Eta Kappa Nu

Eta Kappa Nu (ΗΚΝ) is a national electrical and computer engineering honor society in the United States founded in October 1904 by Maurice L. Carr at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The organization currently has more than 200 student chapters and about 250,000 members and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

The Greek letters ΗΚΝ were chosen from the 1^st, 4^th, and last letter of the Greek word for amber or electron: ΗΛΕΚΤΡΟΝ. In 1927, the HKN Shield and coat-of-arms was adopted (see right). The emblem of HKN (incorporated at the top of the Shield) is the Wheatstone bridge.

HKN was originally established for electrical engineering students but expanded to include computer engineering in 2000. Membership in the local chapter is offered to the top 25% of juniors and 33% of seniors at each college.

In 2004, the organization received 501(c)(3) non-profit status from the IRS.

"The Bridge", the official magazine of HKN, is published twice yearly and provides timely articles of interest covering ECE and HKN news to professional and student members.

In November 2007, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and HKN which would make HKN an organizational unit of IEEE,and make membership in IEEE a requirement for membership in HKN. Membership in HKN would then be equivalent to an "honor student" member category of IEEE membership. This merger is contingent on a vote by HKN chaptersin February 2008. The HKN Board of Governors (who support the merger) has released a [http://hkn.org/pdfs/ieee_merger_faq.pdf FAQ] concerning the merger and the issue is beingdiscussed [http://groups.google.com/group/hknieeemerger online] by the various chapters.

Chapters

References

* "The Bridge" (centennial edition), volume 100, number 1 / winter 2004

External links

* [http://hkn.org/ Eta Kappa Nu homepage]
* [http://groups.google.com/group/hknieeemerger Information and discussion regarding the merger]