Event, raising close to $100,000 in its history, honors UH students and organizations
For the last six weeks the University of Houston Chapter of the Society of Mexican American Engineers and Scientists (MAES) has been hard at work sharing their love of ingenuity with youth in the community.
As mentors to Jefferson Davis High School students, MAES devoted six days a week in January and February to helping the students build a fully functional robot to compete with their peers as part of the national program FIRST Robotics.
“We specifically targeted a school with high a dropout rate and low college entrance levels,” said Fernando Alquicira, the chapter president whose group has mentored at the high school for the last three years. “The students were able to relate to us considering the majority of the volunteers were from the same social and economical backgrounds. We tried to inspire them to pursue a higher education in the fields of engineering and science.”
The extra effort is what motivated two of the 18 high school seniors to make plans to attend the UH Cullen College of Engineering in the fall, and why MAES was awarded first place and $1,000 prize in the Engineering Community Outreach Competition held at the UH Engineering Alumni Association (EAA) Engineers Week Reception and Program.
Their effort, just one example of exactly how engineers in the Houston area are making a difference, was the theme of Tuesday night’s event.
Held annually in conjunction with National Engineers Week (Feb. 15-21), the reception and program, much like the week, is intended to celebrate engineers and to raise awareness about engineering’s benefit to society. This year marked the event’s fifth anniversary.
“As founder of the UH EAA Engineers Week, I created the event to provide cash and recognition to UH engineering students during the national celebration of how engineers make a difference in our world,” said Cynthia Oliver Coleman, the Engineers Week chair. “During the five years, the UH EAA Engineers Week has grown from a small event that provided $5,000 cash to engineering students and organizations, to a large event that provided a high of nearly $29,000.”
In it’s history, the event has raised $96,000 for students and organizations. Tuesday night, in front of close to 200 faculty, staff, students and alumni who attended the reception at the UH Hilton Hotel, a total of $28,000 was presented to 43 students and two organizations. The student awards, which ranged from $500 to $750, recognized student’s engineering achievements. Seventeen companies and professional organizations provided the financial support, which included Reliant Energy and Exxon Mobil Corporation who have been sponsors since the program’s inception.
Among the five student organizations named as finalists in the event’s outreach competition, the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) was runner up to MAES taking home a $500 prize. Their project, Science Odyssey and Beyond focused on sharing simple, hands-on experiments, such as creating slime and holding a magnetic over crushed cereal to see the iron, with middle school students.
For organizations such as NSBE and MAES, winning the competition was more than the money. It was about the chance to get others excited about their field.
“I think EWeek is a fantastic means of giving back to the community and helping the younger generation expand their knowledge about engineering,” Alquicira said. MAES intends to use their winnings, he said, to purchase next generation Hewlett Packard mini laptops to aid the two upcoming UH students with their engineering education.
The awards presented Tuesday were intended not only to help these students and their organizations succeed, but also inspire them to share the importance of engineering with future generations, Coleman said.
“Engineering is all around us, but most people do not recognize that engineers’ work touches nearly every aspect of our lives,” she said. “We need more engineers and in educating the community about engineering, we hope to inspire girls and boys in the community to become engineers one day.”
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The Engineering Alumni Association's Engineers Week Reception and Program celebrated five years at it's recent February 17 event. Below are just a few facts and figures demonstrating exactly how the event has impacted UH students, organizations:
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