Region Collegiate Representatives and Region Collegiate Communications Editor: The RCR is responsible for representing collegiate members’ interests among regional leaders. The RCCE is responsible for communicating important SWE events and best practices through the region’s blog. Plus, the RCR(s) and RCCE from each region will have the opportunity to attend next summer’s Collegiate Leadership Forum in Minneapolis, MN. Click here to learn more about the positions.

Region Collegiate Senators: The RCS is responsible for chartering the strategic direction and adopting long-range goals for the Society. The alternate RCS is responsible for fulfilling her Senator’s duties if the Senator is unable to perform her tasks. The RCS from each region will also have the opportunity to attend next summer’s Collegiate Leadership Forum in Minneapolis, MN. Click here to learn more about the positions.

The RCR, RCCE and RCS positions provide invaluable interaction and coaching from SWE leaders. These leadership opportunities sharpen your career skill-set in the areas of leading and facilitation, group dynamics and communication, and project leadership. Click here to review the RCR/RCCE/RCS Qualifications.

Please click here to apply or copy and paste the following URL in your browser:https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/fy13_rcr_rcce_rcs_appl

To apply you will need:

• Member number
• Section/Region
• School and Permanent Address
• Position of interest
• SWE leadership positions
• Other leadership positions
• Why you want to be RCR/RCCE/RCS
• What you bring to the RCR/RCCE/RCS position
• What SWE means to you
• Interest outside of SWE
• Reference to confirm GPA/academic standing

Please also submit a 1-3 minute video that describes why you are running for the position, your name, year in school, major, SWE leadership experience, why people should vote for you, etc. Send the video to SWE.Collegiate.Elections@gmail.com by February 5, 2012 . Note that the video does not need to be submitted with the Survey Monkey application but does need to be emailed before the deadline. The video must be high enough quality to post on YouTube and should be under 25MB.

Applications are due by Sunday, February 5.

Similar to past years, in FY13 there will be one to two RCRs for every 1,000 collegiate members in each region. If collegiate membership reaches 1,000 members by January 31, 2012, a region will add or maintain a second RCR. There will be one RCCE and one RCS elected per region. Alternate RCSs are optional, and the position will go to the RCS candidate with the second highest number of votes.

Disclaimer: Be aware that if elected, you will need to secure your own housing accommodations for the WE12 Conference in Houston. There are resources available through your Region Governor.

If you have any questions regarding the positions or the election process, please contact your RCR(s) at example:rcr-x@swe.org, where X is replaced by the letter of your region, RCCE atexample:rcce-x@swe.org, or Jessica Kiefer or Jasmine Harris at rcr-rcce-coordinator@swe.org.

• Jessica Kiefer, RCR/RCCE Coordinator
• Jasmine Harris, RCR/RCCE Coordinator Elect
• Linda Thomas, Director of Regions
• Colleen Layman, Deputy Director of Regions
• Helen Patricia, Speaker of the Senate
• Deborah Willems, Deputy Speaker of the Senate

Hey Everyone,
Happy New Year from the RCT =)

This is Aiswarya, blogging to you about why you should attend the CLF at UMass Lowell in early February.

1. Want to brush up your leadership skills and gain new ways to rise to a SWE position over your college career?  Attend.
2. Want to network with other collegiates before the Regional Conference? Attend.
3. Go to school in the Boston-area and spending less than an hour or two to travel to UMass Lowell?  Seriously, attend.

Where: UMass Lowell’s Alumni Hall on North Campus
When: Saturday February 4, 2012, 11am – 5pm
Contact: Allison Fidler - Allison_Fidler@student.uml.edu

Or, give the gift of SWE! Do you have a friend who would like to join SWE? Perhaps your mother or aunt is an engineer? A SWE membership makes a great gift! Visit the website to join today: www.swe.org.

Tufts SWE wishes you a happy and healthy holiday season.

Emily
Tufts Section President

In addition to extending the CLF invitation to current section officers, we’re also asking each section attending to nominate someone who is an active member of their section but does not currently hold an officer position to be a Jr. SWE Future Leader. At the forum, myself and our past SWEFL Emily Anderson will be doing a break-out session for our Jr. SWEFL’s on the history of SWE and the benefits of pursuing leadership positions on the sectional, regional, and national level.

The 2012 CLF should be a blast, and will also be a great way to network with leaders from other SWE sections. If you would like to register for CLF, please fill out the survey below. The registration fee is $10 per person.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LGF8D9T

Hope to see you there!

Happy Holidays,
Allison Fidler
Region F SWEFL

Last week, the Tufts University section of SWE teamed up with SWE Boston to host the Joint Collegiate-Professional event, which was sponsored by athenahealth. Attendees included local members from the Boston area, Tufts SWE members and employees from athenahealth. SWE members had the opportunity to network with each other over appetizers and dinner. Dr. Karen Panetta, the faculty advisor of the Tufts section of SWE, gave the keynote address. In short, Dr. Panetta is a rock star! Dr. Panetta gave advice for women in all stages of their careers with the lines, “Change the bait” and “Get a fresh coat of paint.” She urged women who were having trouble finding internships or jobs to refresh their image and interests by taking an online course or volunteering. She maintained that all engineers should be familiar with current technology.

Thinking about current technology, it was appropriate that athenahealth sponsored the event. athenahealth is in the medical billing business, providing user-friendly technology and project management services to its clients. The spokeswomen from athenahealth stressed the friendly environment of the company and the opportunities for career growth. athenahealth has an office in Watertown, MA and is currently hiring engineers! Check them out at: http://careers.athenahealth.com/ext/search.asp.

Hosting a joint Collegiate-Professional event gave Tufts students a peek at what it would be like to be a professional member of SWE. SWE Boston has extensive resources that they are willing to share. Professional membership seems like a “must.”

Emily Anderson
Tufts SWE Section President

Do you all know about SWE’s amazing Collegiate to Career (C2C) membership program? Normally, membership as a collegiate member costs $20 a year. First year of professional membership costs another $20. With the C2C program, however, you can pay a one time membership fee of $50 and be covered for all your collegiate years (undergrad and grad!) as well as your first year as a professional. Basically, if you still have 2 or more years of schooling left, this membership program is quite a deal.

To help you learn more about the program, the Membership Committee made the following informational video. It happens to feature people from the Region F team (Aiswarya, Ellen, and me). Please don’t make fun of us

You should also check out this flyer that describes some of the differences between collegiate and professional sections.

Best,
Poorva
Region F RCCE

RPI SWE designed a business card around our new logo

Over the past couple of years, our section has been working to make SWE business cards available to our Executive Board and our general body members. I think this is a pretty simple but effective way to help our members in networking. We have had an overwhelmingly positive response, especially at the WE11 Annual Conference.

Business cards are so convenient when you make a new contact, and really impress at career fairs. The best part is they’re very affordable.

Groups can place custom orders at Vistaprint for less than ten dollars, or can order them through national SWE.

Here are some more tips on making the most of your business cards:

• Put your preferred method of contact (Do you want to direct them to your website? Are you comfortable answering phone calls?)
• Although these cards are affordable, you can sometimes get more for your money. Many officers from my section have put “Executive Board Officer” on their cards and continue to use them over a number of years.
• Does your school email address expire upon graduation? Every SWE member is able to get their own free @swe.org email address. This address simply forwards any email to an account that you specify. When you change addresses, your SWEmail can go with you! Simply email aliasadmin@swe.org
• Invest in business cards with general advisor and section contact information to hand out at career fairs and various events.
• Always keep a few in your wallet or on hand, you never know when you’re going to meet someone who you’ll want to stay in touch with.

Once you have business cards, it can be fun to incorporate them into a networking event for your section, among many other things!

Cary Kaczowka

Vice President, RPI Society of Women Engineers
Cary.kaczowka@swe.org

The SWE Senate held its annual fall meeting at WE11 in Chicago last week and got some great work accomplished. We worked on this year’s Mega Issues, discussed and voted on the proposed motions for the meeting, and set our winter meeting date.

All of the motions presented at the FY12 fall meeting passed. Some of the motions with the biggest impact include the Contingency Reserve Fund, which redefines SWE’s reserve funds and will have the reserve fund policies reviewed periodically to keep them fresh, and another motion which encourages the Board of Directors to look at a tiered dues structure based on income for international members, which will increase the inclusiveness of the Society. There were also some bylaws updates – one worth noting for collegiate sections defines a section in good standing, which requires 10 members, up-to-date bylaws, and a Section Counselor. (You don’t need to have 50% women or 50% engineers to be a section in good standing, just to start a section.)

The first Mega Issue this year is MI 00116 – “How can SWE inspire companies to provide creative opportunities for engineers who want to contribute in their industry and attend to family needs?” This team presented some background research on the subject and strategies for moving forward with this issue, and Senate had breakout sessions to discuss both how we can motivate companies to change their culture, and what types of creative solutions we can present to companies. SWE is planning to work with the companies on the Corporate Partnership Council (CPC) to create lasting change, and will look into motivating companies by discussing the positive financial impacts and increase in company loyalty that increased flexibility can offer. Some ideas for solutions are a SWE badge of approval for companies who truly offer flexibility, and options like offering increased benefits with slightly less salary. Let us know in the comments if you have other creative solutions to this Mega Issue!

MI 00121, the second Mega Issue for this year, asks “How do we change the conversations from what member value SWE provides to how engaged are our members?”. This question is broad and difficult to answer, and a lot of discussion on how to define engagement resulted at our meeting. Do you have any thoughts on what it means to be involved in SWE? We will probably send out some surveys on the Mega Issues in the coming weeks as well.

That’s all the updates from Senate for now! Feel free to contact me with questions about Senate issues, or if you think you’d be interested in getting involved on Senate or in a Mega Issue.

Ellen

Emily Anderson
Tufts SWE Section President

“ASPIRE” Members are especially valuable to our organization, as they are literally the lifeline for not just SWE, but for the success and continued contribution of women in S.T.E.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Careers.

Please take a moment to post to this discussion, and share how SWE has been valuable to you as a young woman in S.T.E.M.; how you feel SWE Membership will be advantageous to you as you continue beyond the 10 year mark; what skills you’ve gained because of your participation in SWE; and what incoming genarations can gain in college, & in the first 10 years of their career, by becoming an active SWE Member!

ASPIRE

Lana Fountain Flakes
FY12 Director of Membership Initiatives
Society of Women Engineers
Lana F. Flakes
Reliability Engineer