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Successful Publicity Strategies for a New ASEE Student Chapter

Abstract

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign recently formed a new student chapter of the American Society for Engineering Education, with its inaugural meeting in September 2009.

The student chapter officers executed a successful publicity strategy that enabled the new group to quickly draw interest from a large number of students from 16 different engineering majors. By the end of September 2009, 123 students had signed up for the new student chapter’s email list. Of these students, 65 were undergraduate students and 58 were graduate students (18 M.S. students and 40 Ph.D. students).

This paper will describe the successful publicity strategies of the new ASEE student chapter at the University of Illinois. The officers were recruited through personal connections with students known to be interested in engineering education. Additional student interest for student chapter events was generated through targeted emails advertising meetings and pointing students to the student chapter website.

The student chapter website was a key component of the publicity strategy. The website helped disseminate information regarding the new group and its mission and planned activities. The website also provided a way to collect information from interested students. Students could complete a form to submit their email addresses and some demographic information to join the email list. Students could also register for ASEE lunch seminars by completing a form on the website.

As the ASEE Student Constituent Committee facilitates the creation of new student chapters on more university campuses, the successful publicity strategies used at the University of Illinois can be applied at other universities. This paper will document those strategies for the benefit of other student chapters.

Introduction

The creation of a new ASEE student chapter requires a core group of students passionate about engineering education. These core students form the officer group and are willing to volunteer their time to organize the events and activities of the student chapter. The goal of publicity at this stage is to seek out dedicated students who will form the officer group.

After the officer group is organized, publicity efforts broaden to invite all engineering students to participate in ASEE student chapter events. These students may possess varying levels of awareness and interest in engineering education. The goal of this publicity is to increase awareness of ASEE and generate interest in ASEE events.

Because recruiting student chapter officers differs from recruiting student chapter members, the publicity effort can be planned in two phases.

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Van Ruitenbeek, E. (2010, June), Successful Publicity Strategies For A New Asee Student Chapter Paper presented at 2010 Annual Conference & Exposition, Louisville, Kentucky. 10.18260/1-2--16785