Page 74 - Spring 2015

AsAnews
students Meet Members
for lunch
David T. Blackstock
Applied Research Laboratories and Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Texas at Austin 10000 Burnet Road, Austin, Texas 78758 dtb@austin.utexas.edu
How does a student go about meeting people at ASA meet- ings? If you are a member who first attended ASA meetings as a student, how did you meet people? You probably want- ed to meet members working on problems similar to yours, particularly people whose JASA articles you had read. How does a first-time attendee, especially a student, go about en- countering the people of interest in this big crowd of strang- ers? It can be intimidating.
Seeking to make it easier for students to get to know ASA members, the Committee on Education in Acoustics start- ed the “Students Meet Members for Lunch” program in the mid-1990s. This is not a mixer program, where a bunch of students and a bunch of members get together for an orga- nized midday meal. Instead, the program arranges separate one-on-one encounters so that the student has the member’s full attention during the entire meal. The idea is for the stu- dent and member to get to know each other; otherwise, no particular format is prescribed. For the student to feel on equal footing with the member, the meal is Dutch (the mem- ber is not expected to pick up the tab). Fredericka Bell-Berti, then Chair of the Education Committee, first coordinated the program, then then Scott Sommerfeldt in 1997, and, fi- nally, the author in 2002.
Implementing the program was difficult at first. Attempts to arrange student-member pairings at the ASA meeting itself proved unworkable at a time when email was still somewhat primitive and smart phones essentially unknown. Eventu- ally, making arrangements by email well ahead of the meet- ing proved to be the solution. The Call for Papers includes an announcement of the program:
“The ASA Education Committee arranges one-on-one lunch meetings between students and ASA members. The purpose is to make it easier for students to meet and in- teract with members at Acoustical Society meetings. Each lunch pairing is arranged separately. Students who are interested should contact Dr. David Blackstock, Univer-
Figure 1. Pamela Harght (Berklee College of Music) and Ewe Han- sen (Indiana State University) having a lunchtime discussion about musical instrument normal modes at the 2004 ASA meeting in San Diego, CA.
sity of Texas at Austin, by email: dtb@austin.utexas.edu. Please provide your name, university, department, degree you are seeking ..., research field, acoustical interests, your supervisor's name, .... Each participant pays for his/ her own meal.”
How many students have taken advantage of the program?
From the 2003 Nashville meeting through the 2014 India- napolis meeting (not counting the Paris and Hong Kong meetings, where the program did not operate), an average of 12.7 students asked to participate. The 2010 Baltimore meeting holds the record for largest participation; 28 lunch- es were arranged. The lowest number was six at Nashville (2003). A major problem is that the program is not well known. Despite the Call for Papers notice (which also ap- pears elsewhere) and strong support by the Student Council, comments like “Sounds like a good program, but I’ve never heard of it” and “I know I’m past the deadline, but I just found out about the program” are frequent.
Reaction to the program by participants, both students and members, is almost always positive, frequently highly enthu- siastic. The coordinator usually asks for feedback after each ASA meeting. Here are excerpts from some of the student answers to a question posed.
Was the lunch meeting interesting and useful to you?
• Absolutely! Very interesting! It was an honor to meet the person who is considered to be the “father” of the research field I am in. But also interesting in many other ways. I am very grateful that you contacted Dr. ________ and that he agreed to meet up. I am still amazed that ASA could make this happen.
72 | Acoustics Today | Spring 2015