An inside look at the life of a prominent Dalhousie engineer
Corinne MacDonald (left) and good friend Bernadette Richards (right) at St. Patrick's Day party. Photo contributed.
Corinne MacDonald was a monumental engineer at Dalhousie.
She was the first woman to graduate from Dalhousie's doctorate program in industrial engineering. She was also the first woman to serve as head of the department.
MacDonald died in early September 2022. Perhaps her professional accomplishments are what she's known for best, but friends and loved ones seem to focus on other things.
"My mom used to throw like, the most bitchin' halloween parties ever," said Kelsey MacDonald, one of Corinne's two children.
Kelsey MacDonald is one of many who looks back fondly at the nights when wearing a costume was the law, and Corinne was law enforcement.
But as a daughter, Kelsey learned a bit more from her mother than how to throw a good party.
"I struggled moving through the world because I was constantly worried about whether or not people liked me or not," she said. "That resulted in me often times talking to my mom for hours and hours on the phone."
Although Kelsey had a unique relationship with her mother, she wasn't the only person to benefit from Corinne's leadership, support and encouragement.
Corinne played a similar role for women in engineering. Former master's student Andrea Friars says Corinne was a role model since the first time they met.
"It was my first real introduction to what a successful female engineer can look like," said Friars.
Getting students into engineering is a hard sell.
Perhaps the same can be said of a kitchen pot in twenty-year friend John Blake's cupboard.
"I was getting ready for a marathon," he said. "And about 30k would take me to Corinne and Glenn's house. It was March, and I'm standing there and I'm shivering, right? And Corinne's trying to sell me this plastic, you know something, and I've gotta leave. Like I'm going into hypothermia. So we ended up buying this stupid microwave pot. And I still have the pot, it's actually useful."
Whether it's a lesson about confidence, an award-winning masters project, or a piece of household cookware, Corinne MacDonald left something behind for the people she loved.
And while we don't get to choose when we leave our friends, we get to choose what we leave them with.
"When I was speaking with my mom before she passed away," said Kelsey MacDonald, "we were talking about what a memorial might look like for her. And she was like 'ah, I don't want it at a funeral home. I don't want it in a stuffy place.' She was like 'I want everybody to have a beer in their hand.'"
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