It is nearly 20 years to the day that a man with a legally acquired rifle entered our school and shot 23 people, including me, Nathalie Provost. Several of our close friends were among the 14 young women who died on Dec. 6, 1989 at l'École Polytechnique. Our crime? We were women and we wanted to become engineers. And an angry man was able to easily get access to a lethal weapon.

Twenty years after that fateful day, we the survivors and former students would ask that you reflect on how far we have come and how far we have yet to go. The murders sparked renewed interest and commitment to promoting women in engineering and technology, to ending violence against women and to strengthening gun laws. In each case, we have made progress but there is much left to do.