The Information Theory Society has a membership and chapters subcommittee consisting of the 2nd Vice-President of the Board and appointed society members. This subcommittee is responsible for maintaining up to date membership records, a roster of chapter officers, and a summary of current chapter activity.
In a series of articles in our newsletter (June 1996 and September 1996), Urbashi Mitra highlighted a number of issues with respect to membership in the Information Theory Society. In this article we look at the evolution of our membership across various regions of the IEEE and at the chapters of our society.
Membership in the Information Theory Society
| 1993 | 1997 | |
| Regions 1-6 (USA) | 3,446 | 2,920 |
| Region 7 (Canada) | 403 | 200 |
| Region 8, (Europe, Middle East and Africa) | 1,412 | 1,486 |
| Region 9 (Latin America) | 304 | 174 |
| Region 10 (Asia and Pacific) | 1,191 | 1,060 |
| Total | 6,756 | 5,636 |
The significant loss in our membership is intriguing considering the growth in our transaction and symposium. Also, now we are among the 2 or 3 societies in IEEE where the number of members residing outside the United States exceeds those residing in.
One possible way to reverse the decline in our membership may be through increased activity at the local chapter level and by the formation of new chapters. The Information Theory Society has chapters in Boston, Maine, New Hampshire, Providence, Pittsburgh, Eastern North Carolina, Southeastern Michigan, Denver, San Francisco, Santa Clara Valley, Kitchener, Waterloo, Montreal, Benelux, France, Germany, Israel, Norway, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Beijing, Changwon, Daejon, Seoul, Taegu, Taipei and Tokyo.
It may be noted that some of these are joint chapters with other societies. The society offers encouragement to chapters by way of its Distinguished Speakers Program. A travel subsidy of up to $500 is available to our distinguished speakers (defined as any present or past member of our Board of Governors) who have been invited by an IT chapter to give a seminar locally.
The society also provides a one time, start up funding of $1,000 to new chapters. It takes a petition by 12 members (above student grade) to start the formation of a chapter. The paper work is fairly straight forward. Instructions and other material can be obtained from Ms. Carol Coffey, Manager of Section/Chapter support at IEEE (e-mail: c.coffey@ieee.org). Of course, I remain at your disposal for any assistance that you may need and my e-mail address is bhargava@ece.uvic.ca .