A Perfect Partnership

ASEE Prism, Sep 2004 by Kerns, Sherra

ABOUT 20 YEARS AGO, someone suggested our group needed some clear "rules." I decided that "laws" were even better. Now, I'm no Newton, but I know that laws come in threes. The laws I came up with refer to individual perspective, interpersonal communication, and execution of plans. Here are Kerns' laws:

* Everybody sees it from their own seat.

* There's probably some truth to it.

* If nothing else works, try rubbing wax on it.

I've always thought the third law was weak, but haven't yet come up with a better one. The first two have served me well. Here, I'll focus on Kerns' first law.

Things look different from a student's seat than from a professor's and different from the department head's seat than they do from the academic vice president's. In every position, one has different goals, horizons, and obstacles. I've already learned that things look different from the ASEE President-Elect's and President's seats than they do from earlier positions on the ASEE Board and from participation in the membership.

I'd like to tell you what I see from this new seat. ASEE is thriving, with exciting new initiatives on many fronts. The things I wrote about in my candidate's statement- strengthening our communication and collaboration both within the United States and abroad, and encouraging engineering and technology careers with a special focus on attracting new and diverse talents to onr endeavors -are all works in progress, moving forward quickly.

ASKE, has good ideas and great connections through our multidisciplinary and geographically, institutionally, and otherwise well-distributed membership. But what I had not seen clearly until recently is the critical role ASEE staff plays in the success of our organization.

The ASEE permanent staff, located in our Washington, D.C., headquarters, numbers about 50 full-time employees. They maintain and advance our relationships with government offices and other societies that share or complement our mission. Membership and publication services are provided by staff, including coordination of our annual conference and exposition, our Deans' Council and Technology Council activities, annual awards, publication of Prism, and of a varied set of electronic newsletters. The staff manages our budgets, and ASEE has, during this past period of slow economic activity, been one of the few engineering societies to display a healthy balance sheet. The staff also takes on a variety of projects that further engineering educational opportunities for students. For example, ASEE administers millions of dollars in government-funded student scholarships through our projects department. The breadth and quality of activities the staff has undertaken are substantially greater than I'd realized -and I thought I was paying attention.

Headquarters is also responsible for initiatives that further our progress toward strategic goals. "Engineering, Go for It!" is a great example. This superb outreach publication was created by ASEE staff and has now been distributed to over 315,000 high school students through deans of engineering, guidance counselors, and corporate sponsorships. Headquarters also serves as operations central for ASEE's international initiatives, coordinating the building and focusing of relationships with engineering education initiatives in other regions of the world.

We, the membership, are the reason that ASEE exists. Our organization serves our needs and works to achieve the goals we set. And as the energies of our membership and volunteer leadership move among our varied responsibilities, and as we change positions and focus, ASEE keeps the society's work moving forward on a daily basis.

So, in my new seat as your president, the successes of headquarters staff are more clearly visible than from previous angles of view. Appreciating this, it follows that an effective working partnership between ASEE's staff and volunteer leadership is essential to continuing the success we now enjoy and to maintaining strong alignment between our organization's activities and our membership's goals. I think this volunteer-staff relationship can become even more effective, to the benefit of our entire organization. The Board, among other things, serves as a liaison between membership and headquarters, and you can help us find ways to amplify membership efforts and advance our goals. This is a realistic way to improve our organization and its contributions. As you consider this statement, please apply Kerns' second law: There's probably some truth to it.

She Kerns is president of the American Society for Engineering Education.