Society of Women Engineers helps others

Her younger brother was sent to the hospital right after he was born, with a MRSA infection. Freeland said during his time in the hospital her brother received a donated blanket.

“I do not recall what group donated the blanket. I do remember the encouragement that it brought to my family. My parents were amazed by the kindness a stranger would have to let them know that they were not alone through a terrible time.”

Dr. Vicky Fang became the Cedarville SWE faculty advisor in 2004. She said before she arrived at Cedarville University there were no female engineering professors to head the program.

“When I had just come to Cedarville I noticed that there were only a few female engineering students, and the enrollment rate and retention rate were low due to an isolation problem.”

Dr. Fang decided to make the Cedarville SWE program a unique combination of service and support providing academic support and encouragement to female engineering students to combat the feeling of isolation within the program but also to highlighting the university’s Christian mission by “serving the local community to demonstrate God’s love.”

She said she is always proud of the effort students put into service projects such as the blanket donation. In spite of their work load at school the Cedarville SWE women gave up their weekends soliciting donations, buying the needed materials and assembling blankets.

“It is always a blessing and a joy to work with the SWE women on our projects. They squeezed the time from their busy schedule to serve others. I really appreciative of their caring, loving hearts and willingness to serve,” said Dr. Fang.

Although the Cedarville SWE focused its donation on blankets, Freeland said that Dayton Children’s Hospital happily accepts donations that will help make a child’s stay in the hospital a little easier. Some of the items they are seeking include: infant teethers, rattles, word search books, playing cards, such as Uno, Go Fish, and Skip-Bo, and small and medium Lego sets.

In addition to charitable and community outreach projects the Cedarville SWE also provides support for students interested in learning more about the field of engineering through: mentoring for middle and high school students, presentations at local schools, hosting VEX robotic competitions for regional middle schools and high schools and much more. Cedarville SWE members also took part in then “Game4Girls” game programming competition where they placed second in the nation for two consecutive years until the competition closed.

Dr. Fang said that through Cedarville SWE outreach such as this and a huge amount of support from engineering faculty she has seen a steady increase in enrollment of female engineering students at Cedarville. In the 13 years she has been there she said that enrollment went from under 10 to over 50.

The SWE originated in the late 1940s when shortages of men during World War II provided new opportunities for women to pursue employment in engineering. It eventually became an official organization in 1950 and currently has 400 professional and collegiate sections across the country.

For more information about the SWE, go online to http://societyofwomenengineers.swe.org/?id=2.