Willamette Valley Section - SWE eNews February 2018

Post date: Feb 22, 2018 6:54:57 AM

Welcome to our SWE e-Newsletter where we’re compiling relevant announcements and information for you. If you have anything you’d like to include in a future e-Newsletter please contact Joani Curtis (joan.curtis@hp.com).

In this Newsletter

SWE 2018 Engineer's Week Banquet

Registration closes Wednesday, February 21 for the 2018 Engineer's Week banquet. Held on Monday, February 26, 2018, at 6:00pm at the CH2M Hill Alumni Center on the OSU campus in Corvallis, Oregon. Click here to learn more.

Certificate of Merit

Spread the word! Nominations are open for the Certificate of Merit Program. Find details here.

WE Local is coming to Portland

WE Local is a regional SWE conference coming to Portland April 6-8, learn more and how you can participate here.

Women in the Workplace 2017 Report

SWE Member Betty Coulman reviewed the report and has provided a high level summary. See more here.

Volunteer Opportunities

• • Discovering the Scientist Within – March 3, Oregon State University Campus

    • Contacts: Bryony (Bryony.DuPont@oregonstate.edu) & Diana (Diana.Rohlman@oregonstate.edu)

  • Women in STEM Speed Networking Event - Friday, April 6, Memorial Coliseum, Portland

    • Contact: (frc.speednetworking@gmail.com)

  • OSU Graduate Student Committee (GradSWE) Mentoring Program

    • Phylicia (ciciliop@oregonstate.edu)

  • STEM Academy @ OSU – February – May 2018

    • Contact: Cathy Law (catherine.law@oregonstate.edu)

Learn more here.

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SWE 2018 Engineer's Week Banquet

WE Local PDX

Date: April 6-8th, 2018

https://welocal.swe.org/portland/

Registration has opened for the WE Local Portland Conference! Our WVS-SWE Section will not be hosting a professional development event in April. Instead, we encourage you to attend the WE Local PDX Conference.

Registration Deadlines

Early Bird: Thursday, March 8, 2018

Regular: Thursday, March 22, 2018

Career Fair Only: Thursday, March 29, 2018

WE Achieve Awards Ceremony Only: Thursday March 22, 2018

There are opportunities to be involved in WE Local PDX beyond as a general attendee. These include:

• • being a conference speaker

  • volunteering for the conference

  • sponsoring the conference with your company (we have specific Portland SWE contacts if your company is interested)

Please see the conference website for details on how to get involved with WE Local PDX!

Women in the Workplace 2017 Report

LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Co. published the results of their latest annual study on gender

equality in the workplace. Data was from 222 companies and over 70k employee surveys.

Some interesting highlights of their findings:

• • Women are under-represented at every corporate level, from new hires through the executive

  • suite. Progress seems to have stalled.

  • It is not true that women leave the workplace to focus on family at a higher rate than men.

  • It is also not true that women are less interested in promotions than men.

  • Women of color face significantly more challenges than white women.

  • Men are more likely to view the workplace as equitable. 15% of men feel disadvantaged due

  • to their gender.

  • 66% of women do not feel that disrespectful behaviors toward women are quickly addressed

  • in their workplaces.

The suggested path forward, one repeated for many years, is for companies to have

committed plans that support women & create leadership pipelines that are representative of

an organization’s population.

Link to the report summary: HERE

Volunteer Opportunities

Discovering the Scientist Within

Would you like to work with budding scientists in the Discovering the Scientist Within girls event on the OSU campus March 3rd from 8am until 1pm? We are looking for volunteers for two activities:

• 1. KNEX activity run by Bryony – interested volunteers should contact Bryony directly at Bryony.DuPont@oregonstate.edu. These volunteers would help run two hands-on science activities.

  2. General event volunteers – interested volunteers should contact Diana directly at Diana.Rohlman@oregonstate.edu. These volunteers would travel around with the middle-school participants, taking them to their activities and telling them about their college experiences.

Women in STEM Speed Networking Event

Do you want to inspire young women in STEM? We have the perfect opportunity for you...

As part of the FIRST Robotics Competition PNW District Championships, we are organizing a Women in STEM Speed Networking Event. This event is sponsored by HP, ORTOP (Oregon Robotics Tournament & Outreach Program) and FRC Team 997 Spartan Robotics.

Our goal is to provide high-school age women on FIRST Robotics teams with the opportunity to meet one-on-one with professional women in STEM fields, ask them questions, and learn more about career opportunities and experiences. Many of these young women participate on teams with few women mentors or role models in technical roles. We want to inspire them, providing connections and role models to encourage young women in FIRST to see themselves in STEM fields in the future.

To do this, we are looking for ~140 professional women across science, engineering, and math fields in both industry and academia to provide this experience - and that means we need YOU, as a professional woman in STEM!

Here are the details:

• • When: Friday, April 6. Arrive at 11am to eat lunch and go through logistics prior to the event start. Event runs during the competition lunch break, from approximately 12-1pm.

  • Where: Memorial Coliseum in Portland

  • Who: Any woman in science, engineering and math fields, across industry and academia

  • What: Over the course of the hour, you will speak 5-7 minutes one-on-one with multiple young women, answering their questions and sharing your education and career experiences.

REGISTER TO PARTICIPATE HERE

You will receive more details and a calendar invite after registering. If you have questions, please email the organizers at frc.speednetworking@gmail.com.

Thank you for helping us to inspire the next generation of young women in STEM! Feel free to forward this on to colleagues who may be interested.

OSU Graduate Student Committee (GradSWE) Mentoring Program

This past year GradSWE started a mentoring program to connect undergraduate and graduate students to professionals both in academia and industry based on common interests. This mentoring program facilitates one-one mentoring pairs. In the first year we had 20 people sign up for the program, including six WVS SWE members: Liney Arnadottir, Patty Kellar, Buvana Venkataraman, Cindy Dahl, and Betty Coulman.

This year in winter term we are iterating a second round of the mentoring program. Based on feedback from the first year participants we will be incorporating a meet and greet event for participants and establishing more concrete guidelines and goals for the mentoring pair. We are actively looking for more mentors, particularly from industry. If you are interested in being a mentor to a graduate or undergraduate SWE member in this program email Phylicia Cicilio at ciciliop@oregonstate.edu, and feel free to ask last year’s participants about their experiences.

Stem Academy @ OSU

We could use support in working with Garfield Elementary students this winter and spring, helping young students build their skills and confidence in engineering and computer science. STEM Academy @ OSU is looking for volunteers to work with 1 or 2 students during WeDo Lego Robotics sessions from February through May. Support and training provided before and while working with students. Sessions for April and May will be in either English or Spanish (dates and times TBA). Remaining sessions for February and March will be in Spanish only and we are still seeking volunteers for these sessions (dates are February 26-March 1 & March 5-8, 8:15-9:45am). For more info, to sign up, or to be added to the listserv, please contact Cathy Law: catherine.law@oregonstate.edu