Text Box: PSPE Scholarships    The Philadelphia Chapter of PSPE (Pennsylvania Society of Professional Engineers) operates a scholarship program open to high school students who either (1) live in or (2) attend high school in the City of Philadelphia.  Other Chapters of PSPE may also have scholarship programs geared to students in other counties.  Applications for the Philadelphia Chapter program are routinely sent to and may be obtained from your high school guidance department.  Inquiry for additional applications must be made by the guidance department to PSPE Philadelphia at 215-985-5701.  Applicants will be competing for: 1. Drexel University is providing two five-year scholarships of $5000 per year to be awarded to outstanding candidates by the Philadelphia PSPE scholarship committee. Please check "DREXEL SCHOLARSHIP APPLICANT" on the application form to be considered for this scholarship. 2. Temple University is providing a four year scholarship of $2000 per year to be awarded to an outstanding candidate by the Philadelphia PSPE scholarship committee. Please check "TEMPLE SCHOLARSHIP APPLICANT" on the application form to be considered for this scholarship. 3. Qualifying applications will be forwarded to the State PSPE Scholarship Committee for further consideration for scholarships currently being solicited by that Committee. 4. Up to two $500 cash awards will be made by the Philadelphia Chapter of the Pennsylvania Society of Professional Engineers, and the top applicant competes for an additional $1000 from the Engineers Week Committee for the Delaware Valley. An application form may be downloaded from  http://www.pspe.org/philly/philly.htm For further information contact Scholarship Chair Fredric L. Plotnick, PE at (215) 885-3733 or send email to fplotnick@fplotnick.com if you have any questions or comments. continued from left column Therefore, we anticipate that the regulations will not become effective prior to the passage of the “clean-up amendment.”  PSPE will continue to work to bring about reasonable continuing education rules that do not place an undue burden on engineers who are registered in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.   As a side note, at their last meeting, the NCEES reconfirmed that they will change the NCEES model in 2012 to raise the minimum educational requirement for licensure to a Bachelor’s degree plus 30 credits.  This is a hot topic of discussion within NSPE and will be discussed in the months leading up to the 2008 NSPE House of Delegates meeting in Portland, OR, next July.   Please feel free to share any comments on these issues and any other ideas you may have with me or with your State Director so they may be discussed at a meeting of the PSPE Board of Directors.

Text Box: Update on CPE by Leonard K. Bernstein, P.E., F.NSPE In December of 2006, Pennsylvania joined 35 other states by enacting mandatory continuing education requirements for engineers, land surveyors, and geologists.  The original bill was endorsed by PSPE and included language that closely matched the NCEES model rules on continuing professional competency.  This bill was passed by the Senate, but, on the last day of the legislative session last year, the House eliminated all the language based on the NCEES model and left the details of how the process would work to the State Registration Board in the regulation process.  PSPE was basically “take it or leave it.”  Furthermore, it was established that if PSPE didn’t agree to the changes, the bill would die and the process would have to begin again in the next legislative session.  Rather than let the bill die and start the process from the beginning again, PSPE reluctantly agreed.  The bill was then amended, passed, and was signed into law by Governor Rendell.   The new law gave the State Registration Board 18 months to adopt regulations on continuing education.  A preliminary draft of the proposed regulations was circulated to some professional societies in August 2007 for comments prior to the draft regulations being opened to public comment.  PSPE’s reaction to the draft was a mixture of surprise and disappointment.  The proposed regulations established a procedure that would require the Registration Board to approve every course, location, and provider on a case-by-case basis.  In fact, in a letter to the Registration Board, PSPE commented that “this current approach would make Pennsylvania’s requirements one of the most cumbersome sets of rules in the nation.”   Presently there are about 31,800 engineers licensed in Pennsylvania, but only about 18,000 of them are Pennsylvania residents.  Consequently, the requirement to have all courses, locations, and providers specifically approved by the Registration Board will be burdensome to all Pennsylvania engineers and extremely burdensome to all the non-Pennsylvania residents who are licensed here. During October, John Wanner – PSPE’s Executive Director – and representatives of the professional land surveyors and geologists met with representatives of the Pennsylvania Department of State to discuss the best course of action to try to resolve these issues.  The consensus from that meeting was that PSPE would initiate the process to again amend the State Registration Act to bring the continuing education requirements more in line with the NCEES model and that the engineers, surveyors, and geologists would work jointly to press for a quick passage of such amendments.  In the meantime, the Registration Board must move forward with its proposed regulations as they are consistent with the current amendments to the Registration Act.  No doubt, the proposed regulations will be formally published for public comment before a bill can pass to fix the Act. Fortunately, the continuing education requirements probably will not be required for license renewal until at least the 2011 renewal cycle. continued next column

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