The SME Education Foundation awarded a record number of scholarships to women and/or minorities: Scholarship awards to female students nearly doubled, and scholarships to minority students and minority female students nearly tripled and quadrupled.
The SME Education Foundation and Proviso West High School welcome BorgWarner as a significant corporate contributor enabling preparation for students pursuing careers in manufacturing and engineering.
Pontiac High School (PHS) was accepted into the SME PRIME (Partnership Response in Manufacturing Education) program in 2020-21. PHS received a grant from PRIME that allowed it to create new manufacturing career pathways for students and purchase state-of-the-art equipment: a three-piece Festo MecLab, a Festo Didactic AC/DC Training System, a Verisurf part tester, a Starrett PMI kit, and a variety of hand tools from Starrett and Snap-on.
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.
Made possible through funding from Haribo of America and the Racine Community Foundation, Horlick High School students now have new opportunities to explore career preparation and growth.
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.
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.
The SME Education Foundation, which has awarded more than $8 million to nearly 3,500 students since 2005, has recorded a 95% increase in completed scholarship applications over its historical average.
The governing body of the Foundation, the board is comprised of leaders from industry, academia as well as community leaders.
A combination of administrative, school board and community support — plus designation as an SME PRIME (Partnership Response in Manufacturing Education) school — have made the manufacturing education program a success at Leyden High School District 212, located in a northwest Chicago suburb.