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I went to University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, which had a great tech writing
program. While I was there, one of the students tried to start a Student
Chapter of the STC...and failed. To be honest, one of the great barriers was
the $65 registration fee; most other university organizations were free or
nearly so. Plus, the students in our program were fairly close-knit. We were
in each others classes every semester and frequently worked in groups, so we
felt very comfortable discussing technical communication issues amongst
ourselves. Eau Claire wasn't a metropolis, so we didn't have a thriving tech
writing community to benefit from. Our best tech writing resources worked
for the university, either as professors or in the media/computer center,
and were FREE.
I'm not discounting the benefits of STC membership for students, simply
pointing out that it may not be feasible at all universities because of
location, lack of resources, etc.
___________________________________________________________________________
Jennifer Jelinek
Marketing Services Manager
Plymouth Products, Inc. Sheboygan, WI
jjelinek -at- plymouthwater -dot- com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: AlumsHubby [SMTP:AlumsHubby -at- AOL -dot- COM]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 1998 1:12 PM
> To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject: Accreditation, registration, certification for academic
> TechComm programs?
>
> Does the STC or any other body oversee and bless technical communication
> programs at colleges and universities? What's the STC's relationship to
> college TC programs? Why do some schools have STC student chapters and
> others
> not: Is it a function of student and faculty enthusiasm and commitment,
> or is
> there also some set of criteria that the program has to meet?
>
> I'm setting out to mentor a nice young fella from SCSU and neither he nor
> I
> even knows if they have a program down in Orangeburg yet. And that made
> me
> wonder how the RPIs and CMUs get their big reps -- is it because of sheer
> quality or do they meet and/or set some benchmarks for training in the
> profession?
>
> ~
>
