Developing Younger Member Communication

The viewpoint of younger members should be important to the entire memberships as they will be future policy makers of the civil engineering profession. They comprise 43% of ASCE. The younger viewpoint is seldom solicited in the determination of national ASCE policy to the detriment of the entire profession. The responsibility for this must be shared. Younger members should take the initiative to make their desires known through all channels that are now available. ASCE must share some of this responsibility since they offer rather limited channels of younger member communication in the formulation of major Society policy. In this paper the author shows an ASCE policy statement now being formulated that has not had younger member input and, correspondingly, does not reflect the younger viewpoint, and then describes some positive steps toward improving future younger member communications.