IEEE Exec: Answers

  • From: "Sean T. Brady" <sean@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <ieee-exec@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 09:20:30 -0400

Hey Guys,

The following are a few answers to your questions that were raised in a few
of your emails.

>What does the Paper Conference usually include? In other words, would
>the final writeups of the senior class (due to teachers somewhere in
>april and may) qualify?

Toward the end of each Spring semester (this year's was on April 27-28),
IEEE Region 2 has a student leadership conference at a different host
university.  As a part of this conference, there is a paper contest to which
any ECE student can submit a technical paper and must present it.  Dr. Singh
strongly encourages, at the every least, that the senior members of the
executive board submit their senior project papers.  The following blurb
comes from the contest rules:

"The IEEE Student Prize Paper Contest offers the undergraduate IEEE Student
member opportunities to exercise and improve both written and verbal
communication skills. Throughout an engineer¹s career, he will be constantly
called upon to communicate ideas to others. Researching, writing, and
presenting a paper provides a Student with invaluable early experience in
expressing ideas related to engineering. Since the paper contest¹s primary
function is to improve the engineering student¹s communicative skills, no
Student should be discouraged from entering the contest due to a false
requirement of technical sophistication."

More information can be found at:
http://www.ewh.ieee.org/reg/2/r2sac/papercontestrules2002.htm

>I do not understand the idea of a book of evidence... Just a
>scrapbook?

A book of evidence can be thought of as a professional scrapbook, yes.  It
includes pictures, journal-type entries, summaries, articles, and anything
relating to that which our branch participates in.  The purpose of such a
compilation is three-fold.  The first objective is to give ourselves a good
way to evaluate our own progress by looking back on what we have
accomplished.  The second is to provide (through the online version) a lure
for new recruits as they get to see what sort of events we participate in.
Lastly, it gives future generations of the IEEE @ VU a good foundation for
their activities in addition to serving as a benchmark.

>I am not sure if a capped subsidy is the best way to
>do it. (I'm not totally against it, I am just curious where the idea
>came from.)  

I just realized that the proposal made it seem like the membership subsidy
is my main tool for gaining new recruits.  This is not the case.  Rather, we
will rely on the enthusiasm of each of our members and elected leaders in
addition to specific efforts outlined in Evan's plan to be the main force of
our recruiting effort.  The idea of a membership subsidy is a "call to
action".  After Evan gives a presentation to a sophomore class, some people
may be interested, but most won't run home to IEEE.org to signup.  However,
if Evan can offer a 50% or 100% membership subsidy to the first 20 or 10
people that signup, there is suddenly a reason for people to jump for the
opportunity.

>I would also bring up some issues with the budget but I am
>sure Dr Singh will handle it.

I talked to Dr. Singh the same day that the proposal was written and
discussed the budget.  I will outline some of the fruits of that discussion
in another email on "things to do".

>But about the Career day, I thought I remember one of the local
>branches talking about an event where they have people come in from
>local companies and talk about what is done in their area of work, and
>what the future of their line of work looks like.  Because I do know
>that a lot of people go into electrical engineering or computer
>engineering, and they don't realize that its a really diverse field, so
>it might be nice to see what is out there.  I thought Drexel did
>something like that, and even if they didn't, does this sound like a
>plausible idea?

This was raised by Deep... I think it's a great idea.  We should maybe look
for a panel of 4-5 local people to give 5-10 min talk each.  I may have some
contacts through Dr. Singh... anyone else know anyone?  Pirone, anyone from
NSWC?  I also know that Dr. Dwyer, a new CPE prof, just came from industry.
Also, the new Dean of Engineering was the CTO of Honeywell.  Any volunteers
to take charge of this event?

That's that for now... more coming shortly.

Sean


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