On Saturday April 25th The Dallas & Ft. Worth SWE professional sections held a Leadership Workshop on the Southern Methodist University campus; we were joined by representatives from the SMU & UT Dallas SWE student sections. SWE Region C Leadership Coaches Jennifer Bell and Carol Bachman lead the sessions; in addition we were honored to have Region C Governor Diane Beever as a special guest presenter.
Jennifer Bell, SWE Region C LCC
Great discussions! From left to right, Carol Bachman, DIanne Beever, Shilpa Nagaraj, Tram Trinh
Dianne Beever (left) and Emily Ghastin (right)
Nandika D’Souza (left) and Zaineb Ahmad (right)
Group photo!
The day started with an overview of SWE which included the organization’s mission, goals, organizational structure and governance. Two additional modules, Effective Meetings and Communications were presented. Jennifer reviewed Strategic and Tactical Planning methodology – the group then engaged in a working session for FY 15.
Take Aways:
Identify strategies & meeting topics to Engage Male Allies
Raise SWE Community Awareness – Joint Tours with other Organizations
Invite Members at Large to Future Leadership Workshops
Include Family Friendly Activities
The SWE Dallas Section Programming Committee would like to extend special thank yous to Southern Methodist University, the SMU Student Section and their outgoing President Emily Ghastin for hosting our Leadership Workshop this year.
Voting is open until May 21: don’t delay, vote today!
Dallas SWE FY16 Officer Candidates:
President – Barbara Read Vice President – Cherrie Fisher VP of Membership – Zaineb Ahmad VP of Outreach- Nandika D’Souza Secretary -Marzia Monty and Elizabeth Gentry Treasurer (2 year term) – Elizabeth Hainey 2 Section Representatives – Amanda Posadas and Sadia Khan 1 Board of Trustee (3 year term) – Arwa Kassamali and Justa Trevino
Dallas and Fort Worth SWE invite you to an evening of “Social Science” at the Perot Museum in Dallas!Wonders of nature and marvels of science collide for an evening of amazement! Meet scientists, engineers, artists, and other creative-types while you sip a signature cocktail to explore the ingenuity that surrounds us both in the natural world and beyond. An evening of amazing feats, strength challenges, talent competitions and more.
Guests welcome (Social Science attendees must be 21 or older).
Eclectic food and signature drinks by Wolfgang Puck will be available for purchase at the event.
April 21, Dallas SWE invited ASME and collegiate SWE sections to join us on the SMU campus to enjoy guest speaker Jennifer Bell’s career story and advice for aspiring leaders. Jennifer is a mechanical engineer who has worked mainly in the field of reliability and quality engineering for the oil and gas industry, both on-shore and off-shore. She left industry in 2012 to pursue her MBA and is now on the precipice of the next step of her career: reentering the workforce!
Great group for our April Professional Development Event at SMU!
Jennifer had a lot of great advice for attendees and recommendations for leadership books to read, including The Athena Doctrine, She Wins You Win, and Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman. As a SWE Leadership Coach and leader in ASME, Jennifer talked about how valuable her involvement professional societies is to her career, especially during her time out of the workforce. She delineated the differences between a Mentor and a Sponsor and why you need both for a successful career. We also spent some time talking about SWE’s new Diversity & Inclusion Knowledge Cards which contain some compelling statistics and studies on women and other minorities in the workplace.
Great group at SMU! Guest Speaker Jennifer Bell is lower left.In keeping with our new tradition, here is a photo of first time attendee Emily with Dallas SWE President Barbara Read!
We are so grateful to Jennifer for sharing her experiences and insights on these topics and look forward to what she has in store for the Region C Leadership Summit in the works for summer 2015!
Stay tuned for a recap of Jennifer’s involvement in our Saturday Leadership Workshop on April 25!
This spring’s Design Your World-STEM Conference for Girls was an outstanding success! Two events for the 2014-2015 fiscal year were generously supported by Exxon Mobil, Capital One, Pryor Packaging and an outreach award grant from SWE International. The March 2015 DYW event was executed completely by volunteers and a new partnership with the Dallas Independent School District. Dallas SWE has been keen to expand access to this event after receiving feedback from local school teachers during a Sci-Girls workshop in January 2014. They identified logistical challenges of metroplex travel and an increased need to reach out to newer regions in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
Zan Wesley Holmes Jr. Middle School
Dallas SWE reached out to Dallas ISD’s STEM Department Executive Director Oscar Alvanrenga and Director Crystal Alexander. They identified Zan Wesley Holmes Jr. Middle School as the optimum facility for an event of this kind. Jane Didear of Dallas ISD Volunteer and Partnership Services provided additional assistance. The SMU SWE student section, counseled by former Dallas SWE President Jennifer Vilbig, selected Kelly Howey to be the student Co-Chair to partner with professional Co-Chair and Dallas SWE VP of Outreach Nandika D’Souza. Lynn Mortensen, Co-Chair of the November 2014 Design Your World conference for 6-12th grade girls, continued her phenomenal volunteer recruitment efforts. 120 girls, 64 adults and 92 volunteers registered through Eventbrite, managed by DYW Webmaster and Registration Chair Shelley Stracener.
Upon arrival at Zan Wesley Holmes Jr. Middle School, students picked up a lavender-colored t-shirt and goody bag made possible by AT&T and Raytheon. The opening session was held in the school’s auditorium with plenty of space for everyone. Meagan Pollock, Director of Professional Development for the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity (NAPE) led the opening program communicating the excitement and limitless potential of STEM careers. She engaged the audience in a teamwork game engaging all their senses. Kendria Johnson, a teacher at Zan Wesley Holmes Jr., then brought her nationally recognized STEM dance troup that highlighted the importance of personal value over peer pressure. Inspired, attendees then made their way to their STEM activities. Six activities were run in 3 sessions allowing each girl to experience the design paradigm for three engineering fields.
Mechanical Energy- Marshmallows and Spaghetti was led by Lori Wiltz Halliburton and Ophelie Herve, SMU-SWE
Computer Science- Fun with Alice was led by Mayaria Johnson, UNT-SWE and ACM-W
Biomedical: Clearing a Path the Heart was led by Cynthia Markbreiter and Mar McCreary SMU-SWE
Chemical Engineering-Polymer Jewelry was led by Alicia D’Souza, STEMcess.com and Andres Garcia-UNT Society of Plastics Engineers
Aerospace Engineering: Rocket Fun, was developed by Rachel Shepherd, SMU-SWE
Electrical Engineering: Lights, Sound, Action was led by the Women of AT&T Jennifer Gamboa-Haker and Arianna Santiago, SMU SWE
Dallas SWE continued the SWE Outreach Award winning Parent/Educator Panel sessions this year, chaired by Anita Pacheco. After the joint opening session, the parent/educator group convened in the auditorium. Amber Scheurer moderated a panel discussion, “Helping students prepare for a STEM career,” with Joey Jiang (Halliburton), Cherrie Fisher (AT&T), and Justa Trevino (Raytheon). The panelists shared challenges they faced such as being the first in the family to go to college or having to learn English as a second language. They also discussed their experiences overcoming bias in the workplace and strategies they used to encourage their children in STEM.
Zan Wesley Holmes Jr. Middle School is home to a nationally competitive underwater robotic team! Students on the team demonstrated their robot for the group of adults and the team’s teacher sponsor, Michelle Thomas, shared her best practices for parents and educators to work with their schools to replicate their success. Then parents and educators had time to connect with each other and professional engineers over lunch.
They reconvened in the auditorium for a panel called “My Engineering Life” moderated by Anita Pacheco (Oorvo, Inc). The panelists, recent engineering graduates, included Jennifer Vilbig (Vilbig & Associates, Amber Scheurer (Texas Instruments) and Shelley Stracener (Heads Up Technologies). They talked about the impact of an engineering degree on their income level and financial independence, how they enjoyed working in teams, and how their work experiences were very team-focused. They highlighted this last point because engineering is often misunderstood as a reclusive job with little social interaction. After the panel, Nandika D’Souza then went over the steps that are involved in college admissions using materials provided by Landon Ellison, Admissions Officer, Engineering, UNT. The adults found the session to be very rewarding in providing a road map to assist children.
As the end of the day drew near, students and volunteers moved back to the auditorium. Dallas SWE members elicited squeals of excitement as they put on an Engineering Fashion Show, displaying all the different careers and clothing an engineer uses in her everyday work! Then, an AT&T-led high school robot team showed a design they created. As children and adults filled out assessments and left, the excitement from attendees was unmistakable: engineering unleashes energy, ideas, and possibilities!
Engineering Fashoin Show!
Volunteer organizations that supported the event included Women of AT&T, Halliburton and Abbott; student sections of UNT-Society of Plastics Engineers, UNT-Society of Women Engineers and UNT-ACM.
Tuesday (tomorrow!) is our monthly professional development meeting, this time as a joint event with ASME, SWE SMU, SWE Ft. Worth, and all DFW SWE collegiate chapters! Guest speaker Jennifer will be speaking to us about her engineering career, her SWE life, and ASME.
When: Tuesday, April 21, 2015, 6:00pm – 8:00pm Where: SMU Embrey Engineering Building. Huitt Zollars Room. 3101 Dyer St, Dallas, TX 75205 Cost: Professional attendees: $5, Collegiate attendees: FREE. Boxed lunches will be provided. RSVP: Register here!
This Saturday, please join us for a very special Leadership Workshop with SWE Leadership coaches Jennifer Bell and Carol Bachman. As you may know, Region C did not hold a Leadership Summit this year, as it traditionally has held in the summer. This Workshop is the next best thing, with two SWE LCC (Leadership Coaching Committee) members here for the sessions.
