Alpha Pi Mu (APM) is the nation’s only accepted industrial engineering honor society established to recognize students who have shown exceptional academic interest and abilities especially relating to industrial engineering. Beyond just an honors title, APM serves to advance shared interests and values of industrial engineers, unify its student body, create meaningful student-faculty relationships, and promote professional welfare.

Today APM chapters exist in almost every university with an accredited industrial engineering program. There are currently 60 active chapters, boasting a membership of over 15,000 with approximately 600 new members being inducted annually.

History

James T. French officially established Alpha Pi Mu as a student from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1949. Ten years later, in 1959, the Association of College Honor Societies (ACHS) granted full membership to APM. Since then, numerous universities began, and continue to, recognize outstanding students in industrial engineering.

The Georgia Tech engineers who led the initial developmental work wanted an organization to provide an inspiration for young students, to provide a common ground on which their outstanding young engineers could exchange ideas, and to provide experiences which could help their future professional development.

Goals

The goals are stated by Alpha Pi Mu as follows:

  1. To confer recognition upon the student of industrial engineering who has shown exceptional academic interests and abilities in their field.
  2. To encourage wherever possible any movement which will advance the best interest of industrial engineering education.
  3. To further unify the student body of the Industrial Engineering Department in presenting its needs and ideals to the faculty.
  4. To create a closer student-faculty relationship by bringing together the needs and thoughts of both.
  5. To assist and cooperate with all organizations and persons working for the interest of industrial engineering.
  6. To benefit its members by the association and experience that can come from bringing together a group with similar interests, objectives, and abilities and to promote the professional welfare of all.