It Takes a Village: Student Chapter Survival and Success

摘要

Many student chapters of professional organizations like ASIS&T can have difficulty sustaining membership, educational support, financial resources, and chapter competitiveness. Some organizations are more successful than others in sustaining student chapters. Since student chapter membership and activity are important contributors to parent organization long-term survival, growth, and success, it is essential to identify student chapter problems and take steps to solve them. Current trends in scholarly collaboration and distance education, assisted by technical networking advances, can provide methods for linking student chapters to help each other with problem-solving through "intellectual proximity" (Weedman, 1999). We can form a collaborative community that will work together to improve the chances of long-term chapter survival and success. Such an environment will also provide opportunities for inter-institution research, creativity, and socialization (Students, 1998). We will invite other student chapters of ASIS&T to join this network, using existing Internet technology such as WebCT, Yahoo Groups, and email listservs to create a "virtual village" for all student chapters. If successful, this collective Village has the potential to become a permanent Internet service for ASIS&T student membership.