"Blast from the Past" - Tanya Faltens - President 19980

I was just browsing around, seeing what TBP is up to these days,and came across the Presidents' Theme Page. I was chapter president many years ago (around 1987 or 88) and it was indeed interesting at that time to dig through the historical piles of papers in our cabinet in the EJC office room to see what sort of things had gone on before.

If you are interested in filling in some of that history, perhaps I can remember some names and events. I do remember making a rather extensive chapter summary for the national convention, and wonder if that is still extant. As I get older, history becomes more and more interesting, yet harder to recall...

The presidents/ influential officers I remember are:

• Joe Gallagher (Initiation Director) (recently an active member of one of the UCB Engineering Alumni groups, or maybe the board of directors)
• Urbashi (Ubli) Mitra
• Robin Carlson
• (me)
• Manish Arya

Some of our projects (off the top of my head) were tutoring, blood drive, toy project, engineering buddy program (so successful it was adopted by the EJC the following year), & slightly bent newsletter. Every semester we submitted a grant proposal to the dean for funding for food for tutoring, and every semester we got about $500 for food along with a note that it wasn't clear that food was really necessary for tutoring.

Once I was awakened at 6am by a call from nationals that our Eminent Engineer had been initiated without having completed the proper paperwork. We were in BIG trouble, but scrambled and with due humility on our part, it all worked out.

The year I was president, we got a new administrator in the building, who peeked in on our initiation preparations (horrors!) and informed us that lighted candles could not be used because they posed a safety risk.

Do you still have meetings at La Valles (?) pizza on Northside? That must be a firmly entrenched tradition!

As I approached graduation, I thought that it would be great fun to start preparing for a millenium party/ reunion-- but never put this into action. Maybe the web will now be the site of a virtual reunion of sorts.

And just FYI, did you know that: -as recently as Fall of 1984, we registered for classes by standing in lines at each class location all around campus, with computer punch cards in hand? -Computer screens were not just monochrome? They came in two colors: amber or green. -Flyers describing the Unabomber were in all the elevators and hallways of Cory Hall. The picture was of a hooded person (grey sweatshirt?) wearing sunglasses. Not very descriptive, but scary. We always avoided cardboard boxes left in the halls.

Best wishes to you for a good semester!

Tanya Faltens (one-time corresponding secretary, tutoring director and president)