Society of Women Engineers section wins top award at national conference

 WVU's SWE section wins Gold Award

West Virginia University’s section of the Society of Women Engineers received top honors during the 2016 SWE conference, the world’s largest conference and career fair for women in engineering, hosted in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The student organization was awarded a Gold Award for Outstanding Collegiate Section. The award recognizes sections that demonstrate the ability to share SWE’s mission of empowering female engineers through campus and outreach events.

The WVU SWE section hosts a variety of outreach, professional development, community service and social events throughout the year. Their largest event, Girl Scout Day, brings more than 300 participants to campus to participate in STEM-related activities and to help recruit the future generation of female engineers to WVU.

“SWE is one of our most active student organizations, logging more than 775 volunteer hours in the 2015-2016 academic year,” said Cate Schlobohm, outreach coordinator for the Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources. “They are directly helping to draw more young people, specifically women, into the pipeline for engineering.”

While the section has won the Silver Award for Outstanding Collegiate Section many times in the past, this is their first time achieving Gold.

“We have never received anything higher than a Silver Award at the national level,” said Taylor Davis, a senior industrial engineering major from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and WVU section president. “Now that we received the Gold Award, our goal is to keep improving and making each year better than the last. We have reached the top, and now we need to make sure we stay there!”

The organization’s success goes far beyond just winning awards. Members of the WVU section have been able to land more than 60 interviews and 20 job offers from Fortune 500 companies in the past year.

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