Courtesy Elyse Watkins
Student and professional leaders network at last year's conference held at Georgia Tech. The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers is one of the oldest Latino organizations at N.C. State.
The N.C. State chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers will be hosting the Region 7 Conference for the first time this weekend, even after budget cuts nearly canceled the annual event.
170 undergraduate students and professionals from as far away as South Florida, Georgia and South Carolina will be attending the conference, which will include workshops, company tours, presentations and a banquet.
Yaseline Muñoz, a sophomore in industrial and systems engineering, is the Regional Conference Chair representing Region 7 in the national SHPE board. Much of her time this semester has been in preparation of the conference.
Despite a budget cut that prevented the SHPE national board from organizing hotel contracts for the conference, Muñoz and the N.C. State chapter rallied to produce hotel contracts, catering and booked locations for their events.
Last May, the N.C. State chapter submitted their proposal to host the annual regional conference, and was selected based on criteria such as location, chapter growth and the University’s reputation.
This year’s conference theme is Servant Leadership: Lift as You Climb, and aims to foster a network of interdependence between the chapter leaders and attending members. It also hopes to inspire mentoring and collaboration between students and professionals.
Thursday evening will be the beginning of the conference, with a welcome by Louis A. Martin-Vega, Dean of the College of Engineering. There will also be a career fair for students and professionals to network.
Registration was $35 for SHPE members and closed Feb. 14, but students are welcome to stop by the workshops and presentations which will be held on Main Campus on Friday and Saturday.
15 N.C. State students are registered to attend the conference, but there are others who will volunteer to help the conference function and will work throughout the conference to make sure events go smoothly.
N.C. State’s SHPE was named Medium Chapter of the Year for 2014 for the region and is one of the first Latino organizations to be founded on campus. Medium chapters are described as having between 40 and 75 members.
SHPE’s mission is to change lives by empowering the Hispanic community to realize its fullest potential and to impact the world through STEM awareness, access, support and development.