Science Formal ‘another cool tradition’

By Michael Lea, Kingston Whig-Standard
Thursday, November 5, 2015 5:11:27 EST PM

If you were a Queen’s University engineering student and wanted to help put together this year’s Science Formal, you first had to pass a test of your construction skills.

Each volunteer was presented with a couple of two-by-fours, explained event convener Laura McConnell.

“They actually had to hammer the two pieces together to make sure they could do basic construction tasks.”

The dance is a celebration for the fourth-year engineering students that dates back to the early 1900s. Elaborate designs and large structures were introduced in 1923, and in 1943 the students included specific themes.

This year, the dance will be held Saturday inside Grant Hall and Kingston Hall, which are being turned into a showcase of Greek mythology in keeping with this year’s theme: Land of the Olympians.

More than 600 engineering students have helped put the event together, committed to putting in 35,000 hours of labour.

As convener for the event, Laura McConnell, a fourth-year chemical engineering student, is in charge of all of the planning.

“I was really involved in high school,” she said. “I didn’t really do much in my second and third years in university, so I missed that aspect in my life.”

When the post of convener for the formal came up, she looked into it as a way to get involved in school life again.

“It looked like this amazing opportunity to be a part of something awesome, another cool tradition we have at Queen’s,” she explained. “I guess I was feeling super ambitious at the time. I don’t think I fully understood what I was getting myself into.”

But McConnell felt the position fit her personality.

“So I figured I might as well do it because someone has to. If someone is going to be planning this, you might as well have someone who is going to enjoy it.”

Work starts during the students’ third year when they pick the theme. To get the entire year involved, ideas are submitted, whittled down to remove duplications and then sent out to be voted on in January.

“From that point on, it is all planning and preparation,” McConnell said.

They started working in earnest in September. Committees, including art, construction, communication, finance and logistics are filled.

Students with experience from summer jobs doing carpentry or construction are slated for the main building tasks.

To ensure the main structure the students build in Grant Hall is safe, plans are submitted to a professional engineer for approval.

“If there are any problems with the design, he will send them back and help us correct them,” McConnell said.

Putting in the required volunteer hours on the formal can be tough when you are also trying to keep up your studies, McConnell said.

“I have not slept very much for the past two months.”

Working with an $80,000 budget, the students take over a warehouse in September and use it as a base to do as much painting and building as possible. They trace and paint the murals and put together the smaller structures that are all to be transported to Grant and Kingston halls when classes are finished for the week.

They were supposed to be able to start work in Grant Hall last week, but a booking mix-up wouldn’t allow them in until Saturday night, costing them two days of work.

“It did put an additional load of stress on the committee, especially construction.”

McConnell doesn’t have a lot to do now except for the last-minute details that always seem to crop up.

“My biggest responsibility is taking care of my committee because it tends to be that this week people tend to overwork themselves a little bit and they forget there is life outside of the formal.”

The 18-hour work day for the students runs from 8 a.m. until 2 a.m., so she makes sure the workers are taking plenty of breaks.

“The last thing you want is people going into this event feeling exhausted and not being able to enjoy it when they have worked for a year to plan it,” McConnell said.

There is a healthy competition among the years to have their formal be the best, she said. But with so many different aspects to each formal, such as entertainment, food and design, it is hard to pick a winner.

“There is so much going on, you can’t put that much full effort into making every single thing better than any year that has done it before because it is 113 years old,” she said. “There is a lot of competition there.”

Students arriving for this year’s formal will ascend Mount Olympus as thunder clouds rumble overhead.

The rooms in Kingston Hall will have mythology themes.

“Every single room has a story around it.”

McConnell said the formal is one of the great traditions for the engineering students at Queen’s.

There are plenty of such traditions in first year, but fewer as you get into second and third year, she continued.

“This event is just really awesome for bringing everyone back together again, one of those really cool traditions that no one else has. It makes this event so rewarding to be a part of.”

An open house for the public to see the students’ work will be held Saturday from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. Admission is by donation to the United Way. In the past 12 years, more than $14,000 has been raised for the charity.