| Dear prospective
members:
On behalf of the Student Activity
Committee of the Association of Overseas Chinese Agricultural,
Biological and Food Engineers (AOC), we are writing to express
our thanks to all of you for your time with us at the AOC
Inaugural Ceremony in Sacramento, CA, on July 31, 2000.
From that time on, AOC has been growing rapidly and various
committees of AOC have accomplished many tasks, as you have
read from the first issue of IMPACT, the quarterly
newsletter of AOC.
AOC is a professional organization of more than
a hundred members from all over the world. Its major objective
is to promote information exchange and networking among
agricultural, biological, and food engineers of Chinese
origin worldwide.? As you all know, overseas Chinese students
have probably formed the largest group among the international
students in almost every major university in the US and
Canada. However, we are not well connected. Sometimes, our
old friends, old classmates may have been studying and living
in our area, but we just do not know it. AOC intends to
establish links and foster communication among Chinese scholars
and students in the fields of agricultural, biological,
and food engineering. We, the student members of AOC, are
the future of this Association. We should do something together
for the Association, for ourselves, and for our country.
As recommended by the AOC Executive Board, the
Student Activity Committee (SAC) was organized and held
its first teleconference on Sept. 21, 2001. Six students
from three universities attended the conference. Major issues
discussed were objectives, activities, communication, and
career development. Most of all, we hope to build a community
for our student members to get acquainted, to communicate,
and to share happiness and hardship with each other. We
are also willing to help our student members walk through
their university lives successfully.
SAC has been interconnected with other committees
within AOC. One of the missions of the Professional Development
and Awards Committee of AOC is to establish annual awards
to honor student members. They are also planning to hold
workshops periodically and to share their experiences in
succeeding professional career through Internet. Information
provided by the these professionals, such as report and
resume writing, interview preparation, and job searching,
will be particularly helpful to those Chinese students,
who will step into their career life in the near future.
Where do we start? During the first committee
meeting, we ambitiously set our goals for the coming year.
We will provide information that is of concerns to the student
members via emails, newsletters, and Web pages, in order
to promote and enhance their academic and research achievements,
and to build a bridge between students, faculty, and potential
employers. We also plan to organize a student-member gathering
during the 2002 ASAE annual meeting with the sponsorship
of interested companies.
Obviously, these tasks will not be easy to accomplish.
They need a lot of efforts. They need the support of all
of you. AOC is a community of all overseas Chinese bio-
and ag-engineers. Students are the treasures and the future
of the Association. From the students?point of view, AOC
is our own community, and it definitely needs your valuable
help and strong support. Now the Student Activity Committee
has a limited number of volunteers. We sincerely invite
those who are willing to voluntarily serve the committee
at its developing stage to join the committee. We are especially
welcoming students from the universities with large numbers
of Chinese students to offer your help. As many activities
and events will only take place at your local communities,
your involvement will be of great importance to us.
If you have any questions or concerns about
this request, please feel free to contact us. Here is the
contact information of the current SAC committee members:
Ning Wang (Co-chair), Dept. of Bio. & Ag.
Engn. Kansas State University, wangn@ksu.edu,
Tel: 785-5322914
Xinhua Jia (Co-chair), Dept. of Agri. & Biosystems Engn.,
the University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, Email: jia@u.arizona.edu,
Tel: 520-6268119.
Linsong Guo, Dept. of Ag. Engn., UIUC, Email: guo1@age.uiuc.edu,
Tel: 217-2655140
Lin Wang, Dept. of Bio. & Ag. Engn, Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66505, Email: lwang@ksu.edu,
Tel: 785-5322922
Qianghong Tang, Dept. of Bio. & Ag. Engn. Kansas State
University, qtang@ksu.edu,
Tel: 785-5322923
Jiantao Wei, Dept. of Bio. & Ag. Engn. Kansas State
University, wei@ksu.edu,
Tel: 785-5322914
Best regards,
Sincerely,
AOC Student Activity Committee
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