President's Report
Though the colors won’t last long because of the dry summer, it still feels like fall as my semester is one month old, and I’ve just given my first exam. Another academic year is well underway, and I have a new perspective on college life now that I’m the parent of a college student. And considering that my first ABLE conference was when my oldest child was one month old, I’ve been thinking of how thankful I am for 18 years of camaraderie, support, and knowledge from my ABLE colleagues. What a great organization we have, because of the efforts of all its members. I count on your input and your help during the two years of my term as president.
Thanks again to Ruth Beattie for hosting the 28th Annual Workshop/Conference at the University of Kentucky in June. Her tremendous effort culminated in a great week that was informative and rejuvenating. (Though I think I’m still recovering from the workout received with the cloggers!) I also want to thank ABLE Board members for all the work they do behind the scenes to keep the organization running.
Much of the discussion at this year’s Board meeting involved (1) increasing membership, (2) increasing major workshop proposals, (3) moving the ABLE website to a different host, and (4) lining up conference hosts for the foreseeable future. Let me comment on these issues:
1) Our finances are good, but our membership levels are down from 4 or 5 years ago. I ask everyone to recruit new members to ABLE. Remember that we have Waiver of Registration grants to encourage conference attendance by graduate students, postocs, new academic staff, and staff from community colleges. Please spread the word about ABLE. To help you do this, the Publicity Committee (chaired by Kathy Nolan) has created a brochure, downloadable from the ABLE website (ableweb.org), to distribute to colleagues in your area, or to take with you to professional meetings. If you have colleagues at local colleges who would like a copy of our proceedings, contact Carol Budd to get copies of our printed proceedings to give away.
2) Almost every year, the Major Workshop Committee struggles to recruit major workshop proposals. The Board discussed changing the format of our conference so there are fewer Major workshops and more Mini workshops presented. Since this is a change we already implemented several years ago, there was no consensus to push for a further change now. However, we would like to hear from the membership on this issue, and will be creating a survey for implementation at a later date. In the meantime, however, if you have any feelings on the conference format and/or on how to increase Major workshop proposals, please email or call me. One suggestion that we will act upon is to contact past presenters of Minis and posters to ask if they would like to present their ideas as a Major Workshop. I urge you to consider presenting a Major Workshop, or asking a colleague to present one. For information, please contact Donna Bozzone (Chairperson) or Kate Verville, of the Major Workshops Committee.
3) For years, Corey Goldman superbly managed the ABLE website at the University of Toronto. As Corey’s responsibilities at work increased, his technical assistant Mike Serafin helped with the physical management of web site content. Over the years we realized that ABLE needed the ability to directly change web site content, and the Board decided to move the site to a commercial hosting service. Mark Walvoord, our new ABLE Website Manager, has been working this summer at transferring the web site, and this transfer will soon be complete. Of course, you will see no difference in the website, except we will now be able to quickly update and more efficiently manage content. Thanks to Mark for his work on the transfer, and to Marielle Hoefnagels for her work as the previous Website Manager. And as the Board noted this summer, we all wish to extend thanks to Corey Goldman and Mike Serafin for their years of service.
4) The collegial, giving nature of ABLE members never ceases to amaze me. We now have several members who are planning to host a future annual workshop/conference. Of course, Anne Cordon and Lisa Cheung are busy planning ABLE 2008 at the University of Toronto at Mississauga. I am currently finalizing things with a host for 2009, which the Board will vote on shortly. Dalhousie University (and members Mindy Oulton and Jennifer Van Dommelen) will host the 2010 meeting. We’re talking with 3 other ABLE members about hosting after 2010. We’re in good shape for hosts over the next several years, but we still wish to hear from others who are thinking about hosting. Please contact me if you’d like to talk about it! Or, if perhaps you’d like to host a smaller sized conference, consider hosting a regional ABLE (RABLE) conference. If so, contact Ruth Beattie, Chair of the RABLE Committee.
As Kathy Nolan (Chair of Nominations Committee) reports in this issue, we have several elected positions open next year (Member-at-Large, President-Elect, and Secretary). I’m happy to hear we have nominations for President-Elect and Secretary. Please consider nominating yourself or accepting a nomination for any of these positions, especially for Member-at-Large. Contact Chris Beck, Chair of the Members-at-Large, or Kathy Nolan, if you’d like more information on this position.
In closing, I’m looking forward to serving all of you as ABLE President with the help of our hard-working officers and committee members, but ABLE needs help from all of you:
- Please consider offering a workshop at future conferences (contact Donna Bozzone for major workshops, Ralph Preszler for Mini Workshops, and Tom Fogle for posters).
- Please recruit new members; talk up ABLE to your colleagues and at meetings.
- Please contribute by running for office or by helping out on a committee.
My last thanks go to Kari Clase for taking over as Proceedings Editor, and to Barbara Stegenga for her work putting together this newsletter. Until we meet again at the University of Toronto-Mississauga, I thank all of you for your contributions to ABLE, and I wish all of you a successful, fulfilling academic year!
Mike O’Donnell
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