeavors. As an engineering company they respond to the needs of a market that reflects modern society and in the 21st century, the market is crying for fracking equipment! Fracking is a technique that greatly damages the environment to extract oil, contaminating water, destroying soil and biodiversity. Weir doesn’t do the fracking themselves, only manufacturing the equipment that will later be bought by fracking companies. So, the Weir Group chose to gather their department heads from around the world in the Netherlands, for an educational workshop focusing on “Industry 4.0”, a term that encompasses the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies. Their goal was to understand where their industry is headed, and to do so they needed to understand “Generation Z”. Yes, that is us. Hearing that Maastricht has a community of diverse, focus-group ready Generation Zers, they wanted to get a piece of this multicultural experience. Students on this island are, however, quite idealistic in regard to the environment, and therefore this meeting promised to be volatile.
[/aesop_content]
[aesop_content color=”#000000″ background=”#ffffff” component_width=”600px” columns=”1″ position=”none” imgrepeat=”no-repeat” disable_bgshading=”off” floaterposition=”left” floaterdirection=”up” revealfx=”off” overlay_revealfx=”off”]Fifty students, both day and residential, had a speed-dating/dinner session with 20 Weir leaders. This time it was not only our student body who was diverse but the Weir leaders also came from around the world, ranging from Peru to Utah. Yes, the representatives were mostly male, and it did indeed reflect how male dominated their field is. Their 150 year legacy seems hard to move on from, yet still, they wish to hear the opinion of young people and hire individuals outside the archetypical white-collar worker of the 20th century. Weir recently hired Geetha Dabir, an Indian woman, as their first Chief Technology officer in March 2017. Dabir had been a Silicon Valley VP and General Manager of “Internet of Things Applications” at Intel before joining Weir. The impression I personally got from Dabir’s male co-workers was that a female leader was not a familiar concept to them, leaving some of them quite speechless. Should the company’s effort to diversify be celebrated as extraordinary?
a
The expectations of the two interacting parties appeared seemingly different. UWCM students were very much interested in the ethical concerns of fracking, its environmental implications, and the questions of corporate and individual responsibility. The Weir leaders, however, were posing questions like “What would you look for in a boss?” Students were more along the lines of “How do you sleep at night, having sold your soul to corporate devil?” Besides the debates about the practice of fracking, the Weir leaders also opened up on a more personal level. They shared personal experiences of their comparatively longer lives, and they were genuinely committed to listening to students’ opinions. They even took notes of students’ comments, scribbling on the back of their menus.
a
It is an oxymoron that this event that gave the spotlight to the students, was set up by an entity that goes against the very sense of idealism that our school nurtures. I was, throughout the evening, having flashbacks to TOK Conference’s; “where do we draw the line?” The sharp questions on accountability and diversity from students – and of course the carefully arranged dessert – created a contradiction. While it was an educational experience for both parties, a sense of pretence was in the air. At the same time our Green Flag, which now gently sways in the cold Maastricht air, must have felt like an awkward third wheel while we were entertaining our guests. Should we be hypercritical of everything coming our way? Should we keep our UWC bubble free of big bad corporations? Does a visit such as this actually nurture a sense of revolutionary idealism? Can we nurture a relationship with companies such as the Weir Group and further our movement at the same time? It’s certain that this event introduced us to the idea of listening to those who we might see as our antagonists in ESS class. Perhaps it opened the question of whether they should be a major part of our education. No matter how disputed the visit was, Tom, Pete, Petra and Sandra made it rather clear that our school stands out, as they served students throughout the evening. I do not believe many educational institutions would choose to place their heads of staff to serve students, yet we got to see that the sentiment of a student-led community is present amongst us, no matter who we are entertaining.
[/aesop_content]
