The Delta Upsilon Chapter of Sigma Gamma Epsilon

Students in the New Mexico Tech Geoscience Department back to the early
1980's might recall that one of the student organizations prominent at
the time was the local chapter of the national honor society for earth
science - Sigma Gamma Epsilon.  The national office of Sigma Gamma
Epsilon signed the charter for the Delta Upsilon Chapter at New Mexico
Tech on May 8, 1981.  Today the charter, along with the names of the
original 22 members.  In the years immediately following its formation
the chapter thrived, driven by a large, enthusiastic and active
membership.  Delta Upsilon became a focus of student service and social
activities on the campus, sponsoring speakers, organizing field
excursions, operating fund raising activities and providing a 'home' for
the majority of student earth scientists at Tech.  To be sure the flavor
of the membership changed with time.  Graduate students dominated the
original membership, but little by little, undergraduates assumed
responsibility for the organization and its activities.  The names of
annual Tarr Award winners, selected by the chapter members, were
prominently displayed in the graduation programs each May, and the
majority of these recipients are chapter members who have gone on to
fame and fortune.  Well, maybe just fame.  Every once in awhile we'll
hear from one of the Tarr recipients who has received their doctorate
and begun a career as an academician or from another who is now
centrally positioned within the energy or environmental industry.

The mid-1980's brought several challenges for the chapter, challenges
that were not unique to the Delta Upsilon Chapter.  The declining
fortunes of the mining and petroleum industries, which had initially
generated higher enrollments, began to cause new students to seek areas
other than the earth sciences as a major.  Simultaneously, honorary
societies began to be looked upon with some disfavor.  At New Mexico
Tech, this disfavor was manifest in a tangible way when the Student
Association passed a ruling that excluded funding for student
organizations that had closed membership requirements.  Since Sigma
Gamma Epsilon is a scholastic honorary with minimum standards of
scholarship, the Chapter was ruled to be one with closed membership.
The combination of a declining pool of potential members and a reduction
in funding for activities that had been partially supported by student
funds ultimately ended with the chapter becoming inactive after 1992-3
academic year. The departure of the organization impacted the department
immediately and negatively since one of the mechanisms for building
close associations between students and faculty no longer existed.

Beginning in the summer of 2000, I received an inquiry about the
chapter from one of our students. Carolyn Munk had been surfing the web
and in the process, she had landed on the web page of a national honor
society for the earth sciences - Sigma Gamma Epsilon.  I can only
imagine her surprise when she discovered that her school - New Mexico
Tech - was listed among the institutions that had a chapter.  I probably
received her inquiry since I was still listed there as the advisor for
the chapter. I had long ago decided that we would 'go for it' if we
could generate interest for reactivation among as few as six potential
new members.  Carolyn immediately began to contact E&ES students and by
early Fall 2000, had identified a core group who were interested in
breathing life back into the chapter.  I met with the group and went
over our history (the good and the bad) trying to paint a realistic
picture of the chapter, and the care and feeding that it would require.
They were not to be dissuaded.  Plans were made for an initiation.  One
of the chapter's favorite locations for initiations in the past had been
the Waldo Mine, a mine/laboratory operated by the school's mineral
engineering program.  Plans for the initiation didn't leave enough time
for a ceremony in the Waldo, but an alternative was chosen.  The New
Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources maintains a magnificent
Mineral Museum on campus.  We made arrangements for access to the museum
on Sunday afternoon, November 19, 2000.  The initiation was held,
beginning at 4:00 pm, among some of the most spectacular mineral
specimens on exhibit anywhere.  At that ceremony, seven new members were
initiated into the Society with the help of a member who had been active
in another chapter as an undergraduate student.

The newly activated chapter is moving aggressively to reestablish
itself as a vital component of the Earth and Environmental Science
community and to include larger numbers of students in the chapter.
Plans are already underway for another initiation early this spring,
this time in the Waldo.
 

1/30/01
David B. Johnson
Faculty Advisor