FWD: Students, STC, and Student Chapter--Need Advice

["Eric J. Ray" <ejray -at- RAYCOMM -dot- COM>]

FORWARDED ANONYMOUSLY ON REQUEST. PLEASE
REPLY TO THE LIST. THANKS! ERIC



I have a situation that I don't know quite how to deal and I would like
some help.

The local STC chapter where I live does not seem to care that there are
undergrad and graduate student members who might benefit from being able to
interact with the professionals in our area. When graduate students
attending the meeting made suggestions that would have encouraged student
involvement (myself and one other grad student had been asked to attend the
meeting so that we could give suggestions about upcoming meetings), the
ideas were shot down. At one point when someone ( a non-student) suggested
that a meeting about working in the trenches would be really good for
students to attend, he was basically told "oh students being able to attend
doesn't matter." It does matter to me and others. I look at my membership
in STC as a learning tool and as a way to network.

I also found out that information about competitions for students might be
eligible for was not getting passed on. The students who were at the
meeting were told "well it's mostly for commercial and industry materials."
However, we were later told that there were student divisions in the same
competition, and were assured that "materials had been sent to around 10
members of the dept." including the graduate coordinator and the head of
the dept. However, the head of our dept. and the graduate coordinator and
one of the professors who should have received the materials are very good
about passing information along when it involves getting students exposure
through competitions and other activities. I even asked if maybe there
couldn't be a student liason to the committee organizing the competition,
and was told "well now that we know there is a problem, we don't really
need a student liason."

Two of us suggested that maybe a student chapter would be a good option
since there are something like 150 undergraduate and graduate students in
the dept. We were told that it was "too hard to do and maintain." We were
also told that it took 10 student members to establish a student chapter
and that people were really good at the start but that student groups
generally fizzled out.

My friend and I talked about it on the way home from the meeting, and we
think that we could probably get a student chapter of STC started. If ten
student members is the magic number, we feel that we could find at least
that many people to join in the immediate circle of people we know.

At this point, I see the options as this:

1. Don't do anything (not acceptable)

2. Make our opinions known to the group that students members are important
and that we want to be involved.

3. Start a student chapter that would make STC more accessible to students
and make the students feel more enfranchised to the profession of technical
communciation.

What are your thoughts on the situation and do any of you have suggestions
on how to proceed?

Thank you.



**************************************************
Eric J. Ray                      ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com
TECHWR-L Listowner         http://www.raycomm.com/

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