Region E Best Practices
Baltimore-Washington
Section - Networking Lunches
The Section recently initiated Networking Lunches, held on weekdays
at various restaurants throughout the northern Virginia,
Maryland, and Washington DC
area. These lunches are meant to encourage more participation by
members who don't have the time to attend evening or weekend
meetings. The lunches are organized by individuals who volunteer
to make arrangements with a local restaurant and serve as a 'host',
greeting members and guests and encouraging open communication and
networking among participants. These lunches have been very
successful, with 8 organized over the past year. An average of 8,
and as many as 17, members and guests attended.
The success of these networking lunches is due in large part to a
central committee chair who facilitates the overall program. This
is key to maintaining schedules, and ensure there are the appropriate
number of lunches to avoid overloading the members.
Lehigh Valley Section - Scholarship Program
SWE Lehigh Valley
is proud of its scholarship program, established just two years ago. In
the first year, the chapter awarded five $1000 scholarships to women
graduating from local area high schools who had been accepted to an
ABET accredited engineering program. Last year (the second year), we
not only increased the number of scholarships (six $1000 awards), but
also the number of applicants increased by 10%. The criteria for
selection include science/math/engineering activities, teamwork,
leadership, scholarship, and an essay. As we continue to uphold SWE's
mission, to support women in engineering and to encourage more women to
enter or re-enter the engineering profession, we have set a goal of
awarding another six $1000 scholarships again this year.
New York Section - Sept 11th Scholarship
The September 11 Susan Miszkowicz Memorial Scholarship was
established in honor of the only SWE member who died in the World Trade Center.
Susan was an engineer who worked for the Port Authority. She was an
active member and former president of SWE-NY Section. The NY Section is
also trying to raise money for Susan's mother, whose source of income
was her daughter.
Philadelphia Section - Engineering Mini Camp
Engineering Mini Camp - where SWE members and engineering school
faculty conduct hands on workshops, tours and lectures for potential
female engineering students and their parents (our example is at
Widener University). Supporting the community by being a science
fair judge for SWE and encouraging girls in grade 6 through 12 in
engineering. Celebrate women in math and science with 6th through
8th grade girls (our example is the touch the future workshop with
AAUW).
Greater Syracuse
- New York
State Fair
Greater Syracuse
was represented at the New York State Fair for the first time in our
Section's history. We shared an information booth with the Technology
Teachers Association of New York on Saturday August 31, 2002.
Becky Thyne, Lynn Culotta, Tina Beale, Aimee Vessell and Marcy Newman
answered questions to children and adults about SWE. We handed out SWE
logo candy and brochures about SWE local and national programs. The
children were also able to work with our Lego Robots. A local news
program, Channel 3 gave SWE Syracuse some visibility during the evening
news. We are planning to repeat this activity during the 2003 New York
State Fair next summer.
Richmond Section - Scholarship
SWE Richmond is proud to award an annual scholarship to a local area
high school student who has been accepted to an accredited engineering
program. This scholarship promotes and supports young women who
choose to pursue an engineering degree. The scholarship was
started approximately 15 years ago and continues to be one of SWE
Richmond's priorities. One of the section's long-term goals is to
raise a significant amount of funds in order to create an endowed
scholarship program.
DelMar Section - Activity
Sheets to promote programs
During our kickoff meeting, we used several posters to briefly
describe our key activities. We supplemented the displays with
handouts on each activity outlining in more detail what we did, what
and when the time commitment was for the activity, and the resources we
already had to make the activity a success. Each activity was on
a separate sheet so those interested could focus on what they were
interested in.
E101 - George Mason
University -
Showing school spirit
On February 16th 2002, George
Mason University
had their annual Basketball Homecoming Game. All the sororities
and fraternities wear their letters. Several SWE members wanted
to represent the engineering and computer science department. Since
none of us have time for sororities, we wanted to somehow show that we
were engineers. So I thought it would be neat if the ladies
in SWE showed school spirit by making tee shirts. On the front each
person was a letter, which all together we spelled out "M A S O N
!" Yes we even had an exclamation point! And on the back we
had engineering or computer science, depending on what you were.
The letters in the front were outlined in green puff paint and filled
in with gold glitter. The back writing was done in green
glitter. It looked so sharp. We even got out pictures taken
for the school newspaper! This activity was a big success; it
brought us all closer together as women engineers.
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