News & Events

Event Recap: 2015 SWE Region C Conference

Dallas SWE members and officers attended the 2015 Region C Conference February 6-8!  Hosted by the University of Texas at Austin SWE section, it was a full weekend of learning, networking, and celebrating successes in our Region (Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas) over the past year.  You can visit the conference website here.

On Friday, Dallas SWE members carpooled down I-35 and arrived in Austin to find a welcoming Casino Night social hour.  Guests learned how to play Blackjack, Poker, Roulette, and Craps.  At the end of the evening, we cashed in our chips for raffle tickets: over 20 drawings were held for the prizes!  The evening was a great opportunity to network with collegiates and professionals.

Saturday’s breakfast keynote speakers included Peter Zornio, Chief Strategy Officer at Emerson Process and Polly Bessel, Vice President of Transport Engineering at AT&T.  They offered technology updates from their respective industries and some inspirational words of encouragement to the next generation of women engineers.  After breakfast, several speakers from Region C leadership conducted a joint Region meeting (professionals and collegiates).  Region business topics covered communication strategies (email, website, blogs, social media), the Region C Tactical Plan, an update from our SWE Senators, introduction of a proposed new SWE logo, and the announcement of the Region C FY16 officer slate.  A lot of really cool things are happening in SWE!

Professionals and collegiates then split off into separate meetings.  In the professional meeting we got updates on financials and membership for the region, voted on a financial proposal, and then broke off into some brainstorming groups on the topics of leadership pipeline planning, society committee participation, and leadership retreat planning for the summer of 2015.  The brainstorming sessions were a very productive way to capture feedback from section representatives on these important region topics.  After the professional meeting ended, the first workshop sessions began and the career fair opened to conference attendees!

During lunch Saturday, SWE Speaker of the Senate Brittney Elko delivered the FY15 State of SWE address.  We also got to hear FY16 Region Conference Bid presentations from the University of Arkansas and Texas A&M University.  Your Dallas SWE Section Representatives will vote for the location of the FY16 conference in next few weeks.  After lunch, there were three more workshop session slots to attend and the career fair continued.  There were over 20 companies present at this year’s career fair!

In the evening, professionals enjoyed a networking social hour at the conference host hotel before taking a short shuttle ride over to the Etter-Harbin Alumni Center for the Award Banquet.  Guest speaker Anita Gale gave an inspiring and charismatic address, giving her insights from her long career in engineering on the Space Shuttle Program and her involvement in international aerospace design competitions that encourage young students to pursue STEM careers.  The award presentations included section awards for successful membership campaigns and outreach programs as well as individual awards for career success and SWE service.  Dallas SWE Section Representative and Webmaster Shelley Stracener received a Governor’s Choice Award from Region C Governor Dianne Beever for her service to Region C as their Webmaster and Social Media Manager in FY14 and FY15. Check out the live Tweeting she did from the conference at the Region C Twitter page!

Here are a few photos of our Dallas SWE group at the conference!  For more photos, check out the Region C Facebook photo album here.  If you missed out on the conference, you can find the SWE business meeting slides here.

From left to right: Anique Cooley, Cherrie Fisher, Amanda Posadas, Barbara Read, Shelley Stracener, Nandika D'Souza, Zaineb Ahmad
From left to right: Anique Cooley, Cherrie Fisher, Amanda Posadas, Barbara Read, Shelley Stracener, Nandika D’Souza, Zaineb Ahmad
From left to right: Kashmira Engineer, Shilpa Nagaraj, Barbara Read, Zaineb Ahmad, Amanda Posadas, Cherrie Fisher, Shelley Stracener, Anique Cooley
From left to right: Kashmira Engineer, Shilpa Nagaraj, Barbara Read, Zaineb Ahmad, Amanda Posadas, Cherrie Fisher, Shelley Stracener, Anique Cooley

 

This was the first Region C Conference some Dallas SWE members had attended and their reactions were overwhelmingly positive.

“Loved my first Region C conference. The keynote speaker from Boeing was great. The seminar by the Biotech company CEO was especially good. She was motivating us to try new opportunities that we generally consider ourselves not ready for. I liked that. All the logistics for such a huge event was planned out well and everything went on seamlessly.The seminar on ’10 things to do with your money’ was very basic and I think addressed the student group rather than the professional group. That could have been a little better. “
~ Shilpa Nagaraj

“What I liked the most was the brainstorming we did during our road trip to Austin – looking forward to implementing those ideas in the coming months! It was also great to find out how other SWE sections plus another region (Region I) are doing, and get ideas from them.  I also enjoyed getting an advance look at the proposed new logo for Society of Women Engineers.

I would definitely recommend attending future region conferences to other members. It is a great way to meet and network with other members of Region C, both professional and collegiate.
~ Barbara Read, Dallas SWE President

Here are some ways to get involved in SWE at the Region and Society level:

Event Recap: DISD STEM Day

Spaghetti and Marshmallows- Brain Food a la Dallas SWE

DISDstemLOGOThe Dallas SWE participated in the first Dallas ISD STEM Day initiative invited by Oswaldo Alvarenga and Crystal Alexander of the Dallas ISD STEM department. The initiative was held at Skyline High School and brought over a 1000 children and their parents to the event. Latischa Hanson, Zaineb Ahmed, Shannon Norman, Kitty Elshot, Nandika D’Souza and Cherrie Fisher made their way to the school. Cherrie Fisher organized the actitivity and led an information filled discussion on how our lives as engineers reflect the joy and opportunity to think daily, to create, execute and optimize our ideas. Three sessions between 12:30 and 3:30 on the hour received a range of attendees. In all 64 children formed teams of 2-4 students and parents were given 20 uncooked spaghetti noodles, 3 feet of tape, 3 feet of string, and a marshmallow. The task was simple: build the tallest possible freestanding tower with the materials provided, with the marshmallow on top.

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Dallas SWE Vice President Cherrie Fisher and students with their spaghetti marshmallow tower!

Given only 18 minutes to complete their task, everyone got to building. Some groups used their observations of the world around them and applied it to their design: “chairs have 4 legs, so should our tower” or “bridges have those crisscrossing bars, let’s do that!” Some groups just started building and hoped for the best.

The results were interesting. Of the towers built, only about a quarter of the towers were stable, freestanding structures. Why, we asked the participants? Why were only some teams successful? Students and parents of Dallas ISD realized quickly the most successful teams showed strong teamwork skills, discussing their design back and forth, and encourage new ideas. Also, participants pinpointed that teams, which assumed the tower would hold the weight of their marshmallow at the end, would usually have a tower to buckle at the last-second; conversely, teams that tested after each stage of building had a higher rate of a successful standing tower. Teams also mentioned that they did not think to use the string often enough because they immediately discounted its value.

At the end of the day, several students said they learned something, even if their tower collapsed. Parents asked questions about encouraging and motivating their students into STEM fields. An educator showed interest in more activities to keep her students engaged in STEM and thanked Dallas SWE for our involvement in and impact on DISD STEM Day.

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Volunteers Needed for Design Your World

DYWDallas SWE and the SMU SWE student section, has announced that our next Design Your World – STEM Conference for 4th and 5th Grade Girls will be March 28, 2015 at Zan Wesley Holmes, Jr. Middle School.  We are excited to be serving students in south Dallas this year!  Special thanks to the Dallas ISD STEM department for helping us host this event.

We need your help to make this a success!  If you are interested in volunteering on a planning committee or on the day of the event, please visit our Volunteer Information page for instructions on how to join us!

Stay tuned for more information coming soon!

Event Recap: Getting the Most Out of Your Team

Dallas SWE Vice President Cherrie Fisher and Debra Hunter Johnson
Dallas SWE Vice President Cherrie Fisher and Debra Hunter Johnson

On Tuesday, January 20, 2015, Dallas SWE met at the Olive Garden in Addison, TX and had the opportunity to here from Debra Hunter Johnson on the topic of getting the best out of your team.

Debra discussed several studies that show that there’s a confidence gap between women and men in the workplace.  We need to learn to be comfortable with being competitive!  Sometimes women focus too much on “being liked,” and when that factors into business decisions, we become ineffective or unsuccessful leaders.

Debra spoke on the topic of Leadership and L.O.V.E. based on her career experiences, research and an article written by Dr. Roy E. Alston, a leadership expert.  She shared several examples of effective strategies for leading and serving teams.

Here is a summary of what we learned have the confidence to LOVE your team:

L- Let go of preconceived notions and accept others differences.

O- She suggested that leaders open themselves up, explain our intentions and welcome feedback.

V – Value every relationship at all levels within the organization.

E – Embrace the human being in every person. Successful leaders take the time to find out what motivates each team member rather than implementing a one size fits all approach.

Debra recommended The Confidence Code as further reading for leaders.  She then entertained the audience with personal stories and she provided personalized feedback during an informative Q and A session.

Dallas SWE made a special effort to recognize first-time attendees and find out how they found us and why they decided to join us!  We love seeing new faces: we have a steady stream of folks who have recently moved to the Dallas area.  Thank you for joining us: all are welcome!

First time attendees with our Dallas SWE President!  From left to right: Rebecca Tom, Brenda Rodriguez de Perez, Shelly Gill, Dallas SWE President Barbara Read, Shilpa Nagaraj
First time attendees with our Dallas SWE President! From left to right: Rebecca Tom, Brenda Rodriguez de Perez, Shelly Gill, Dallas SWE President Barbara Read, Shilpa Nagaraj

Be sure to check out our upcoming events in past blog posts, especially our outreach activities in the next few weeks!

She Networks, She Wins and Region C Conference Registration

If you are planning on going to the FY15 Region C Conference in Austin, TX February 6-8, please register by Friday, January 23.  If you would like to be paired up with a roommate for the weekend, email us at dallas.swe@gmail.com and we’ll try to match you up with someone!

Please join us on February 25, 2015 at SMU for She Networks, She Wins!  Meet & mingle with professionals and students during their 12th annual networking event.  Click the flyer below to register online.

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Save the Date for our next Design Your World: STEM Conference for Girls!

The next Design Your World – STEM Conference for Girls will be on March 28, 2015!DYWlogo

The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Dallas Section and the Southern Methodist University Student Section will host the next Design Your World event for 4th and 5th grade girls on Saturday, March 28, 2015!  The location is still TBD, but we are aiming to serve communities in south Dallas this time around.

Please stay tuned to the Design Your World website for more details coming soon!

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