After taking a nice read of the latest installment of the ITE Journal (I read these things!), I had the pleasure to think through Mr. Jason DeGray's beautifully written OP/ED piece concerning the future for ITE, current issues plaguing our organization, and some possible actions to take. I suggest go taking a look for yourself if you haven't already.
One paragraph that resonates profoundly with me is the third-to-last one, where Mr. DeGray discusses the effects of the 20-30 year old demographic - of course I'm in the thick of it, being a few months more until 25 myself. Generally, the trend is about young professionals choosing not to get involved with ITE (and instead opting for newer professional organizations, but more on that in Part 2). As a member of this group of people, perhaps I could shed some light on the situation.
I primarily hazard that one of the core issues to declining membership (at least through a student's perspective) would be a question of value, or why the Institute is deserving of my time and efforts. From a typical university student's perspective here in Sacramento, the benefits of a membership would be the right to partake in a free pizza dinner every second Tuesday of the month (when our general meetings were this past semester), a tour of some local firms, maybe some interesting facts from guest speakers, and something to put on a resume so that it'll be spared the so-called "circular filing cabinet."
Of course you could argue I'm hardly the typical university student from my presence both on and offline. Through my experiences I know that membership offers so much more: not only do I appear at nearly all the section meetings (can't forget the food there!), it's led to friendships with other students I wouldn't have gotten to know otherwise. Membership has also given me the opportunity to travel outside the state, once before to Arizona for the 2013 Western Conference and soon to South Dakota for the very same reason - hopefully my professional career will be generous enough to permit me to partake in the technical conferences as well. I've even gone far enough to make use of the article database online for sourcing in several academic papers in my undergraduate study. Finally, even a staunch introvert like me ended up getting some professional networking in as well (discussion on that below as well, too).
As someone who has worked to entice other university students into the larger Institute family, I'm not going to mince words: it's a tough sell. In this day and age of increasing student workloads and debts along with decreasing levels of funding and assistance, students in general are more prone to shy away from how the Institute used to conduct business. A good chunk of time is spent in the classroom listening to a professor lecture away while everyone else is maybe paying attention, and more time for a guest speaker at a general meeting? Even when another professor offered "Professional Development" points - extra credit for attending anything professional and transportation related, almost unheard of in engineering curriculum - and the only other students that appeared were four others out of a class of 30. I haven't seen them at a section meeting since.
Further exacerbating the problem is the time section general meetings convene. A noontime lunch meeting seems very popular amongst professionals, who can take their hour of break. For some reason, noontime classes are also popular - that's what prevented me from getting a minor in Mathematics. To cope, university chapter meetings (here, at least) usually are in the evening to avoid the daytime classes.
One last problem not just affecting the Institute but most students is the reaction to the term "networking." Depending on who you ask, answers in the negative range may include walking up to unfamiliar people and faking interest to outright sleaze-ball kissing-up, for lack of better terms. Trying to communicate in this scenario through an age gap only serves to compound the problem.
Tired of the doom and gloom so far in this blog post? Good, I was too. The Institute is at least aware of this problem, and recognizing a problem exists is half the battle. The Institute isn't alone in this as well - another professional organization I'm involved with, American Public Works Association (APWA), is also starving for young member/student involvement. Thus far what I've seen is the creation of scholarships to students that demonstrate achievements in their academic careers. The Institute has gotten around to doing this too: those of us in the Northern California section know of the sponsorship to send a student each year all-expenses-paid to the district conference (I was the winner last year, hence my trip to Arizona).
However, as good as free money is, that doesn't get to the heart of the problem - scholarships are exclusive and given out only to a select few. Instead, I'd like to put forth some things at varying degrees of effort to fit your individual section's abilities and needs. The goal: attract young members like myself by being inclusive.
Level 1: Sections and Chapter Collaboration
Not much effort here - the idea is to get both section president and the local student chapter presidents together for a little discussion on what each body plans on doing and what can be improved in the short term. Something like "Oh, the section plans to host these topics for our meetings, and later on a tour to this project site" followed by "Perhaps we can get some interested students out for that. We're also thinking of doing some philanthropy work and would love professionals to get involved too" type of chatter. This way, the student and professional that hold office get to network based on a common interest. Other contacts could also be formed between regular members if joint events go just right.
Level 2: Revamp Meetings
First, there are times when guest speakers are there to present. Nothing wrong with that, however can also stop the audience engagement and cause interest to wane. Some article I read long ago states the point much better than I can: "TED eliminates any excuse for making an informational presentation boring." As an example, here's Janette Sadik-Khan's (transportation commissioner of New York City) talk on pedestrian/bicycle improvements implemented. I'm not saying we should ALL become TED-worthy overnight, but just keep the idea tucked away safe and slowly work up to it. Especially for students, getting us engaged in the presentation and actively thinking about it makes a difference.
Second is taking the section meeting to the students' level instead. Holding the meeting at the nearest university solves the problem of the students loading the transportation network and getting to the meeting. If planned well enough, the university can certainly offer the right room size to accommodate everyone. (Catering might be a bit trickier to navigate, though - here one of the buildings requires catered events to be done through the university services.) Furthermore, meetings could also be changed to meet in the evening to get around daytime classes as well.
Level 3: Employment Support System
Back to Mr. DeGray's OP/ED for a bit - he mentions the recession and the trend of cutting loose new professionals to retain the old guard. Therefore I propose that the Institute start directly mentoring students and younger professionals into ITE's future membership. Any help at all in the job market would certainly generate interest, and would also boost interest in transportation engineering. The effort can be piloted for now and expanded when times improve.
To part, here's a little snippet of dialogue that I read on LinkedIn which sums up the need for giving experience no matter what. A CEO and CFO are talking about employee development programs with the former planning to expand it. The CFO balks at the expenses and says "What happens if we invest in developing our people & then they leave us?" The CEO says with a straight face:
"What happens if we don't, and they stay?"