Ohio Alpha Omicron

Seventeen outstanding mechanical engineering students, under the guidance of Dr. David J. Bayless (Missouri Tau Lambda ‘85), petitioned for membership in Pi Tau Sigma in the Fall of 1995. The petition had the full support of the all the mechanical engineering faculty, including Dr. Jay S. Gunasekera, Chair, and Dr. T. Richard Robe, Dean of Engineering. Following favorable action, Ohio University Alpha Omicron was installed on May 10, 1996, by Dr. Edwin Griggs (Tennessee Sigma Nu) President of Pi Tau Sigma, Dr. Farokh Mistree (Georgia Tech Nu) and Dr. Victor Goldschmidt (Purdue Beta). The charter class of Ohio Alpha Omicron consisted of 33 students, including Matthew Kence (President), Jeffery Mallory (Vice President), Brandy Barker (Treasurer), and Stephen Welty (Secretary).

The Ohio Alpha Omicron chapter promotes the high ideals of Pi Tau Sigma through service to the College, University, and community of Athens, as well as to the profession of mechanical engineering through projects and tutoring activities.

ANNUAL SUMMARY REPORTS

2023-2024 Lillien Heywood, President

This year, Ohio Alpha Omicron was committed to increasing membership, participation in outreach events, and further defining the purpose of our chapter. We started this year knowing the majority of our 15 members, including all officers, were set to graduate in the Spring. This meant our need to increase membership was needed for the future success of our chapter.

Throughout the year, our chapter met with faculty in the Mechanical Engineering Department to find areas in our college needing improvement. A major area of concern was a lack of underclassmen involvement. We decided to further define our chapter’s mission to aiding this issue and decided to become more active with underclassmen students. We participated in several outreach events including Belonging Week and the Engineering Involvement Fair. These events connected us to younger students and sparked future interest. Our chapter hosted our first outreach event, drop in student advising sessions, geared toward underclassmen Mechanical Engineering students. This event aimed to help fall scheduling and answer any questions from personal experiences. Our department has not had a student-to-student advising event before and it was a great success. We hope to make it an annual or even semesterly event to host. Our increased involvement within the college was reflected in our Spring Initiation. We successfully initiated 7 members, our highest number to date. Our chapter has 11 members returning in the fall and each officer position filled.

Other highlights throughout the year included taking six members to the National Convention. We enjoyed the keynote speakers, ice skating, and networking with other chapters. Two members also won third place in the Technical Challenge. Another highlight was our first company tour to General Mills Totino’s Plant to gain industry advice and connections. Along with professional and outreach events, our chapter had many fun general meetings and our first ever social. Engineering challenges included Halloween Candy Catapult, Gingerbread House, and Annual Egg Drop Competition. Overall, Ohio Alpha Omicron had 20 calendar events including meetings, professional development events, and social events.

Fall Initiation

Spring Initiation

2022-2023 Lillien Heywood, President

This year, Ohio Alpha Omicron were committed to resuming good standing position, further increasing membership, and establishing new traditions in our chapter. We started the year with only two officer positions filled and a handful of returning members. By late fall we were able to fill the last two officer positions. We successfully initiated three members in the fall and five members in the spring. All new initiates, along with the full officer team, will be returning next year.

Our chapter realized that the traditional professional development workshops and activities were not as beneficial to us as they proved to be in the past. We decided to incorporate hands-on learning experiences instead. The engineering college at Ohio University is fortunate to have open workshops where students are encouraged to explore areas such as machining, welding, etc. Our chapter met with the lab supervisor to discuss a semester long project that sharpened our hands-on skills and produced a small mechanical device we could showcase. We are excited to start this process in the upcoming Fall semester.

It was also made aware that our chapter lacked unique traditions. We decided to incorporate simple and fun engineering related competitions to end each meeting. We started with a gingerbread house competition with only graham crackers and frosting before winter break. Our spring semester ended with an egg drop competition. Designs were made with recycled material and dropped from the third floor of our engineering atrium. Our chapter also decided to seek out an annual service project that could become a new tradition. Due to disorganization in the beginning and poor timing we did not successfully complete our service goal, but our committed to reaching our goal for the upcoming school year.

Overall, this year in review was full of changes and new faces. We believe Ohio Alpha is headed in the right direction and will continue to grow in purpose and accomplishments.

2021-2022 Maxeen Ramlo, President

This past academic year, the Ohio University Alpha Omicron Chapter worked hard to increase membership in our chapter. We started the year with only a single current member outside of the executive team and initiated four new members in the fall semester and five new members in the spring – all of whom will be returning next year.

During the return to in-person, we focused on providing students with professional development events in the fall. For these, we scheduled workshops with the career development office on our campus and had them work through resumes and cover letters with us. We also discussed interview skills and worked to be more connected to the other engineering honors societies at Ohio University so that we can join and do projects for the engineering college. Currently at Ohio University, the only other major specific honors society is Alpha Pi Mu – which we worked to create a joint social event for at the end of the fall semester – which sadly got cancelled due to COVID-19 cases within both organizations.

During the spring semester, we continued to hold professional events where our members learned interview skills and how to better utilize Handshake – a professional networking cite used by Ohio University. We also were able to organize more social events to build community in Pi Tau Sigma. These included a spring picnic and getting pizza and talking about course scheduling with younger members of the organization. These social events allowed younger members in the organization to hear about what campus was like before the COVID-19 pandemic, and to allow them to learn lessons from the seniors in the organization.

The events and work we did this year was mainly focused on providing students with a resource and a community so that we could increase our membership – as we heard from students that that was what they were looking for in an organization. While I think we accomplished that this year, I cannot wait to see how next year the organization continues to grow and do more for its members and its community.

2017- 2018 Marie Camp, President

This year, Ohio Alpha Omicron strived to improve their involvement with the chapter and in the community.  There were many ideas suggested in the fall for chapter events, some of which were more successful than others.

• Regular Chapter meetings:             All throughout the year, we successfully held regular meetings with a larger member turn-up.  Every other week, we provided pizza and soda with our discussion of chapter events and involvement.
• Biochemistry Lab tour:                  In the spring, we suggested to have a chapter bonding event where our chapter advisor, Dr David Bayless, would provide the chapter a tour of his research laboratory.  This plan fell through due to late corresponding with him.

Community Involvement:

• Underclassmen/Upperclassmen Social:      In the fall, we had planned to invite underclassmen to a bowling alley for a chance to meet the upperclassmen members of the chapter. Due to weak and late advertisement, this idea was not very successful.
• Elevator Pitch Practice for Career Fair:      For the spring career fair, we offered for the students pursuing internships and jobs a chance to practice their elevator pitch during the fair.  We set up ourselves in a study room not far away from the recruitment tables and invited students who wanted extra practice.   It was a successful setup; however, we did not have the timely advertisement to bring in many students.
• Science fair judging:          In the spring, we volunteered time as judges for a regional high school and middle school science fair.  We evaluated the engineering related student project submissions.  The event was successful and enjoyable for the chapter members and the students there

Next year, for each of the above events, we hope to advertise and plan earlier, attract more student attention, and shed light on the chapter name.  Our chapter will also try planning more service and bonding events for the upcoming year.

On top of these events, we successfully brought our whole leadership board, five members, to the 2018 convention at the University of Miami.  At the convention, we watched the creation of a new chapter, and voted on new national officer positions and two notions to the chapter by-laws.   It was an enjoyable convention for everyone who went.  We brought one non-graduating member to the convention, and she will take the role of chapter president for the 2018-2019 year.