The SPE South Texas Section is looking for volunteers to serve on the Educational Committee to help administer and create new ideas on how we can support SPE student chapters in Texas. At present the SPE South Texas Section does the following to support Education:

1)     STX gives 8 schools in Texas that have SPE student chapters $1,000/yr to support student chapter activities and $3,000/yr for scholarships for SPE student members. The 8 schools we support are University of Houston, Texas A&M University, Baylor University, North Texas University, Texas State University, Lamar University, Texas Tech University, and Texas State Tech at Harlingen.

2)     We award scholarships to University students of STX members who are active in our section up to $2,500/yr

3)     We support the Houston Science Fair with judges and monetary awards for students which have good projects involving plastics

4)     The Polyolefins Conference provides free registration and rooms for 5 students from each school to attend the Polyolefins Conference. Three of the 5 students from each school can participate in a poster competition which describes the research they are doing.

5)     The Polyolefin Conference provides a $1,000 scholarship to one student from each school who attends the conference.

In the past STX has provided equipment grants to schools and endowments to the schools we support. We will be looking for new schools to support as well to determine how we might best support educational endeavors. 

If you become a STX Liaison (we have openings) with one of the schools we support, you would have the following responsibilities:

1) Contacting the faculty advisor and student officers at least 3 times a year (getting updates, letting them know about STX programs that they might attend remotely, reminding students they can be a SPE student member for free -- including joining STX for free when they register as a SPE student so they get on our mailing list, reminding the student chapters that in addition to having 5 students attend the polyolefins Conference they can attend the conference virtually for free, etc).

2) Collect contact information of the names of student SPE officers from each school

3) Determine the number of SPE students in each chapter

4) Determine the status of SPE endowments at each school and roughly how much is money is being spent out of the endowments for student scholarships

5)     Confirming where checks should be sent and who the checks should be made out to

Please contact Janell Helton ( 713-503-6729) if you are interested in serving on the educational committee or becoming a STX Liaison with one of the schools we support. We will be scheduling a Zoom planning meeting in September.