The Jeanie McCoy Scholarship Award
Michael Anderson | TLT President's Report August 2017
STLE has created a new program to assist young women pursuing careers in tribology.
On June 21 STLE Executive Director Ed Salek and I presented a plaque to Life Member Jeanie McCoy recognizing the new scholarship named in her honor for women pursuing careers in tribology.
AN AREA THAT HAS ALWAYS BEEN NEAR AND DEAR TO ME is the fostering of our young people to explore and pursue careers in the field of tribology. In fact, one of the first committees on which I served the Chicago Section (1982-1984) was in a newly established program called Careers in Lubrication. This was a small group of Chicago Section members who visited universities to meet with undergraduate and graduate students and talk about a little known field called tribology.
During this time we had the pleasure of establishing two student chapters. The first was at Purdue University Calumet and the other at Northwestern University. It was really a great opportunity to see the excitement in these young people as they participated in the Chicago Section by attending local meetings and promoting tribology at their own campuses with the assistance of Chicago Section members.
One of STLE’s primary and ongoing goals is education. With this in mind, STLE is always looking for ways to promote tribology and the study of related sciences within academia. Today STLE has active student sections at University of Monterrey (Mexico), Auburn University, University of Texas (two chapters), North Texas and Arlington (combined) and Houston. As the number of programs increases within the colleges and universities, there is an ever-growing need to recognize and encourage these students and others to pursue careers in the field of tribology and lubrication sciences.
Currently STLE offers three scholarship awards for students pursuing the study of tribology and/or a related science field:
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E. Richard Booser Scholarship for undergraduate students engaged in the study of tribology.
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Elmer E. Klaus Fellowship for graduate students pursuing a career in the study of tribology.
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Early Careerist Award for recent graduates who are making positive advances in the field of tribology.
The first two of these awards were named in honor of STLE members who, throughout their careers, helped enhance the field of tribology through education, whether in academia or industry. This year we are recognizing another outstanding STLE member by establishing a scholarship award named in her honor.
Jeanie McCoy of Jeanie McCoy Technologies (retired) has spent a lifetime promoting the science of tribology and lubrication engineering. STLE’s newest scholarship, the Jeanie McCoy Scholarship Award, will recognize and support outstanding young women studying to pursue a career in tribology (see
STLE creates Jeanie McCoy Scholarship Award article).
Having known Jeanie for almost 40 years, I can attest to her dedication in all the fundamental goals of promoting tribology and STLE. Recently STLE Executive Director Ed Salek and I met with Jeanie to present the plaque recognizing the establishment of the scholarship named after her. Presenting the plaque to Jeanie in person will certainly be one of the highlights of my term as STLE president.
With the ever-growing promotion of tribology, the future looks bright for young people entering our industry. And STLE is one of the leading reasons this field is growing.
STLE also assists the local section’s scholarship programs by matching the local sections’ awards up to a total of $15,000. STLE promotes student work through the poster sessions at the annual meeting as well. This, plus the above mentioned scholarship awards, brings the yearly amount of STLE scholarship funding to well over $50,000. STLE is living up to its goal in education through these funding programs in order to challenge students to excel in developing their knowledge in our field.
So I openly encourage you to support young people and the promotion of knowledge through education in tribology to keep the world moving more efficiently.
Mike Anderson is Area Manager Asia Pacific/Latin America for Falex Corp. in Sugar Grove, Ill. You can reach him at manderson@falex.com.