IEEE-USA Council Corner

The following items have been reported by IEEE-USA Council Vice Presidents to the IEEE-USA Operating Committee.

2001 Report of the IEEE-USA PACE Committee
by David J. Pierce, IEEE-USA PACE Committee Chair

Recent Section-sponsored PACE activities continue to focus mainly on
employment assistance, career enhancement, professional education,
student professional awareness, and precollege education. Approximately 160 professional activities projects were directly or indirectly funded by the professional development funding allocation.

Student Professional Awareness Conferences (S-PAC) continue to be the most successful activity. This is partly because of the level of funding and the support infrastructure. The S-PAC committee continues to do a great job of selling the program to student branches. All regions report several S-PACs were held and supported by funding from the Regional PACE Project Funding Allocation.

The Member Professional Awareness Conference (M-PAC) format is beginning to become widely used by sections as a delivery mechanism for a variety of PACE topics. The most successful of these Professional Conferences (ProCon) has been hosted by the Cedar Rapids section. Although M-PAC funding from the IEEE-USA has not been widely requested, the travel expenses for national speakers were provided for three of the conferences. Most M-PACs are supported by funding from the sections and regions. All regions reported hosting or sponsoring events using the M-PAC format.

Section participation and sponsorship of employment assistance and
career enhancement projects continue to be among the most hosted
activities of sections and chapters. Numerous layoffs were announced throughout 2001, a side effect of "dot com" collapse. Additional layoffs have been announced in a variety of industries since the attack. Employment assistance and career enhancement activities have provided some of IEEE-USA's great success stories. Activities sponsored by sections and chapters in 2001 included:

• Entrepreneur Network Seminars
• Retirements/Pensions Seminars
• Changing Career/Job
• Age Discrimination

Section participation and sponsorship of Professional Education projects are among the hosted activities of sections and chapters. These activities included:

• Emerging Technologies
• Professional Networking
• Changes in Professional License Laws
• Holography Laboratory
• Preparation for taking the PE
• How to Start Your Own Business

Section participation and sponsorship of Precollege Education projects
continue to lead as the most hosted activities hosted by sections and
chapters. These activities included:

• High School Science Writing Contest
• Future Engineers & Inventors Program
• Science Fairs
• Future City Competitions
• Science Olympiads
• K-12 Mentoring
• K-12 Electronics Education Program

Although a great deal of effort focused on section activities to support the Congressional Advocacy Recruitment Effort (CARE), only 30 individuals took the pledge and only a few of those have resulted in actual Congressional visits as of this time. Government activities should continue to be a focus of the PACE Network, but further thought should be given to developing a grass roots network of politically active members.

Technical Societies have not widely accepted sponsorship of PACE Activities. Although there is little acceptance of projects specifically titled "PACE Activities," many of the conferences do include topics that could be classified as Professional Activities topics. Dialog should continue with Division, Society, Chapter, and Technical Conference leaders to encourage them to classify these topics as Professional Activities.

A great deal of effort has been made to update old documents and enhance the resources available at the IEEE-USA. A PACE Network CD was produced and distributed to all section PACE chairs by Lee Stogner and Sandra Kim. This is a continuing process and will lead to additional, easy-to-access resources for members of the PACE Network.

During the past two years we have focused on enhancing communications links to members of the PACE Network. The ease of maintaining the e-mail distribution lists for each PACE Coordinator has been enhanced so that now each PACE Coordinator has the ability to update the distribution list for their members.

The IEEE-USA PACE Committee focused on improving the planning process. The 2001 Plan for the IEEE-USA PACE Committee was based on inputs from the grass roots members of the PACE Network. Each PACE Coordinator solicited Plans from each of their PACE Chairs and from their Committees these were used to develop their individual Plans. The PACE Coordinator's plans were merged to develop the 2001 Plan for the IEEE-USA PACE Committee. Continued improvements in the planning and reporting processes will continue to be a focus in the future.

The IEEE-USA PACE Committee also focused on improving the reporting process. This report was based on inputs from the grassroots members of the PACE Network. Each PACE Coordinator solicited reports from each of their Chairs and from their Committees. The results were used to develop individual reports and were merged to develop this Council Corner report. Continued improvements in the reporting and reporting processes will continue to be a focus in the future.