Every August assistant professor of English, Dennis Jerz, gets mail from the National Society of Technical Communication asking how many students are in its UW-Eau Claire chapter.

This year he had a problem when he got that letter – there was almost no one left in the organization.

With the aid of his advanced technical writing class, Jerz is hoping to get Eau Claire’s chapter of STC going again and to give it some staying power.

“Last year, we had a really active group,” Jerz said, “but most of them graduated.”

With only one person left in the organization from last year, Jerz turned to the tech writing class to help revive STC, making it an option for a semester project.

About half of the class – 12 people – decided to help revive STC. Junior Jamie Dalbesio is one of the students involved. She said the organization wants to focus its attention toward underclassmen.

“I think freshmen think student clubs are geared toward upperclassmen,” Dalbesio said. “We need freshmen and sophomores in the club to get it going.”

Jerz agreed that getting younger members to join STC is important for its long-term success.

“The problem is the entry-level tech writing class is a 300-level course,” he said. “Some people don’t decide on a tech writing major until their senior year.”

STC is trying to recruit underclassmen again because the advanced technical writing class is comprised of mostly seniors. So unless the club can get underclassmen to join, it could face the same problems again next semester.

Meanwhile, Jerz said it is invigorating to see the class divided into groups discussing what to do with the organization. He said the level of enthusiasm for the club is great.

“The first day I had planned to walk around and guide the conversations,” he said. “I was amazed to see the leadership emerge. It’s really exciting.”

The activities of STC will be decided when the new officers are chosen, Jerz said. In the past, STC has had resum‚ workshops and brought in speakers to communications classes, among other things, he said.

Jerz described tech writing as the communication of complex information.

“In journalism or marketing, you are trying to get a general message out to a large audience,” he said. “In technical writing, you are trying to get specific details out to a smaller market.”

As an example, Jerz mentioned writing for people who own a specific camera and giving instructions for installing a part of that camera.

“Anybody who releases a government report or writes a speech for a politician is doing a form of technical writing,” he said.

Part of the effort in recruiting younger members to STC, Jerz said, is having people get over misconceptions.

“Their peers have a stereotypical notion on what technical writers are like,” he said. “The people in this think they’re more fun than that stereotype.”