Although the oldest and only all-graduate team in the competition, a group of athletic EEM students survived an arduous series of head-to-head matches with
15 other teams in the infamous GW E-week dodgeball competition to capture second place overall.
E-week refers to the National Engineers Week, which is conducted every year around the birthday of George
Washington, the “First U.S. Engineer.” The 2012 Version Took place during the week of Feb 12-19, 2012. Because General Washington was the father of GWU (in addition to being the father of our country), E-week has special significance at GW. Washington acquired his initial engineering skills early in life by becoming an accomplished surveyor. He directed a growing nation toward technical advancements, invention, and education, promoting the construction of roads, canals, the Capitol, docks and ports, water works, and development of manufacturing resources.
Washington's contemporaries included James Watt (Scottish steam-engine inventor); Joseph Priestley (British chemistry pioneer); Richard Arkwright (British cotton-spinning inventor); John Fitch (American steamboat inventor); and the Montgolfier brothers (French aeronauts). On June 9, 1778, at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, Washington issued a call for engineers and engineering education, marking the genesis of the US Army Engineer School at nearby Fort Belvoir, Virginia, where Washington had practiced surveying.
As President (1789-1797), Washington pushed for the passage of the first US Patent Act in 1789, and signed the
first official US patent to Samuel Hopkins of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for his process of making potash and pearl ashes. In 1794, President Washington established a Corps of Engineers to be educated and stationed at West Point in New York, which later become the US Military Academy at West Point.
The EEM Dodge Ball team consisted of grad students Indrajeet Viswanathan (team captain), Tom Mooney, Jerry Butwid, Chris Watroba, Joe Antosh and August Pabst. The matches were grueling, with each head-to-head competition requiring a best-of-five victory. The team won every match throughout the daylong competition, except for the final one, which they lost by the slightest of margins.
