"Publicity and Brotherhood" - Tai-Ping Yu - Fall 1996

The months before my official duties as president of Tau Beta Pi, I look towards my own experience of TBP and thought of what I could do to improve the organization. One that struck me was that I hardly remembered who my fellow pledges that weren't officers. It seemed a shame that so many people went through the process and simply forgot their association; only remembering when writing resumes or applications. Another point that bothered me was the anonymity of TBP to the rest of the campus and community. So therefore my two goals were to spread the image of TBP and make the pledging experience more memorable and enjoyable so that more people would remain active. To make pledging more memorable,I made several changes. One was to make more social activities or at least make required activities more fun and active. The essay requirement was I thought very boring so I required candidates to do interviews instead, with not only each other but with some officers as well. This was I believe a great success (refer to Alvin's paper for a great example). The essay I hope made candidates more aware of they fellow candidates in a fun mannor. Anyway, I still remember being shocked as to how many new fact that I did not know before putting together the essays.

To help spread the image of TBP, I replaced the old tutoring task which was to tutor individualy in Betchel Lounge (which from my exprience was terrible) to going out into the Berkeley High and tutoring over there. This time candidates didn't go alone, but in pairs so that they could at least get to know one person. Only half of the candidates went to Berkeley High, the other half engaged in one on one session with UC Berkeley students. I remember that many of candidates had a positive feeling from the Berkeley High experience and the teacher at Berkeley was very appriciative as well. I'm not really sure why later Presidents decided not to pursue that further. One other thing I did was to get Dean Gray speak at one of the candidate meetings not only to expose the candidates to the Dean but also to show the Dean that TBP existed.

Ok that's about all I remember. The stuff i left out was pretty much routine tbp stuff. you know beach clean-up, habitat, broomball, etc. I never got to look at the project book that we had, but there may be more info there. Also I'd try to scrounge up the Essays, some of those were really hilarious - there were a lot from present and past officers there. Blackmail material....

Truly, Tai Ping Yu