Outstanding Chapter Award

The IEEE-HKN Board of Governors created the OCA to recognize excellence in chapter administration and programs. The award was changed recently so that all chapters, large or small, judged to have exemplary programs, have a chance of being selected.

For the purposes of this award, emphasis is placed on service activities to the department, school, community, and chapter. Equally important is promoting the goals of IEEE-HKN by inducting as many eligible undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty in the IEEE designated technical fields of interest as possible, and by participating in IEEE-HKN student chapter projects.
The Outstanding Chapter Awards Committee utilizes criteria in deciding winning chapter reports, such as service activities that:

• Improve professional development
• Raise instructional and institutional standards
• Encourage scholarship and creativity
• Provide a public service
• Further the established goals of IEEE-HKN

Given the standard of scholarship and the qualities of leadership that characterize its members, each chapter holds great potential. Because of the excellence of the chapters that have earned an OCA in the past, the award is traditionally a mark of distinction.

Chapters are judged based on:

• Activity hours per member: A useful metric for gauging activity level is the average number of activity hours per member. It is obtained by adding up the number of people-hours expended for each activity and dividing that total by the average number of members in the chapter for the year. These average activity levels can be compared to previous recipients of the OCA and judged accordingly.
• Inducting eligible students and faculty in IEEE-designated technical fields of interest: Not all students invited to join IEEE-HKN do so. Significant weight will be given to chapters with an above-average rate of inducting undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members.

In addition to the above, the quality of each service activity (to the department, school, community and chapter) is taken into consideration. In bestowing an award, the standing committee attaches less importance to the number of a chapter’s activities than to their nature and quality. Of critical concern to the committee in judging a chapter are activities to improve professional development, to raise instructional and institutional standards, to encourage scholarship and creativity, to provide a public service, and generally to further the established goals of IEEE-HKN.