The SME Education Foundation's renewed and focused commitment to a diversity, equity and inclusion strategy is designed to fully integrate diversity and equity opportunities in every program, effort and initiative undertaken by the Foundation. The Foundation created and established a new Irving P. McPhail Scholarship Fund and will begin focusing its growth efforts on the nation’s Title I schools.
Rob Luce, vice president of the SME Education Foundation, was featured in a Quality Magazine article about the COVID-19 virus disrupting businesses worldwide and how training employees presents new challenges. Luce weighed in on the struggle within industry to find talent with soft skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving abilities.
SME PRIME students at Hawthorne High School near Los Angeles, CA recently graduated from South Bay Workforce Investment Board’s (SBWIB) Aero-Flex Pre-Apprenticeship program. The 23 students from the schools manufacturing and engineering program will leave high school better prepared to directly enter the workforce upon graduation.
Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) continue to transform the nature of manufacturing and engineering work. While low-skill, lower-wage jobs could be phased out, newer technologies will create new high-skill, higher-wage jobs.
The SME Education Foundation supports the Additive Manufacturing Competition and Tooling U-SME’s Additive Manufacturing Fundamentals Certification exam at the annual SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference in Louisville, Kentucky by providing scholarships to the high school winners of the contest.
A decades-long national bias against vocational careers continues to inform high school graduates that four-year college degrees are the only option for achieving success. Government data tells us otherwise. There are millions jobs in the United States that pay an average of $55,000 per year and don’t require a bachelor’s degree.
Our scholarship application process for 2022-23 is now open. If you are an engineering professional or educator with a STEM background, please consider volunteering to serve as a scholarship application reviewer for our online review process.
Nicole Tharp is a Manufacturing Automation student at Truckee Meadows Community College slated to graduate in the coming months with her associate degree. Nicole has received two scholarships from the SME Education Foundation, and credits that assistance as important in allowing her to focus on her studies.
A grant from the SME Education Foundation’s PRIME initiative helped Capital High School — located in Helena, Montana — purchase a new CNC plasma cutter and ironworker for the school's machining, welding and mechanical engineering programs.
The SME PRIME program at Anna High School prepares students for roles at manufacturing partner Honda of America Manufacturing with online learning manufacturing education courses like basic safety, measurement, robotics and quality control. The online learning is supplemented with hands-on training on precision measurement instruments and a FANUC robotic arm.