About Eta Kappa Nu
Introduction
Eta Kappa Nu is the IEEE Honor Society for Electrical Engineers. There are over 200 chapters in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Students in the upper fourth of their junior class or upper fifth of their senior class can be elected to Eta Kappa Nu. Graduate students and professional engineers are also eligible. Eligibility depends on scholarship, personal character, voluntary services, and distinguished accomplishments. For undergraduates, the most important qualification is scholarship during the first years of college.
Purpose
One of the purposes of Eta Kappa Nu is the stimulation and reward of scholarship. It is also dedicated to assisting its members throughout their lives in becoming better professionals as well as better citizens. Another purpose of the organization is that its members be a constructive force, helping to improve the standards of the profession, the courses of instruction, and the institutions at the locations of its chapters.
History
During his sophomore year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne, Maurice L. Carr came up with the idea of establishing a collegiate society of electrical engineering students. He first mentioned the idea to a friend of his named Charles E. Armstrong or “Army”. Armstrong agreed with the idea and the two decided to share it with other classmates. Their first formal meeting was on Friday, September 23, 1904. Two days later, Armstrong and Carr effected a meeting with three other classmates. Soon thereafter the number of members increased to ten. During the next five weeks, the original members chose the name, emblem, policies, membership qualifications, and induction ritual for their new society. Then, on October 28, 1904, the first induction meeting was held. Otto Wiemer became the first formal initiate. The organization later received recognition from the university administration. The Gamma Xi Chapter of Eta Kappa Nu was founded at the University of Maryland, College Park in 1957.
Preamble to the Eta Kappa Nu Constitution
That those in the profession of Electrical Engineering who by their attainments in college or in practice, have manifested a deep interest and marked ability in their chosen life work, may be brought into closer union so as to foster a spirit of liberal culture in the engineering colleges and to mark in an outstanding manner those who, as students in Electrical Engineering, have conferred honor on their Alma Maters by distinguished scholarship, activities, leadership and exemplary character to aid these students to progress through association with alumni who have attained prominence, we do hereby ordain and establish the following Constitution.
The HKN Shield
The Caduceus
The Caduceus, wand of Mercury, who was the messenger of Jupiter, was preferred by our founder, Maurice Carr, as the symbol for this Association. Therefore, upon the honor point of the shield is placed the Caduceus as a memorial to him. Its field is scarlet, symbolizing the zeal with which our founder projected his idea.
The Hand of Jupiter
The mighty hand of Jupiter was selected as being symbolic of the founder chapter with a blade of lightning for each of the ten founder members. The field is blue, typifying the loyalty with which they performed their task.
The Silver Band
The band of silver contains three cubes of magnetite to represent the three ideals of career success and requirements of membership into Eta Kappa Nu: Scholarship, Character and Attitude.
The Wheatstone Bridge
The Wheatstone bridge is Eta Kappa Nu’s emblem. The shield is crested with a Wheatstone bridge with the Association’s colors of scarlet and navy blue entwined beneath. The Wheatstone bridge is an accurate precision electrical instrument. The analogy which we draw from it for Eta Kappa Nu is the fact that it is in balance when it is correctly adjusted. This is what we strive for as members of Eta Kappa Nu: to lead a balanced life, a life in which scholarship, character, and personality are jointly developed. In using the Wheatstone bridge, an unknown quantity can be determined when the other three elements are known. The three qualities of which we are certain in members are scholarship, character, and personality. When these three are balanced, then the unknown–success–is determined. In summary, the Wheatstone bridge is symbolic of a balanced person.
The Scroll
Beneath the shield is a ribbon bearing the name Eta Kappa Nu. In early Greece there was a philosopher who discovered that if he rubbed a piece of amber with a cloth he experienced the phenomena that we know as static electricity. The Greek name for amber is spelled nlektpov (Eta Lambda Epsilon Kappa Tau Rho Omicron Nu). From this word the English language derives the words: electricity, electron, and electronic. And from this name we derive our name — we use the first, the fourth, and the last letters, namely Eta, Kappa, and Nu. The symbols used on the emblem are the early forms of these Greek letters.
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