The San Diego Architectural and Engineering Recruitment Consortium ("Consortium") is comprised of the City of San Diego ("City") and sixteen "core" consulting firms that do business with the City. The three CIP departments Water Department, Metropolitan Wastewater Department, and Engineering &Capital Projects, represent the City. The Consortium is formed out of the Recruitment Summit held in July of 2001. At the Summit, City staff and consulting firms discussed the common issue of lack of diversity in the professional ranks of engineering and architecture, as well as the need to increase the enrollment of engineering students to meet future needs. After the Summit, a group of consulting firms and City staff from CIP departments began meeting regularly to share recruitment efforts and pool our resources in terms of staff, time, and money. United in a common aim, the members of the Consortium set aside their usual competitive attitude and instead work cooperatively towards achieving our goal of increased diversity.

The Consortium is administered by City of San Diego staff. Staff duties include arranging membership meetings, networking or recruitment events, collecting membership dues, and administering/updating the resume database to be housed on the City server. The administrative staff will act as ahub around which information can flow - for example, sponsorship or group activity requests, resumes, and general membership business should be sent to the administrator. Opportunities to participate and engage will be provided to members through the Administrator, however actual participation and involvement are entirely at the members discretion.

Consortium activities are currently organized by the administrative staff, but with the formation of volunteer subcommittees, activities will be directed by subcommittee members. Some examples of past activities include:

Recruitment

Consortium members provided staff and time for various employment recruitment events at SDSU and UCSD throughout the year. Our members participate in Industry Nights at UCSD and SDSU hosted by the student chapters of National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), and Pacific Asian Society of Engineers (PASE).

In 2002 and in 2003, the Consortium attended the NSBE National Convention, in Florida and then in Anaheim, CA. Five Consortium members pooled their financial and staff resources to purchasing career fair exhibit spaces at the Convention, and the cost-sharing reduced the convention expenses as well as enabling the group to use a large exhibit space and present an united force in San Diego regional recruitment.

Guidance & Mentoring, Support

Members frequently provide support to student engineering groups such as the student chapters of NSBE, PASE, SHPE, as well as Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) at both SDSU and UCSD. Several members of the Consortium are active in the alumni chapters of the student groups and they frequently share their contacts and resources with the Consortium. Student groups have come to learn about the resources at the Consortium, and have been coming to our meetings and bringing their needs and wish-lists with them. The students are able, through coming to the Consortium meetings, to meet multiple sponsors and make presentations about their group to a larger pool of potential supports than if they had approached one company at a time; and instead of waiting for the students to solicit support, the members have the opportunity to meet student groups on a more pro-active basis.

Consortium Administrator

Connie Chai Scholl
Phone: (619) 533-3122
Fax: (619) 533-4474
cscholl@sandiego.gov