The Mississippi chapter of the Society of Plastic Engineers presented a $25,000 scholarship endowment to the Bagley College of Engineering on Feb. 10.
The society decided to set up the endowment about six months ago, said Jim Hemphill, the chapter’s educational chairman.
“We had money left over that we had made from the people who advertise in our monthly newsletter, and we weren’t spending it,” Hemphill said.
The society is dedicated to scholarships nationwide, Hemphill said.
“We’ve had a scholarship that went through the College of Engineering for about three years,” Hemphill said. “We decided to set up this endowment so that the scholarship can become a continuous thing that will last forever.”
The scholarship will be awarded to any student, regardless of classification, enrolled full-time in the College of Engineering who maintains a 3.0 grade point average and satisfies the criteria provided by the donors, said Julie Lemons, advancement coordinator for the college.
“The Society of Plastic Engineers requests that the recipient be a Mississippi resident and that the student have an interest in plastics,” Lemons said. “The scholarship will probably begin next year.”
The scholarship will be a single annual award of about $1,000 as of right now, Hemphill said.
“We hope for the endowment to grow, and we may continue to deposit money into the endowment so that more scholarships may be given in the future,” Hemphill said.
Coordinators hope the endowment will allow a connection between the engineering and the chemistry departments since both do a lot of work with materials, said Keith Mead, head of the chemistry department.
“I think this endowment will help us to attract good, quality students,” Mead said.
Hemphill said that the society hopes the endowment will help to increase the number of plastics engineers in Mississippi.
“We’re real excited about this endowment; it should help plastic engineering students to find employment,” Hemphill said.