Li Cai Haney

Biomedical Engineering, 4th Year

What I Do and Why I Joined

I became treasurer of Tau Beta Pi which is the national engineering honor society for all majors of engineering this semester. It is a relatively small group on campus-I believe at the end of last spring there were around 20 members with one person being all executive board positions and this semester there were only 15 members at the start of the semester. I had not really held an official leadership position within an organization, mainly participating in organizations where the work is more individual-based organizations (volunteering and research at Cincinnati Children's). I knew I wanted to be able to say I held a leadership during my time at college, which is why I became treasurer.

When I heard about the Leadership Round Table, I was excited about the prospect to talk to other leaders at UC who have been more active in a variety of organizations longer than I have and listen to their advice on leading and improving their organization, especially in the new virtual world we have shifted to.

Experience and Impact/How I Plan to Apply What I Learned

Each week, we participated in one of two discussion groups based on different topics. One common theme that came up was engaging existing members and recruiting potential new members. Some suggestions were small gatherings and giveaways to have some in person interactions and make up for lack of food, but the most prevalent topic that came up was social media. One person who was in the Friday group was a part of one of the larger organizations at UC and he talked a lot about using social media and creating videos of past events that can be shared and were helpful with recruiting this semester. Being able to show potential recruits images or videos of what work/events normally take place seem to have an impact on recruiting, and social media posts also allow for engagement among members and even non-members.

Because Tau Beta Pi is a smaller organization that is trying to find its footing after not having a full executive team to help distribute the work, social media is virtually non-existent (there is a website that may or may not be up to date but that is about it). I think in the future when we are able to cement what activities and events we want to host that are beneficial to the general UC community (or CEAS community), social media could be a good way to share what Tau Beta Pi is for future recruits. I think if not for the fact that my mom is a member of Tau Beta Pi and she told me that it is a legitimate honor society (there are a lot of fake/not really beneficial honor societies that try to get students to join), I would have trashed the email when I got it like I do others. Tau Beta Pi has a very minimal current presence on campus, which is part of the reason I think membership numbers are fairly low (we did recruit 8 new members so we are up 23 people now). One of the big things the new executive board has talked about this semester (we are now up to 4 executive board members instead of 1) is what events can we host or help with to put our name out. Once we establish some event (which may not be until on campus events can be held again), I think a social media account to showcase what Tau Beta Pi does on campus can be helpful to visually show engineering students this is a legitimate honor society and these are the events you can be a part of if they join.

Another topic that came up in more recent weeks was how to sustain an organization by developing the new wave of leaders. The main thought is identifying people who show enthusiasm for the work/events/mission of the organization and reaching out to them to consider applying for leadership positions. One comment made was that it usually the people who are heavily involved and excited about what the organization does that remain within the organization in the long term and end up being good leaders who help maintain and grow the group. I really liked this thought process for the next generation of leaders and it is definitely something I would like to try to implement.

As I mentioned, the executive board for Tau Beta Pi went from one person (who graduated in the spring) to four people. The head advisor also changed over the summer, so the first month or so was us trying to figure out what all needed to be done from the Drive. The biggest obstacle we hit at the beginning of the semester was that because the previous president/VP/secretary/treasurer was no longer a student and the previous head advisor was no longer an advisor for Tau Beta Pi, we couldn't access the bank account. PNC sent us to SALD who told us that Tau Beta Pi was not a registered UC organization and thus we could not access the bank account (which is weird because the chapter has been at UC for over 100 years and the group has had the bank account for a couple of years at least). There were a lot of emails and waiting before we were able to be approved as an organization mid-November. I ended up taking the lead for the registration process, and while a pain a lot of the time, I was happy I was able to contribute (and now we know that we need to re-register with SALD. We also now have a CampusLink page so hopefully people may find us that wouldn't have otherwise). Having someone who would have been on the account each year or at least know what steps need to be taken to transfer access would have helped a lot with the process (we sort of had to rely on brief notes that didn't do us any good and emails between SALD representatives that often went unanswered for weeks). Even after approval of registration, we are still waiting to actually access the account (which has limited what we were able to do this semester). We have been encouraging other members to apply for leadership positions in upcoming elections (and even now - there is one empty exec position). As we head into the spring semester when the next election is (and we lose the Senior who is currently secretary), I think reaching out to members to encourage them to apply would be helpful to ensure much smoother transitions that the one I have been going through.

One person mentioned that to help ease people into leadership positions, leaders can reach out and say "Hey, I have noticed you and think you would make a great leader. Would you be interested in helping lead with a few small projects I have?" This way, these potential leaders can be eased into a leadership role on a smaller scale, gaining experience without a huge time commitment while being able to feel like they are making a bigger difference in the group than a normal member would (which is how I think you really make a person invested in the organization). We have done a few things like this this semester. During initiation, there were more speaking parts than executive board members, so we asked members if anyone would be interested in having one of the speaking parts. We have also asked for suggestions for events Tau Beta Pi can host in the future.

I think the main issue with developing leaders within Tau Beta Pi is that it is open only to Juniors and Seniors, so people are members for 2-2.5 years maximum with the co-op schedule. Based on some of the comments from Seniors within the group, they are looking forward to just being done so having an executive role isn't high on their list. Therefore, I think one thing we need to focus on is identifying and encouraging the Juniors who still have more than one year in the group to apply for executive board positions and/or offering small tasks that members can volunteer for that allow them to have a larger (but not full on executive board position commitment) role within the group. This standpoint would help with member engagement at Junior and Senior level, ensuring a transition as bumpy as the one I had hopefully doesn't occur again, keeping the organization running smoothly, and reducing the burden on the executive members (which may help in terms of encouraging people to apply if they know there are certain tasks they can allocate to other members).