Society of Women Engineers Region J Blog

WE09 Regional Meeting

Posted by: regionj on: November 6, 2009

I know a lot of you couldn’t attend the WE09 or couldn’t attend the meeting. The powerpoint entails what you missed.

Let me just highlight the presentation briefly:

The following sections are missing their annual/financial report:

•Portland State University

•Washington State University

•Oregon Institute of Technology

•Walla Walla College

•Idaho State University

•Central Washington University

•Gonzaga University

•Washington State Univ.-Tri-Cities

•Boise State University

•Alaska, University of (Anchorage)

Things to keep in mind:

•To remain in good standing, each SWE section must have at least 10 paid members

•Sections receive a 20% rebate for each paid member

•Regions get 1 RCR per 1000 paid collegiate members

Benefits of SWE Membership

Posted by: regionj on: November 4, 2009

Do you have some members who are not part of the Society of Women Engineers? I have some tips on convincing them to become members. Here’s a link to SWE benefits slide:

In a survey of 500 SWE members by Kerr and Downs Research found the following reasons:

  • Professional support and social support
  • Programs that encourage girls to pursue a career in engineering
  • Enhance credentials
  • Leadership development opportunities
  • SWE seminars and workshops
  • Discuss issues relevand to women engineers
  • Participate in activities to encourage young girls to pursue a career in engineering

I have made some great friends with SWE. We meet once in a year, at the Annual Conference, or the CLF. SWE has given me many opportunities, taken me to places for Annual Conferences, Leadership Conferences, and Region Conferences. I have gone all across the country due to SWE from Akron, Ohio to Long Beach, California. If International membership keeps growing at a phenomenal rate, maybe I will see one of you in a different country. I have always wanted to go to Nigeria or Ethiopia or Switzerland. SWE has taught me many things. Most importantly, SWE has taught me that I am not alone in being an engineering. There are 14,000 of us graduating each year.

Renewing your SWE membership

Posted by: regionj on: November 3, 2009

Are you having trouble renewing your SWE membership? Here are the some nice instructions to make your life a lot easier:

Renew Your National SWE Dues
Click
here to renew your National SWE membership! Just login and complete the online renewal form. A letter sent from the national organization contains your password (in case you forgot). If you don’t have your letter and don’t remember your password, select “Forgot your login or password? Click here” and enter your e-mail address. Your password should arrive shortly. If your e-mail address is not recognized, you will have to apply for a new membership.

Become a National SWE Member
Click
here to register as a National SWE member! Just follow these easy steps:

  • Select Collegiate and New Member or Former Member and click Continue.
  • Select SWE Collegiate Member Dues
  • Enter the following required information in the form.
    • First Name
    • Last Name
    • Home Address 1
    • Home Address City
    • Home Address Postal Code
    • Home Address Phone Number
    • Home Address Email
    • You must create and save at least one Education record.
  • All other fields are optional; enter any or no optional information.
  • Click Continue.
  • Enter your credit card information and click Submit

 

 

We need your input to make SWE better!

Posted by: regionj on: November 2, 2009

The Region Collegiate Representatives(RCRs) and Region Collegiate Communications Editors(RCCEs) represent the collegiate voice on the SWE region level which is then transferred to all the way up to SWE headquarters.

As a team we are working to make your SWE experience even better but we need your help! We would like to know some information about your SWE experience.

Please take the time to fill out this survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=O2hRLANHXjhT_2fW0UTMsIBw_3d_3d

Please distribute this to your section team to fill out also. With more input we receive the better we can help you!  It should take you no longer than 5 minutes to fill out. Please fill it out as soon as you can.

Region J Conference 2011

Posted by: regionj on: October 31, 2009

Want to host the Conference in 2011?  The deadline is January 8, 2010.

This will give you 2 months to discuss hosting a conference with your section.  You don’t have to be a gigantic section to host a conference. Our region is mostly of small sections. Melissa A. Mormilo, Lt. Governor of Region J, is from the Greatland Section, a very small section, and they had a very successful conference.  They had new members join, assigned chairs and committees, and became bigger as a result of their involvement with hosting the conference.  The Greatland conference was in Alaska, but they made it successful anyhow. So no matter where you are, how you are, remember that Region J members will trek in necessary, to make your conference successful.

In the conference bid, highlight what your area offers! Like a winery, a berry farm, horse-back riding! These tours show a perspective on your area and as well its people.

Show off your amazing section and the place around you. Our region is one of the most naturally beautiful regions! So show off what you are made of, whether it be Alaskan polar bears or Idahoan(how do you pronounce that?) potatoes. We will come visit you!

I encourage you to consider hosting our FY2011 Region Conference!

Here’s the link to the 2011 Bid Packet.


WE-09 Recap!

Posted by: regionj on: October 25, 2009

It was amazing to meet all of the region collegiates as well as professionals at WE09. Here are some pictures from that weekend. Hope to see all of you at Regionals! Click here if you want to see our picasa gallery.

LongBeach2

California is so sunny and beautiful!

LongBeach3

That's right, it's WE09 in Long Beach, California!

Hot Topic: Making the Most of SWE Resources

Posted by: regionj on: October 15, 2009

Your SWE membership has much more to offer than you probably know about.  This Hot Topic will help you know what resources are out there to aid in your section, and even you and your career.

The resources have been broken up into two sections, human resources and internet resources.

Human Resources – These people can help you personally

  1. Faculty Adviser – This person can help you in numerous ways. They will generally help you with more administrative things at your college, but they can also help by being a mentor, or helping you with school-related bureaucracy. My faculty advisor in my section also helps by telling us when things are professional versus unprofessional because she has a somewhat outsider and more mature look at the situation.
  2. SWE Counselor – This counselor is a professional SWE member in your geographic location. This person can help with SWE-related issues such as updating bylaws, and can also be a mentor. This person is an excellent resource for career related assistance.
  3. Engineering Adviser – Not every section has an engineering advisor. At my school, we have a collection of minority engineering student groups (AISES, NSBE, SHPE, SWE) that are grouped into one cohesive family. This helps the student organizations because if a company wants to visit some minority student groups, they can visit all at once and save the time and effort. We have an advisor over this group who helps us schedule activities and gives a lot of helpful information about how student organizations are run.
  4. College of Engineering Dean – This person is the head of the College of Engineering and can help with financial and other assistance. They could help you fund your travel to Nationals or other specific event that represents the College of Engineering in good light. Most of the time the Dean will have money set aside to help out student organizations. The relationship with your Dean will also come in hand when you need some help organizing events in your section.
  5. Student Government – Usually the student government has some money to help out student organizations. They can help subsidize particular programs, such an outreach event, guest speaker, or national conference travel. They also help you advertise your event.
  6. Region Collegiate Representative (RCR) – RCR’s are responsible for representing the collegiate at a regional and national level. They are the person to go to if you are having problems with your section, advice on how to hold an event, and how to fill out your section, annual reports, and the annual financial reports. You can contact Heather via email at (rcr-j@swe.org).
  7. Region Collegiate Newsletter Editor (RCNE) – Even though I don’t represent you at the regional or national level, I do have contact with them. Also, I will be able to connect you through with the right people. I can also post your problem on the blog, where other sections can comment about a similar situation. The opportunities are endless. You can email me at (rcne-j@swe.org) or comment any of the pages on this blog.
  8. Other Collegiate Sections – If your section is experiencing a problem, there is definitely another section that has problem had that problem at one time or another. You can also pair up with other sections with events. It allows your members to meet there, and the turn out for the event increases dramatically.
  9. Professional Sections – They can help you provide sponsorship, speakers, mentors, career guidance, and the list goes on. They are a valuable resource and will often help out with your events, or you will help out with their events.

Internet Resources – These are very helpful links

  1. MySWE Communities – Similar to any form of social networking, SWE Communities provides online interaction tools designed to facilitate discussions and information sharing among members. You are given your own personal SWE profile, and can add yourself to groups called Communities. You can add friends, have a calendar, participate in discussion, help out with document collaboration, hear about events, and make your own blogs, polls, chat, and the list goes on. To register, you will need your SWE user name and password.
  2. Collegiate Leadership Coaching Committee (CLCC) – The CLCC gives detailed presentations to collegiate sections on a series of Modules, ranging from Leadership to burnout. They are a great resource to help train your new leadership, to help attract membership, to teach your members about SWE, etc. A list of Modules can be found on the CLCC link.
  3. SWE Webinars – You receive emails pretty frequently about new SWE Webinars. These are like short seminars, but on the web (get it, web and seminar = webinar). Anyways, the information given in webinars are fairly similar to the information given during seminars at conferences. They are usually on work balance and other various topics. Here is a list of past webinars and links to the video/audio.
  4. SWE Scholarships – SWE gives out a myriad of scholarships every year. During last year, SWE gave out over $400 thousand in scholarships. Application information is available now on the SWE Scholarships link.
  5. SWE Outreach – This website has all of the information needed for coordinating outreach activities. It gives more details on well founded SWE outreach activities, such as Wow! That’s engineering, and other events.
  6. SWE National Conference Toolkit – This is a really nice tool kit to use when you need help increasing your section’s attendance at the SWE National Conference by providing fundraising ideas, a fundraising timeline, letters for the Dean, Sponsorship request letter templates, and ideas for cost cutting measures.

 

P.S. This was from last year’s RCNE. I thought it was so amazing that I shouldn’t write a new one. Thanks!

Weather Forecast for WE-09

Posted by: regionj on: October 11, 2009

The following is the weather forecast for WE-09, courtesy of weather.com

Weather

Looks like it will be warm conference! :)

WE-09 Calendar

Posted by: regionj on: October 6, 2009

Wonder what is happening at WE-09 or what to do when you get there. No worries. I have you covered. The following is a calendar I created. WE-09 is being held in Long Beach, California from Wednesday, October 14 2009 – Sunday, October 18 2009.

WE-09 Calendar

Hope to see you at the Region Meetings on Wednesday. It would be a wonderful way to meet all of the members from Region J!

Section Spotlight: University of Portland

Posted by: regionj on: September 28, 2009

For their first service project of the year, University of Portland volunteered with the Habitat for Humanity. Check out their amazing pictures. According to Wikipedia, “Habitat For Humanity International (HFHI), generally referred to as Habitat for Humanity or simply Habitat, is an international, ecumenicalChristian, non-governmental, non-profit organization devoted to building “simple, decent, and affordable” housing. Homes are built usingvolunteer labor and are sold at no profit.”

Great Job University of Portland SWE!