SHPE helps Hispanic students
Encouraging, supporting and helping people are three byproducts of service provided by the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers.
SHPE has a goal to recruit students of Hispanic background, allow them to get scholarships, help them to graduate and aid them in finding employment with a degree, Enrique Mendoza, co-president of SHPE, said.
Both Mendoza and Marcos Sanchez share the role of president in this relatively new organization at Utah State University.
Everardo Martinez-Inzunza, director of Multicultural Student Services, said there was a chapter at USU 10 years ago, but it died out.
SHPE was started again two years ago on campus, but didn’t take off, he said. In November 2001 the founders reorganized and held an open social to promote SHPE and have now expanded to a membership of roughly 50.
“We now have the largest Hispanic population [at USU] than ever before,” Martinez-Inzunza said. “Now it’s over 30 percent.”
The growing population of Hispanic people in Logan, as well as the growing awareness that there is a better way of life through education, is another reason SHPE was reorganized, Mendoza said.
“Any student who is interested in promoting the goals and objectives of the organization can be in it [SHPE],” Martinez-Inzunza said.
Membership isn’t limited to those with Hispanic heritage, but its main objective is to make the Hispanic people aware of the educational opportunities at USU.
“They [the Hispanic population] can learn the language and get an education,” Mendoza said. “And why not an education in science or engineering?”
Mendoza moved from Pueblo, Mexico, in 1994 to California and attended school in Compton for a year while learning to speak English. After serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mendoza moved to Logan to attend USU. He’s a freshman majoring in civil engineering.
As co-president of SHPE, he said he has pressed the issue of an education to many students and workers in Cache Valley.
They visited Mount Logan Middle School to get the kids excited about science and engineering, Martinez-Inzunza said. They also visited Thiokol, a factory, to encourage and be a role model to the workers by showing them a college education would give them more opportunities.
“Be examples to the workers so they can be more,” Mendoza said.
“There are three steps,” Martinez-Inzunza said. “We have within the organization a support mechanism to reach out and attract more students with Hispanic backgrounds. Then, through the program, we help more students to graduate and then they can be placed in the field.”
SHPE emphasizes the necessity of an education and especially one in engineering, Martinez-Inzunza said. Through the advancement of education for the Hispanic people in the United States the country would benefit, he said.
Martinez-Inzunza said because of trade and business interaction with Spanish-speaking countries, there is a need for Hispanics in many fields.
“I see it as a powerful tool for the United States,” he said. “Common feelings and common objectives provide unity, and this unity provides strength.”
This wouldn’t be possible without help and support from Bruce Bishop, dean of the College of Engineering, and Kathy Bayn, the academic adviser, Martinez-Inzunza said.
“Our intent is to gather those students with common objectives into this organization, which will develop opportunities not only for the student, but also for the community,” Inzunza said.