New board unites student sections on regional level

Emily Smith
ASME NEWS

With Region III student sections outnumbering ASME senior sections three to one, in Dan Nathan-Roberts' mind it only made sense to create a regional board to organize them.

Early last year, he went to work on his idea, spurred on by visions of creating not only greater synergy between student sections in his region, but of using that synergy to forge far-reaching bonds with ASME senior sections in Region III and local industry.

During the Student Section Committee meeting at the '03 Summer Annual Meeting, Nathan-Roberts talked about the purpose of a Region III Regional Student Operating Board with other student members. Five months later, at the 2003 Congress, students representing five schools in the region met for the second time to discuss survey results collected during needs-assessment meetings they had had with ASME sections at 44 universities, to work on the second issue of a new regional student newsletter and to review their goals for their RSOB.

Since then, two more editions of the quarterly online newsletter have been completed. The Web site, www.asme.org/studsects/regioniii/RSOB3.index.html, had its first anniversary. And Regions I and IV are preparing to follow suit on an idea that many student members and their advisors believe will grow their numbers, inspire many more to take the step from student membership to full membership when they enter the engineering workforce, and improve the regions for student members.

"I went home blown away by how excited they were, and how much they wanted to do," Nathan-Roberts said of his first meeting with the Region III student operating board members. That excitement level continues unabated, he added.

Possibly because the general disparity between the number of ASME student sections and senior sections "has been neglected for a long time," said Ken Kroos, who was the vice president of Region III when Nathan-Roberts came up with the RSOB idea. Kroos said he supported the RSOB idea because of the potential for a tremendous return on a minimal regional investment of some $2,000.

"Strong student sections tend to promote strong professional members later on," Kroos said. "Students probably have a lot more impact on other students," he added, because "students believe what other students tell them rather than what professional members say."

In most of ASME's regions, student sections outnumber senior sections by two to one. In regions XII and XIII the number is almost triple, as it is with Region III. Only in Regions IV and XI is the section disparity in the single digits.

All student members are welcomed in the RSOB. Because his term as student section committee representative ended in June '04, Nathan-Roberts no longer chairs the RSOB. But, like a parent, he remains involved as a mentor to current RSOB chair Julie Bachmann and as general support for the whole group.

"This is Dan's baby," said Bachmann, who began serving on the RSOB in April and was elected to replace Nathan-Roberts as RSOB chair in June at the Summer Annual Meeting. Already, through RSOB involvement, she said "people see that they can make a difference." Through their involvement, she added, students can explore ASME in ways they might not have thought to do otherwise and figure out where their interests in ASME lie.

Now that much of the groundwork for the RSOB in Region III has been laid, Bachmann said they will figure out ways to meet needs identified in the university section meetings, come up with projects to be done in concert with senior sections, and plan activities with local industry.

And that kind of work will prepare RSOB members to offer service to ASME at the national level as soon as they graduate, Nathan-Roberts said. "All members of the RSOB are much more knowledgeable about ASME and involved than they would have been without the RSOB," he said. "I know of one who was nominated as a candidate for a national committee."

That's why expanding the number of student members is so important, Kroos said. "That's the future of ASME."

 

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