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STC Education Committee
Year-End Report 2002-2003

	Summary
	Presented at 50th International Conference in Dallas
	Scholarships
	Strengthened Partnership with UCF
	Support to Secondary Education
	Seventh Annual Central Florida High School Technical Writing Competition
	Eighth Annual Central Florida High School Technical Writing Competition
	Communication and Publicity
	Professional Development of Chapter Members
	Mentoring

Summary

2002-2003 was a very strong year for the Education Committee. Topping the list was the successful completion of an $8K grant project to develop two turnkey multimedia presentations on technical communication to support our educational outreach to secondary schools in the community and continue to expand our annual writing competition. Speaking of which, another major success was the 7th Annual Florida High School Technical Writing Competition, which produced 17 local award winners, 4 of whom went on to capture 4 of the top 5 awards in the STC International High School Writing Competition. A third significant achievement was a dramatic increase in student chapter memberships, giving the Orlando Chapter more student members than any other STC Chapter in the world. We awarded three Pellegrin Memorial scholarships this year: two at the graduate level, one undergraduate. And near the end of the year we finally broke ground with the up-front work on a long-awaited formal mentoring program between UCF and the chapter — implementation of which is a key objective for 2003-2004.

Presented at 50th International Conference in Dallas

• Moderated and participated in AccessAbility SIG progression and published paper in Proceedings (Voss and Murray).
• Participated in Leadership Day (Murray).
• Conducted workshop on integrated strategic communication and published paper in Proceedings (Voss, with Wiese).
• Conducted workshop on visual and verbal ethics in accident reports (Voss, with Dragga).
• Provided several copies of multimedia materials from grant project, both at the conference and afterward.

Scholarships

• UCF: Melissa Pellegrin Memorial Scholarships
   
• Presented a $500 undergraduate scholarship to Bonnie Spivey.
• Presented a $350 graduate scholarship to Cindy Hauptner.
• Presented a $350 graduate scholarship to Bob Stultz.
• Techie Awards:
   
• Discontinued an alternate scholarship program for technical communication students in other Central Florida colleges (the "Techie" Awards) after a second consecutive year (2001-2002) with no applications.
• Melissa Pellegrin Memorial Scholarship Fund Status:
   
• Financial: Fund has slipped a bit from the 3-year "bear market," which may make it necessary either to fund the 2003-2004 scholarships out of the operating budget, find an alternate funding source, or skip a year on the scholarships, in order to return the fund to self-sustaining status.
• Number of entries: Up from 2001-2002 when there was no graduate award because there were no applications; UCF still faces the ongoing challenge of promoting the scholarship aggressively next year — there is room for growth here.

Strengthened Partnership with UCF

• Established alliance with Future Technical Communicators (FTC) Club at UCF; added FTC president (Spivey) to Education Committee and to Administrative Council's core team of chapter leaders.
• Worked with Administrative Council and chapter leaders to devise a highly successful student membership promotion at the January joint meeting with UCF, which raised our chapter's total student membership to the highest level of any STC chapter in the world (including all the student chapters).
• Supported implementation of Jaffe Award, including promotion of January joint meeting with UCF to help ensure record attendance (86).
• Made presentations on technical communication to UCF classes.
• Provided telephone, e-mail, and face-to-face personal interviews and resume/portfolio reviews for UCF students.
• Advised UCF graduate student on master’s thesis and defense; critiqued outline.

Support to Secondary Education

• Grant Project
   
• Completed an $8K STC grant proposal by developing a turnkey multimedia tutorial on the principles of technical communication and a promotional presentation on the high school writing competition. Both presentations were done in Authorware.
• Beta tested materials at Lake Brantley H.S. during 7th Annual Central Florida High School Technical Writing Competition.
• Usability tested materials at UCF.
• Made improvements to presentations (particularly the contest promotional) based on feedback from beta testing and usability testing.
• Finalized presentations and submitted to STC Special Opportunities Grant Committee.
• Documented successful completion of the project (see below, under Publicity).
• Other
   
• Provided judging support to the Orange County Regional Science and Engineering Fair (OCRSEF).
• Provided judging support to the Seminole County Science Fair.
• Provided judging support to the Central Florida Regional Science Fair.

Seventh Annual Central Florida High School Technical Writing Competition

• We drew a total of 61 entries. They were predominantly from Winter Springs (32) and Lake Brantley (22), but we still had a representative sample of entries from the Central Florida counties.
• Invited 17 student winners, along with their parents and faculty sponsors, to the March 2003 chapter meeting to receive their awards. Thirteen students and four sponsors attended — a substantial improvement over attendance in 2002. Dr. Suzy Behel of Lake Brantley H.S. delivered the keynote, which was well-received.
• There were only 2 classroom visits by STC members in the 7th Annual Competition, leaving room for improvement in the 8th Annual Contest in Fall 2003.
• We received a total of $300 in corporate sponsorships: $100 from Lockheed Martin, $100 from Avionics Research Corporation, and $100 from Scribetree.
• Summary of winners:

Eighth Annual Central Florida High School Technical Writing Competition

• Currently updating cover letter for mail-out to Central Florida high school instructors, along with CDs of the multimedia materials developed under the grant.
• Currently updating Web site.
• Are also updating competition flyer, detailed guidelines, and application form<./li>

Communication and Publicity

• Several committee members made substantial contributions to Memo for Members
   
• Murray: column, articles
• Kessler: article
• Jones: article
• Spivey: article
• Voss: column, articles, copy editing/critiquing
• Major Education Committee-produced stories in Memo for Members included:
   
• Full coverage of high school competition and awards presentation
• Promotion and report on Pellegrin scholarships, including profile on recipients
• Feature on FTC Saturday tool skill workshops
• Promotion of employment progression
• In-depth story on the completion of the grant project
• Sent out press releases on Spring 2003 scholarships, 7th Annual H.S. Contest awards, and international H.S. competition awards
   
• UCF campus newspaper
• Orlando Sentinel
• Memo for Members
• Maintained and updated Web site for Education Committee
   
• Streamlined format
• Updated page on high school competition; updated awards list
• Updated scholarship page; added awards list
• Added notes from 49th Annual Conference
• Two committee members also published in national STC forums
   
• Murray: Tieline, intercom, and conference Proceedings
• Voss: Technical Communication (with Dragga), conference Proceedings (3 articles, one with Dragga, one with Wiese, one solo)
• Murray and Voss also published extensively in Achieve!, the online newsletter of the STC AccessAbility SIG (Murray is SIG newsletter editor; Voss was SIG manager)
• An article co-authored by Pellegrin Award winners Hauptner and Stultz along with Voss and Jones has been accepted for publication in the Sept/Oct 2003 edition of intercom.
• Two of our H.S. award winners, First and Lai, will also be published in the Sept/Oct edition of intercom (350-word summaries of their winning essays).

Professional Development of Chapter Members

• Sponsored 2 of 7 tables at highly successful progression on employment at April chapter meeting
   
• Murray: networking
• Voss: resumes, cover letters, portfolios
• Moderated and participated in August 2002 chapter meeting to share professional
enrichment from the 49th STC Conference in Nashville using the traditional potpourri format ("Washlines VIII"). We also plan to sponsor "Washlines IX" in August 2003, reporting on the 50th Annual Int’l Conference in Dallas
• Posted notes from the 49th Annual International Conference to the Education Committee Web page; presently working on posting notes from the 50th Conference for "Washlines IX."

Mentoring

• Researched mentoring and other mentoring programs, including the Lonestar Chapter's program and the STC guidelines; laid plans to implement a formal mentoring program between professionals in the chapter and UCF students beginning in September 2003; drafted guidelines & procedures and administrative forms needed to do so (Spivey and Voss).
• Based on verbal commitments and a preliminary e-mail survey, we have already (as of 7/14/03) identified 12 chapter members who are potentially interested in mentoring and 12 UCF students who are potentially interested in being sponsored.
• Administrative Council will review the implementation plan and the materials at the July meeting; if it approves, the program will be promoted in August and implemented in September.