SME PRIME Schools Initiative
The SME Education Foundation received a $300,000 grant from Arconic Foundation, the independently endowed philanthropic arm of Arconic Inc., to expand its PRIME (Partnership Response In Manufacturing Education) initiative.
The SME Education Foundation has presented substantial scholarships to six young men and women who will be pursuing degrees in manufacturing engineering and related technologies in the 2017-2018 academic year.
Ford Motor Company Fund and Ford Next Generation Learning (Ford NGL) have partnered with the SME Education Foundation to make available education opportunities for students of Romeo High School in Romeo, Michigan, in a collaboration formed through the Foundation's Partnership Response In Manufacturing Education (PRIME) schools initiative.
Lindsey Prestholdt received SME Education Foundation scholarships while majoring in mechanical engineering at North Dakota State University. Lindsey plans to join 3M in 2021 as an optimize operations engineer, assigned to process improvement projects while gaining extensive training in areas such as lean manufacturing.
Dana Emswiler graduated from the Swanson School of Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh in 2021. Her studies in Industrial Engineering were supported in part by scholarships from the SME Education Foundation.
A sophomore at Georgia Tech, scholarships are critical to sustaining Gideon Ndeh. “Scholarships are life changing. They shift the momentum; allow focus on my education. They’ve been a necessity — they’ve changed everything. I feel blessed.”
The SME Education Foundation scholarships support students pursuing degrees in advanced manufacturing and related fields at two- and four-year schools, colleges and universities. We have awarded more than $7 million to nearly 3,000 deserving students in the United States and Canada since 2005.
In the wake of coronavirus, school closings and “stay-at-home” mandates have upended the educational experience for students across the country. This singular moment reinforces the opportunities that exist for innovation in education via technology adoption. As it relates to the SME Education Foundation, online education is certainly relevant to the work we do with our SME PRIME program.
The Foundation's first quarter saw a 95% increase in scholarship applications with female student applications doubling, minority student applications nearly tripling, and the minority female participation rate increased by a factor of four. Scholarships are central to our mission to inspire, prepare and support young people in their pursuit of manufacturing and engineering education and training.