The Iowa State chapter of the Society of the Hispanic Professional Engineers will be hosting the organization’s Midwest regional Student Leadership Development Forum Nov. 15-17.

Previously the forum has always been held in Chicago, but the Iowa State chapter asked to hold the conference this year because they will be celebrating their 10th anniversary.

Reinaldo Arreaza, conference coordinator for the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, said he asked to have the conference at ISU, and the society agreed with him.

“We have about 18 workshops focusing on technical topics and leadership skills,” Arreaza said.

The workshops will include information on engineering ethics, environmental issues, r‚sum‚ writing, conflict resolution and a session on gender and communications in the workplace with the Society of Women Engineers at Iowa State.

The forum will host a banquet in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union at 7 p.m. on Nov. 16.

Arreaza said tours will be a part of the conference. Conference participants will go to the Ames Lab, the aerospace engineering wind tunnel and the Iowa State University power plant.

An academic olympiad will be held during the conference, and the winner will be a participant in the olympiad at the national conference in February.

Arreaza said that the weekend promises to be an exciting one with speakers from Iowa State and special guests from the engineering industry.

“President Jischke and Dean [James] Melsa will be speaking as well as people from different companies,” he said.

Some important guests of the conference are keynote speaker Dr. Diana Garcia-Prichard, a research scientist from the Eastman-Kodak Company, and Jose M. Davis from the NASA Lewis Research Center.

“We’re getting a lot of support from the university because this conference showcases the university,” he said.

Arreaza said at other times the university support is not as strong.

“It depends. When it came to the office space in the Memorial Union, we couldn’t get what we wanted. We’re always trying to improve the relationship between the university and the Hispanic students.”