[comp.org.acm] ACM Student Chapter - University of Houston@UP

uhacm@menudo.uh.edu (ACM/UH Student Chapter) (04/27/91)

                            ACM/UH Student Chapter
                            ----------------------
                        Department of Computer Science
              University of Houston @University Park (Main Campus)
                               4800 Calhoun
                            Houston, Texas  77004

[Note: This was previously sent out on the mailing lists]

   Having found 18 new mail messages in our mailbox today, most from the
ACM-L/ACMSTCHP group, I decided that I should put in my $0.02 and enlighten the 
ACM world about the student chapter at UH.  First some background:

   ACM/UH died a horrible death sometime in 1987 or 1988 as far as we can tell. 
We don't know for sure as the old chapter had rather poor records. Anyway, a
group of us who saw the need for a student organization in the CS Dept. were
directed to the the advisor for ACM/UH.  After some negotiations the advisor
held elections and we got the chapter restarted.  This was last November.  I am
glad to say that as of today we are 70+ members.  The chapter did not get much
done in the Fall of '90 as most of the time was devoted to re-organizing and
finding out where we stood.  Many things had to be done and we were not even a
registered student organization anymore!  But, by January '91, we were ready to
roll!

  Here was our agenda for this spring semester:

       Feb. 7, 1991  - Faculty/Student Get Together

           - this was held as a PR type event.  At our own expense, we held a
             lunchen for the Faculty of the CS Dept and for any students that
             wanted to come by.  We made sandwiches and snacks and about 100
             people attended this function.

       Feb. 22, 1991 -  Guest Lecture from EDS (Electronic Data Sytems)
           
           -  we had about 45 members show up to this event.  EDS, it turns
              out, was EXTREMELY happy to see ACM/UH back again!

       Mar. 22, 1991 -  Guest Lecture from Shell Oil.
         
           -  about 30-40 people came to this event.  This talk was about their
              data network and internal systems management.  Shell Oil is a 
              major company in the Houston area.   

       Apr.  6, 1991 - ACM/UH Local Area Programming Contest

           -  4 of us managed to attend the ACM 1990 SW Regional Programming
              Contest that was held at TCU last fall.  Well, we were an utter
              failure as we didn't solve any problems! Anyway, to help our
              chances this year, we elected to have a local contest to select
              the best possible team to represent us. (We will see you in
              Nationals!!!!)  One nice thing about this contest is that it was
              sponsored by Compaq Computer Corp and EDS!!!  Compaq provided 60
              tee-shirts and EDS donated money and then provided ball caps to
              all persons involved in the contest!  The winners received
              trophies and they are going to regionals at chapter's expense. 
              We have just found out that EDS will pay for that too!! Things
              are looking good!

        Apr. 17, 1991 - NASA

          -   A speaker from NASA came and gave a talk on "Expert Systems vs.
              Human Intelligence."  The turnout was only 20-25 people for this
              event, I guess because the end of the semester is comming up...

        May  9, 1991 - Picnic with CS Dept.

         -    We were fortunate to get invited (the whole chapter) to this
              "priviledged" event held by the CS Dept every year for the
              faculty and Graduate students.  This is a major first!!!

   As you can see, we feel that we are doing rather well in the short period of
our revival.  We have big competition here from IEEE who have 200+ members here
but we are standing our ground, however we enjoy a friendly relationship with
IEEE and MISSO.  We are planning on either having a ACM/UH:IEEE or 
ACM/UH:MISSO Job fair next fall.  We are still working those details out.

   Some of the other services we offer are a ACM/UH Resume Book that was
distributed to many different local companies and tutoring for intro CS/EE
Classes.  We have tutored about 15 students this semester and we are seeing
alot of people now because finals are comming up.

   One problem we are facing, however, is the lack of equipment.  We were
fortunate to get a nice office (2 rooms!) on the fourth floor of one of the
main computer sites.  The problem is that we can't seem to get any terminals or
even a phone in our office.  The CS Dept. won't pay for either and we have been
unsuccessfully trying to secure some old computers in storage.  The red-tape
around here is incredible.  Our justification for needing the equipment is to
help in our tutoring services and to manage chapter records.

Question:  Has any chapter been successful in receiving donated equipment from
any companies?  We are specifically trying to locate an old DECserver so we can
have terminals installed. 
                                                            
   Sadly we are loosing many members this semester as many are graduating.  We
are planning on a major recruiting drive during the last week of August to
spark interest in the new CS students.
       

[Sorry for such a long post... I guess I got carried away....]

Paul Sears,
Secretary, ACM/UH@University Park

-- 
 **   The Association for Computing Machinery, UHACM@JETSON.UH.EDU  **
 **   University of Houston Student Chapter    UHACM@MENUDO.UH.EDU  **
 DISCLAIMER:  These opinions do not necessarily reflect the polices 
              of ACM, its members, or The University of Houston.

rang@cs.wisc.edu (Anton Rang) (04/28/91)

In article <1991Apr26.175459.17507@menudo.uh.edu> uhacm@menudo.uh.edu (ACM/UH Student Chapter) writes:
>This was last November.  I am glad to say that as of today we are 70+
>members.

  Congrats!  It's a lot of work to revive a dead chapter, and it
sounds like you've done a good job with it.

>   One problem we are facing, however, is the lack of equipment.  We
>were fortunate to get a nice office (2 rooms!) on the fourth floor of
>one of the main computer sites.  The problem is that we can't seem to
>get any terminals or even a phone in our office.

  If you're registered as a student organization, you may be able to
get some money out of the university's student affairs fund (or
whatever it's called there).  You may also be able to work through the
student affairs office to get the university to install a phone hookup
in your office.

>The CS Dept. won't pay for either

  It's generally tough to get money out of a department, in my
experience.  It's easier to get it through the normal student
government arrangements, at least if you have such a thing.
Departments often have trouble justifying giving money or equipment to
a student group.  You might also see if the academic or administrative
computing facilities at your school have equipment to give away (we
picked some up from Academic Computing).

	Anton (formerly in ACM @ UW-River Falls and Michigan State University)
   
+---------------------------+------------------+-------------+----------------+
| Anton Rang (grad student) | rang@cs.wisc.edu | UW--Madison | "VMS Forever!" |
+---------------------------+------------------+-------------+----------------+

aahsan@pyrhard2.pyramid.com (Agha Ahsan) (05/01/91)

	I doubt if you are going to get any financial assistance
	from any department in the university, cs or otherwise.
	My sudgestion to you is to concentrate on the local
	companies for financial assistance or donations of old
	equipment.

	-Agha I. Ahsan