Bill Hancock Becomes SME Foundation President
Bill Hancock assumed the Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Geology (SME) Foundation Presidency during the February 19-22, 2017 SME Annual Conference and Exhibit in Denver, CO. The SME Foundation financially supports several mineral industry programs: Professional Engineering Registration, ABET university accreditation program, Minerals Education Council (MEC) teacher and public eduction, Miners Give Back program associated with Engineer Without Boarders and the PhD Fellowship-Career Grant program. All these programs are vital to supporting SME, mineral engineering professional development, the mining industry in general and university program sustainability.
The SME Foundation (SMEF) fundraising requirements during Mr. Hancock’s two year term will significantly increase to over $2.2 million per year primarily due to full implementation of the PhD Fellowship-Career Grant program. This goal of this vital program is to provide enough funding that will result in 10 tenured mining professors. The program entails substantially supporting students having academic career plans and then significantly augmenting funding by associate professors for their use in gaining tenure. Mining programs are small and a significant number of professors will be eligible to retire in the next 3-5 years which would endanger continuance of these programs and ensuing industry challenges related to availability of sufficient number of qualified mineral engineers. SME has made a major financial commitment through SMEF to sustain the university mining degree programs.
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