Victim Of Success: The Changing Mission Of An Asee Student Chapter

This paper discusses the year-long effort by the members of the University of Michigan ASEE student chapter to redefine their mission and purpose in response to changing priorities within their College of Engineering (CoE). For several years, the ASEE student chapter has existed primarily as a service organization within the CoE, planning, organizing, and staffing various activities and events throughout the year. These activities and events generally centered on engineering and higher education but covered a very broad spectrum, ranging from hosting panels such as “Getting into Graduate School” and “Applying for an Academic Position,” organizing a multicultural fair: “The Martin Luther King Celebration,” managing a summer long research seminar series. This approach was driven by the lack of alternative sponsors within the CoE and the interest of the student members. Over the years this led to recognized success in the form of winning two years in a row the University of Michigan Elaine Harden Award, awarded to the Michigan Engineering student society that best exemplifies leadership and service. Recently however, in the Fall of 2005, the CoE made the decision to internalize the management, and thus funding, of a large number of these events previously sponsored by the ASEE student chapter and to plan and organize these events themselves. These events were the “glue” holding the chapter together and as a result the students were forced to examine the mission and purpose of their organization. This paper discusses the implications of this changing dynamic and the results and outcomes of a year-long effort to reorganize the ASEE student chapter at the University of Michigan. Transitioning from ASEE to the College of Engineering Over the course of the past two years, the University of Michigan ASEE student chapter (“student chapter”) has noticed a slow transitioning of the programs originally run by the student chapter of ASEE as student chapter activities towards integration and then envelopment with College of Engineering (CoE) activities. These programs, primarily focusing on issues of faculty preparation such as teaching and pedagogy, were widely attended by the CoE graduate student population and were funded in large part from the CoE administration as part of it’s annual funding of student groups and societies within engineering. As these programs moved towards control by CoE personnel, interest in the original ASEE student chapter programs , as well as associated funding from the COE, has slowly decreased. For example, a series of programs collected under the moniker “Future Faculty Series” was originally created by student chapter members and has been offered by the student chapter since mid 1990’s. Recently the CoE instituted a program of their own, called Academic Careers in Engineering and Sciences (ACES) with very similar objectives and structure. The described objective of ACES is to prepare senior graduate students for careers at research-oriented universities and institutes. The student chapter found that ACES directly mirrored three of the four Future Faculty Series sessions offered by ASEE. The student chapter was even approached by the Dean of Graduate Students and asked not to offer our program without first speaking to P ge 11429.2 her office to ensure no overlap between our two sessions. This is only one of many transitions that have taken place between the student chapter and the CoE. While the transitioning of these activities may prove to be useful to the students given the greater resources of the CoE to offer these programs, there is significant potential negative impact on the viability of the student chapter. The common effort required to offer these programs on a yearly basis help create and develop ties between engineering students of wide backgrounds but similar interests. The student chapter members were not prepared for such an apparently abrupt transition without opportunity to creatively reach solutions with the CoE. Such transitions leaves the student chapter working to come up with new programs and/or activities to attract CoE students who have similar interests in university-level educational careers. Essentially the primary concern of the student chapter is finding that niche of service and developmental opportunities such that “membership” in the student chapter still has appeal to the graduate engineering student. History of the Student Chapter of ASEE at the University of Michigan The ASEE student chapter was formed to provide an interdisciplinary organization for graduate engineering students of various backgrounds and disciplines to pursue their common passion towards engineering education. Numerous previous members have graduated from the CoE and have become successful faculty at a wide range of institutions, from primarily undergraduate teaching-oriented schools to very competitive Research I universities. The UM ASEE student chapter has had a long history of active involvement directing, organizing, and running various service projects. In recent years the student chapter served as essentially a service organization that offered various opportunities to organize and operate various teaching oriented sessions and presentations that the members felt were unavailable from other sources and which appealed to a wider CoE audience. The additional benefit of these activities was to help develop camaraderie and friendship between students of different backgrounds and disciplines. Examples of Programs run by UM ASEE The student chapter offered numerous programs that provided enrichment and information related to career and personal development. We briefly describe those programs provided on an annual basis as well as new programs we have started this school year.