Certain standing committees are provided for by national Bylaw V, Sec. 5.02: Membership, Initiation, Program, and Social Activities. The respective purposes of these committees, as envisioned by the Convention which wrote the Bylaw, were to compile the eligibility records, to conduct the pre-initiation activities of the electees and the initiation ceremony, and to advance the technical and professional education of the active members. The chapter president may want at times to appoint additional committees. Effective committee chairs are essential, and the choice of the right person is often a challenge to the president. If you choose your chairs judiciously, your job as president will be easier.
The president should place several juniors in the position of chair or co-chair — a quick way to get these persons, elected in the fall term, to orient themselves. Some will become chapter officers, and this nucleus helps to preserve continuity. Also, the president should prepare a specific, written list of responsibilities for each chair.
Committee members should be assigned with considerable thought and reflection. It's a good idea to mix up the curricula; this will help to eliminate any subtle cliques which might form in the chapter.
Keep in close contact with your committee chairs to ensure that they function properly. Ask the chairs to report to you periodically and get additional information and instructions. This idea is useful: Carry a schedule card for each committee chair with you — often you can catch them between classes, saving time and effort. Specific suggestions for various committees follow:
Tau Beta Pi is in principle and by Constitution an honor society whose goals are to promote, encourage, and recognize excellence in scholarship and character in our undergraduate chapters and engineering colleges. Our goals include setting an example of scholarship and character that inspires each undergraduate to attain full potential. This is the essential function of an honor society. If a chapter conscientiously elects and initiates new members in recognition of their superior scholastic attainments and exemplary character, its purpose is being fulfilled.
Many chapters also provide services to their colleges and communities. This provides Tau Beta Pi a unique distinction among honor societies. Service activity is not required of our chapters, but those which have the manpower feel that such projects are entirely within and even further Tau Beta Pi's national goals and that they are a responsibility of intellectual "noblesse oblige." The national Association is in full agreement and encourages local chapters to carry out meaningful projects. It also recognizes that many cannot engage in service activities for sheer lack of manpower or because the membership is already making worthwhile contributions through other campus organizations, and by no means wants a chapter to take on projects which cannot be completed or for the sake of merely being busy. Projects should be contributions to the achievement of a definite end. Among some of the more popular projects in our chapters are:
1. Tutoring of underclassmen.
2. Participation in freshman orientation.
3. Participation in engineering open house.
4. Sponsorship of lectures, including Fundamentals of Engineering test reviews.
5. Faculty and course evaluation.
6. Building and maintaining chapter websites.
7. High-school visitations for engineering "recruitment."
8. Outstanding engineering faculty and student award presentations.
9. Sponsorship of scholarships to outstanding students.
Some chapters ask electees to complete questionnaires concerning possible chapter activities and projects. Usually, some meaningful projects have resulted from these sources. Deans, chapter advisors, alumni, and others also are excellent sources of ideas.
One-sentence summaries of more than 500 projects are given in the Index of Chapter Projects. Further details on all the indexed activities are available free of charge from the national headquarters, where all the entries are filed and cataloged.
Your chapter should have a publicity chair or committee whose duty it is to see that chapter activities and events are publicized in both collegiate and public press. Here are some suggestions for satisfactory public and publicity relations with the campus newspaper:
1. Establish friendly contact from the very start of the school year and then keep it up. The president and publicity chair and the campus editor(s) would do well to talk the entire situation over with regard to such details as space limitations, deadlines, reporting methods, etc.
2. The chapter should have done or will definitely do something constructive. Worthwhile activities are news and rate space in the paper.
3. Thank the editor for his or her help. A short thank-you note after publication of chapter news will sometimes work wonders.
If your news is of sufficient interest, by far the better method of releasing it is to call the editor and ask if he or she is interested in sending a reporter to see you. The newspaper will be more inclined to print a story than if given information in the form of a written statement.
Several things should be done in advance to make an interview a success. See that all of the members involved are present when the reporter arrives. Prepare a list of significant information: name, class, engineering major, and address. Type the list neatly; it will save the reporter's time and will ensure accuracy. Create the impression that the reporter is doing you a favor. Treat him or her with respect; it may mean the difference between a good story and a few lines of routine filler.
If your story is not important enough to call in a reporter or if it is to be sent to an out-of-town newspaper, prepare a news release using the following guidelines:
Finally, the Publicity Committee should be responsible for sending to either the national Headquarters or the District Director interesting news items about the chapter, its officers and members, and prominent alumnus members. A good idea is to have the college engineering and alumni magazines sent to Headquarters in exchange for a subscription to THE BENT.
It is recommended that each chapter award a calculator, engineer's handbook, or other suitable prize to the outstanding underclass engineers. If standings can be determined, this should be done at an open meeting, commencement exercise, or other time when such honors are publicly announced or distributed. Otherwise such award should be made early in the fall. Other awards, such as for excellence in humanities course work or for special essays, may be offered annually by the chapter. It is an excellent idea to present a gift or certificate of appreciation to retiring alumnus members of the Advisory Board and to write letters to the dean and to their department heads expressing your appreciation for the service of your advisors.
Material that might appropriately be included in speeches made at the presentation of awards may be found in the Preamble to the Constitution and in the Eligibility Code. Details about individual chapter awards must be decided by each chapter. The president should write in detail the method of selecting the recipient, making the presentation, etc., and place such instructions in this section.
Award Certificates
At the suggestion of the l970 Convention, chapters are encouraged to give recognition to students and faculty for outstanding accomplishments. Size 8.5" x 11" blank award certificates with only the Tau Beta Pi name and Bent at top and gold seal at lower left are available from headquarters at nominal cost.
These certificates may be hand-lettered by volunteer labor from your engineering graphics department, at little or no cost to the chapter. On the other hand, you might want to have a local printer machine-letter the award. Appropriate frames and plaques are usually available locally; or you can contact Headquarters for the names of suppliers.
"Certificates of Accomplishment" may be awarded by the chapters for a variety of achievements, such as:
(l) Physically handicapped engineering students who did excellent scholastic work but narrowly missed qualifying for Tau Beta Pi membership.
(2) Outstanding work on undergraduate publications.
(3) Superior teaching — faculty or student, engineering and non-engineering.
(4) High scholarship as an underclassman, e.g., outstanding freshman award, outstanding sophomore award, etc. (an example from Worcester Polytechnic University is shown:).
(5) Extraordinary service to the chapter.
Most chapters find it desirable to have formal initiation banquets with dates, spouses, and parents present. These are excellent means of bringing Tau Beta Pi to the attention of non-members. In fact, this is the basic purpose of initiation banquets — to honor the new members publicly as the ritual ceremony honors them privately. Like any chapter project, planning is the key to a successful dinner. And what dinner isn't complete without a good tip or two?
Tip #1: Guarantee. Nothing is sadder than watching your chapter treasurer write out a check for more prime ribs than were actually eaten because the guarantee was too high. Check with the dining room on their guarantee guidelines. Most facilities are prepared to serve 5% over the guarantee. Also ask about the lead-time the dining room requires. That is, you must normally be prepared to give a guarantee from 24-to-48 hours in advance.
Tip #2: Tickets . A good way to help establish a guarantee is to distribute tickets a week or so before the banquet. In addition to selling tickets to your members and initiates and their guests, you should contact local Tau Beta Pi alumni, including family, and encourage them to purchase tickets.
Before printing tickets, make sure the price on them includes taxes and tip. This avoids the embarrassing situation of having to pass the hat to raise the extra cash to pay for the meal.
Tip #3: Speaker. Try to show originality in planning your banquet program. It is recommended that Tau Beta Pi banquet addresses be on non-technical subjects. You are much more likely to have strong attendance if you can promise something more than just another engineering lecture. And non-technical addresses are in accord with the "spirit of liberal culture" emphasis expressed in the Preamble to the Constitution. Call on your advisors or District Director for possible speakers.
Tip #4: Location. Much as you would like to hold your banquet at the Ritz Plaza, don't forget you are inviting the faculty and they should be able to afford it too. Some chapters hold banquets in school cafeterias, finding they can get more food for less cash.
One large annual initiation banquet in the spring following the spring initiation that honors both the spring and fall electees is economically attractive to many chapters. This practice may or may not be desirable for your chapter.
You will want to check on the availability of a private room, its size, and audio-visual equipment. Someone should inspect the room set-up an hour or so before the dinner to make sure everything is in place.
Tip #5: Head table. Certainly you'll want the master of ceremonies and the main speaker at the head table. Other people who are important to the chapter — university administrators, chapter Advisors, and chapter officers — should be publicly thanked by asking them to sit at the head table and be recognized by the emcee. Notifying these people ahead of time that they will be at the head table saves the worry with having to locate them in the crowd just prior to the dinner.
Inform your District Director of your banquet and initiation dates. He or she will be happy to say a few words of welcome to your initiates on behalf of the national organization.
Tip #6: Joint dinners. Many chapters have found joint dinners with other groups desirable. Joint meals help to attract larger attendance and better speakers; they sometimes result in lower costs per meal served, and in most cases, they eliminate a strain on the members' pocket books by excluding them from the privilege of attending two engineering society banquets. An example of joint dinners is a combined Tau Beta Pi/ Eta Kappa Nu/Pi Tau Sigma, etc., function. Combined undergraduate and alumnus chapter meetings, and joint banquets for several Tau Beta Pi chapters in a particular locality are held frequently. Your District Director may be able to help you set up an "inter-chapter" dinner.
Most chapters can benefit from the use of a small nominating committee. It should be appointed a month or so before the meeting at which new officers will be elected. Its sole purpose is to ensure that a slate of capable, interested, potential officers is presented to the chapter for consideration. More than one person may be nominated for each office. Nominations from the floor during the election meeting must also be accepted.
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