Two Awards for BU SHPE
For the third year in a row, the BU student chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) has won the Society’s Blue Chip Award. And for the first time, the chapter won the SHPE Student Chapter of the Year Award for Region 4, which covers 50 chapters in the Northeast as well as Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.
The awards honor the students’ work in promoting the professional development of its members and of their contributions to the community. “It’s recognition for their efforts,” says Master Lecturer Enrique Gutierrez Wing (ME), the chapter’s faculty advisor. “They do a tremendous amount of work behind the scenes. Sometimes they’re planning seven or eight events at the same time.”
Chapter activities include professional speakers—for example, hosting Hispanic executives from Microsoft and Texas Instruments to share their life journeys. “They answer lot of questions that students have about the engineering industry that we don’t necessarily learn in the classroom,” says Rosangel Ramos Espinoza (’22).
Espinoza, a BME major, and her club officers also organize workshops for technical skills—for example, in CAD or 3D printing—as well as social and cultural events. “We’re a community that supports one another,” says Espinoza, “and we try to give our members every tool they can use to succeed in their academic and professional endeavors, and just enjoy their time at BU.”
In addition, the chapter organizes donations to and volunteering at nonprofits in the community, such as the Greater Boston Food Bank and Entre Familia, a Boston Public Health Commission program that aids pregnant and postpartum women with histories of substance abuse.
SHPE is open to everyone and conducts its meetings in English, though its focus is on Hispanic students. “I think it’s important to have engineers come from different backgrounds,” says Espinoza, “so we can design for everyone.”