President Harry Bell called the meeting to order at 1:00 p.m.

Our guest speakers at the fall meeting were Art Heim, the Director of the Industrial Research Office of the Penn State Research Park, and Karen Dickinson, the Associate Director of Prospect Development.

Art brought the membership up to date on the purpose of the Research Park and the progress made since its inception approximately five years ago. Art is responsible for Industrial liason, the linking of Penn State to industry. The Park is now responsible for $1M in licensing revenue and the generation of 50-60 patents. The park is also home to one of four Ben Franklin Technology centers.

Karen talked about the eight startup companies who are presently located in the incubator at the Research Park. They will soon begin construction of a 50,000 ft² multi-company building which will house additional businesses.

Rob gave a talk to the membership about the activities related to the recruitment of high school students by the College of Engineering. Since the environment is becoming more competitive, Penn State must actively recruit high school students.

According to Rob, working with applicants is the most successful recruitment method. Some of his methods include invitations to the students to spend a summer day at the campus, scholars day, spend a fall day and individual invitations.

After Penn State has made offers to prospective students, Rob’s office follows up with personalized letters. Rob has also found that recruiting calls by the PSES are very effective. Our membership has tried this method when helping to recruit graduate students, with mixed success. Rob invited us to identify a list of people who will be making calls in the future. Rob will then invite them to attend his next recruitment workshop, which is a five to six hour training program.

Rob also informed the membership that there are over 8,000 applicants to Penn State each year, and that 50% of the students get scholarships that average $1,000 each. The College of Engineering administers over $650,000 in scholarship funds of which $500,000 is directly administered by the departments (EE, ME, IE, etc.)

Dean made a proposal that SPSEE adopt, as a project, the goal of attracting qualified High School students with interest in Engineering to Penn State. The membership showed a great deal of interest in pursuing this as a future project. As a first step, the group agreed to come up with a list of callers who could attend Rob Pangborn’s recruitment workshop. We agreed to add this to our list of current projects.

Larry reported on activities and developments in the department of Electrical Engineering.

Mark reported that the recipient of the first fellowship award was Ph.D. student Cathy Muhonnen, who received an award for $8000. Cathy has a BSEE from Michigan Tech. and an MSEE from Syracuse. Her areas of interest are communications systems and microwaves. Previously she worked for HP in California. Congratulations, Cathy.

The SPSEE Graduate Fellowship Fund was the recent recipient of an anonymous estate gift. The amount of the gift was $48,403. Distribution of the funds is imminent.

Mark also reported that the current principal balance in the fund is $126,259 and the interest balance is $10,194. With the way things are going, Mark predicted that by Fall of 1998, the fund balance will exceed $200,000. Thanks to all members who have been so generous with their support.

Tom brought us up to date on the work he has been doing for the SPSEE home page. The page can be viewed at http://www.engr.psu.edu/spsee.

Tom asked members for suggestions on the content of the site.

Some of the suggestions were to put information about the recipient of the first SPSEE graduate fellowship on the site, including a picture and a short biosketch. Another suggestion was to include a sign-up page for those wishing to become active members, including an application form. Any additional suggestions should be sent to Tom at Tom.Walsh@psu.edu

If anyone has any ideas for a society logo, please send them to Tom at the address shown above.

The two-year terms of the following Officers are up:

President - Harry Bell

Vice President - Bill Middleton

Secretary/Treasurer - Mark Wharton

Accordingly, a committee consisting of Larry Burton and Harry Bell nominated a new slate of candidates, who were elected by voice vote. The new officers are:

President - Mark Wharton

Vice President – Hank Barracano

Secretary/Treasurer – no nominee.

Harry Bell was appointed by the new president to be acting Secretary until such time that a suitable volunteer may be found.

Afterwards, Tom Walsh took a series of photographs, which he will post on the SPSEE web site.