UMaine’s Collegiate Society of Women Engineers receives national honor
The Collegiate Society of Women Engineers (SWE) at the University of Maine was awarded an Outstanding Collegiate Section Award at the Silver Level at the SWE Conference awards banquet in Nashville in October.
The award recognizes collegiate sections that are active in meeting SWE’s strategic goals of professional excellence, globalization and advocacy. At the Silver Level, UMaine was joined by nine other collegiate sections, including those at Cornell, Purdue and Tufts universities.
Meagan Lewis, a senior in mechanical engineering from Beverly, Massachusetts, is the president of UMaine’s SWE section.
“The UMaine section really fulfills SWE’s tagline — Aspire/Advance/Achieve — and offers great opportunities for members to develop leadership skills,” says Karen Horton, professor of mechanical engineering technology and the UMaine section’s adviser and the 2010 Outstanding SWE Counselor.
The UMaine section has a number of active committees, including those focused on technology and website, outreach, fundraising, corporate relations, social events and the Region F Conference (this year at West Point, Feb. 26–28). The section plays an important role in engineering outreach to young people in Maine, with the UMaine members leading events at engineering expos and the Challenger Learning Center in Bangor.