Welcome to the Region H (Midwest) Blog! Use this blog to share your thoughts on how to improve SWE. Comment on an article to start a conversation, or send your insights to the RCCE, and she’ll post them here. Anyone can share articles, photos, events, or ideas!
♥ Haley Vingsness
Region H Collegiate Communications Editor
Agilent Technologies has stopped funding its Agilent AfterSchool outreach kits. The current price ($4/kit) will only be honored for the remaining 100 kits of each type (there are 21 kits total).
If you want to use Agilent AfterSchool Kits as outreach for your section, order them fast before they’re all gone!
Once these 100 are sold out, only the most popular 7 kits will be available, at a 300% price increase ($22/kit).
When you’re holding really big outreach events, you might need a Certificate of Insurance. They make sure that SWE doesn’t go bankrupt if something goes wrong at the event. You should get a COI if your event meets any of the following criteria:
- Length of 3 or more days
- Overnight stay
- Expected attendance of 100+ people
- Outdoor event
- Alcohol served
- Children under 18 years of age attending
- Inadequate student to chaperone ratio (varies –
depending on age of children) - Day camp
In the past, our insurance company would pay the overage if the cost of insurance went over our set amount.
This year, they’re stopping.
If your event needs a Certificate of Insurance, read more…
Congratulations to this year’s Regional Award Winners!
Collegiate Emerging Leader: Christina Saunders (Purdue)
Outstanding Collegiate Section
- Winner: Iowa State University
- Honorable Mention: Bradley University
- Honorable Mention: University of Michigan – Ann Arbor
Members-At-Large by region
Region H has largest number of Members-At-Large in SWE: 176! Members-at-Large are professional members who don’t live in the boundaries of an official section. Most of our MALs are in Indiana and Michigan.
If your section is a little far away from your closest professional section, don’t despair! There are three new professinal sections in the formative stages!
- Southwestern Indiana
- Another section in Iowa
- South-Central Michigan
I just found out that SWE co-published a book last year: Becoming Leaders, about how women can make good career choices. Its purpose is to help you develop leadership self-awareness. It’s a great resource for your section. Pick up a copy and keep it in your office for light reading during office hours!
Becoming Leaders is available to the public for $29.00 on the ASCE web site, but SWE members can get an awesome 20% discount! Purchase it through the SWE member store for only $23.
On December 1st, all your members who haven’t paid their dues from last year will disappear from the database, and your section’s membership count will plummet.
Pass these instructions along to your new members to make sure their registration gets counted. read more…
Your IRS Form 990 E-Postcard is due November 15th.
This form makes sure that your section still exists and still wants to be a non-profit.
Every section needs to complete one.
Your section needs to either:
- Be your own registered non-profit, and add yourself as a subordinate organization under SWE’s umbrella
- Have permission from your university to use their non-profit EIN number
To download detailed instructions on how to fill out this E-Postcard, click here.
Right now, the only schools who are their own registered non-profit are: read more…
Your section can host a “Wow! That’s Engineering!” event, fully sponsored by SWE! SWE will also help you plan your event! Send in your application by December 1st!
Wow! That’s Engineering! is a half-day workshop for middle- and high-school girls. They learn about the creativity and innovation of engineering through hands-on activities and interaction with SWE members. This event is fantastic for collegiate sections with great ideas, but who might not have the funding or manpower to plan such a large event on their own.
To see what exactly “Wow! That’s Engineering!” is, check out its Event In A Box page, or see some photos from the Boston event in May.
If you have questions, contact Randy Freedman at randy.freedman@swe.org.
Jessica Wood, Outstanding Collegiate Award Recipient
Congratulations to our Region H Individual Award Winners from WE09!
Distinguished New Engineer:
- Tricia Walker (Heart of Iowa)
- Diane LaFortune (Chicago Regional)
Emerging Leader:
- Amy Benecke McLaren, P.E. (Central Illinois)
- Julie Rolffs (Central Illinois)
Outstanding Collegiate Member:
- Jessica Wood (U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Outstanding Collegiate Member Awards are given to collegiate members with at least 2 years of SWE membership and who have made an outstanding contribution to SWE, the engineering community, and their campus. A maximum of five awards will be given annually. You need to be nominated for this award. Nominations are due on March 31st to the Awards Chair. More information is available by clicking here.
The video SWE members made in the Lava Lounge at WE09 is finally up on YouTube!
Participants were asked to discuss why they became an engineer and how they defined success.
It’s a great film, and they showed it at the end of the Celebrate SWE! Banquet.
EDIT: Sorry girls, I thought the video had embedded. My bad. Here’s a link!
