New name for ASME?

To the Editor: I suggest that ASME consider changing its name to ASAP: American Society of Academics and Professors, as most of the ASME Fellows are in the teaching profession. I am not so sure if the Society understands the significant difference between a practicing engineer versus a professor. ASME appears to have greater appreciation for those who teach. We have ASME Fellows ranging from university lecturers, associate professors, assistant professors and professors who bear non-ME degrees teaching nuclear engineering or chemical engineering. It's a lot more difficult to accomplish something as an engineer in the real world where economy, politics and environmental issues all play a key part of our career. On the university campus, the students are the only variable to the majority of the teaching professionals. I just hope ASME can go back to the basics by starting to appreciate the real practicing engineers instead.

— Edwin Lee, P.E.
ASME Fellow
Poway, Calif.

Revive the clover logo

To the Editor: What madness has afflicted ASME management to adopt a new logo and supplant the four-leaf clover? For more than a century the four-leaf clover design has symbolized our great Society and its dedication to safety, a symbol that appears on appliances in virtually every home — and commercial and industrial facility — in the USA. It is also used extensively abroad.

The four-leaf clover logo should be restored.

— John A. Talbott,
Life Fellow,
Past VP, Region IX
Portland, Ore.

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