BSCES Student Chapter Grants are Being Put to Good Use
Michael T. Sullivan, PE, Sr. Project Manager I, CHA, and BSCES Newsletter Editorial Board Chair
Each year, the BSCES Board of Government votes to appropriate funds for ASCE Student Chapter Grants. This grant program is used to fund activities and events at participating Massachusetts colleges and universities with active ASCE student chapters. This fiscal year, the leaders of five of the state’s 10 student chapters requested and received modest grants. Grant recipients are encouraged to report on how they use this funding. The following is a summary of how ASCE student chapters at Northeastern University and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) used their funds to help strengthen their chapters.
The Northeastern University student chapter utilized their grant to send several chapter officers to the 2024 Workshop for Student Chapter Leaders (WSCL), held in Miami, FL. The workshop consisted of a multi-day conference that provided attendees with various resources for leadership training and networking. Attendees were able to develop new skills aimed at improving their respective student chapters through speaker presentations, group activities, and roundtable discussions with other ASCE student chapters in the region. While at the workshop, the Northeastern students were able to meet and network with several members of BSCES. The students from Northeastern returned to Boston excited to implement new ideas and share their newly acquired knowledge with other members of the student chapter.
NUASCE members at the 2024 Workshop for Student Chapter Leaders
At WPI, the Student Chapter Grant was used to help fund the school’s teams competing in the regional Steel Bridge and Concrete Canoe competitions. The student chapter was unable to compete in these competitions between 2020-2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and team disqualifications due to inadequate designs for the 2023 competition. The WPI students set a goal at the beginning of the year to compete in both competitions. With the help of the Student Chapter Grant, both teams were able to compete and excel at the competitions. The Steel Bridge team was able to construct their bridge in under 40 minutes and the concrete canoe won the co-ed race.
WPI ASCE Student Chapter members in their concrete canoe
Each fall, the BSCES president announces that the BSCES Executive Committee is accepting student chapter grant requests. During the Committee’s December meeting, these funding requests are reviewed and grants are awarded. Student chapter leaders who are interested in applying for a fiscal year 2025 BSCES Student Chapter Grant, can reach out to BSCES Executive Director Rich Keenan at rkeenan@engineers.org for more information.