President's Report

Mike O'Donnell
Trinity College

michael.odonnell@trincoll.edu

I hope we’re all nicely settled into our semesters (or quarters, or trimesters).  As I teach my way through our newly revised introductory course, I think back on how fortunate I am to have the resources of ABLE and the collective experiences of its members to support me.  This past summer, like many other summers, while designing our new laboratory curriculum I used information I gained from attending ABLE conferences.  You know what I’m talking about – if we don’t use parts (or all) of lab exercises that were presented, we use ideas that were planted after many discussions with fellow ABLE members.  Sometimes I’ve gained the confidence to try something new after attending an ABLE conference.  I’d like you all to reflect on what ABLE conferences have given you, and go out spread the word about ABLE to your colleagues. 

ABLE is such a supportive organization; I’m so glad to be a member, and I’m happy to give back to ABLE by serving as its President.  In the first year of my term I’ve found out how dedicated my fellow Board members are, and I thank them for all the work they’ve done for our organization.  I also want to thank Anne Cordon once again for hosting a wonderful conference at the University of Toronto Mississauga.  Her hard work paid off in an inspiring week of stimulating workshops and conversations. 

As for the state of ABLE, it remains a strong organization with dedicated, hard-working members.  Our finances are currently strong, but our membership fees do not currently cover our expenses, and this is not sustainable.  Our two main problems are (1) declining membership and (2) difficulty recruiting Major Workshop presenters at conferences.  These two issues dominated much of the discussion at this year’s Board meeting. 

Declining membership and the very future of ABLE is why I ask you to please spread the word about our organization, and about the benefits of membership and of attending conferences:

• Consider a colleague or two you might convince to join and attend the 2009 conference in Delaware. 
• Think about local/regional biology education organizations, and contact them about ABLE. 
• If you have organizations or individuals in mind and would like to send me information, I or other Board members would be happy to contact them. 

In addition to strategies for increasing membership, the Board also discussed ways of improving revenue in the face of declining membership.  We rejected the idea of raising membership fees, though there will be a checkoff box on the conference registration form if you wish to make a donation above your membership fee.  We discussed ways of raising revenue from sponsorship, and that is why we created a marketing/development position on the Board.  If you are interested in such a position, please contact me.  For the 2009 conference, the University of Delaware team has a person whose main responsibilities is conference sponsorship.  If you know of companies who may be willing to be a conference sponsor, contact Linda Dion at the University of Delaware.  In addition, we agreed to allow commercial entities to submit major workshop proposals for consideration.  If approved, these entities would pay a special registration fee, and their workshop would be clearly identified as being a commercial entity. 

Currently, Kate Verville and the Major Workshops committee are hard at work, along with 2009 conference host Bob Hodson, to recruit and select major workshops.  However, this job remains a struggle almost every year.  As you are aware, this has lead to a change in conference format so there are fewer Majors and more Minis.  We may need to make further changes, though we hope not.  

• For future conferences, please consider presenting a Major Workshop.  Talk with any past presenters, and they’ll tell you what a rewarding experience it was.  Also, you should know we have experienced presenters who are willing to help you get over that “first-time presenter hurdle.”
• If you have previously presented a Mini Workshop or a poster, please consider expanding your presentation and presenting a Major Workshop on the same idea. 
• If you have presented a Major Workshop in the past, but have made some changes, please consider presenting your workshop again. 
• The Board discussed having a collection of “Best of ABLE” workshops that could be offered again if there is interest.  We will be surveying you about such interest in repeat workshops soon.  Please let us know your opinions.

I’ve already gone on longer than I intended, but ABLE really needs your help with membership and Major Workshop issues.  In the near future, you will be surveyed for ideas on increasing and retaining membership, on encouraging more people to offer major workshops, and on the current format of the annual meetings.  Please respond and help us improve ABLE and ensure its stability.

In other news from the Board meeting:

• Mark Walvoord continues to improve our website.  He has created an ABLE listserv, perfect for ABLE announcements, and a place to discuss lab education issues. 
• Chris Beck has created the searchable Proceedings database for the website, along with an online ABLE members directory.
• We now have an ABLE Proceedings Committee, with an Editorial Board that is also involved in getting proceedings chapters into the BioscieEdNet (BEN) collection.  BEN bills itself as “Your portal to digital libraries for teaching and learning in the biological sciences.”  ABLE is an original BEN collaborator, and I urge you to visit the BEN collection at www.biosciednet.org.

Have you all seen the website for the 31st Annual Conference at University of Delaware, June 9-134, 2009?  Check it out at: http://www.udel.edu/conf/able/
Until we meet again at the University of Delaware, I thank all of you for your contributions to ABLE, and I wish all of you a successful, fulfilling academic year!

Mike O’Donnell