NACADA Commission & Interest Group Division Meeting Minutes

Tuesday, October 17, 2006      1:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m.

Indianapolis , IN

I.   Introductions - Attendees introduced themselves by giving their name, position and institution.

• Division Representatives: Jill Johnson, Maura Reynolds, Kathy Stockwell
• Executive Office Liaison: Julia Wolf
• Commission Chairs and Incoming Chairs: Renee Babcock, Lynne Carlson, Kathy Davis, Teri Farr, Peter Hagen, Les Hemphill, Beth Higgins, Troy Holaday, Joyce Howland, Cindy Iten, Bill Johnson, Peggy Jordan, Jennifer Joslin, Lee Kem, Victor Macaruso, Kati Markowitz, Tim Moore, Jess Ray, Aura Rios Erickson, Janice Robinson, Kris Rugsaken, Jeanette Sorensen, David Spight, Rhonda Sprague, Peg Steele, Julie Stockenberg, Bill Van Dusen
• Interest Group Chairs: Natasha Buis, Mutlu Citim-Kepic, Jodi Malmgren, Chris Maroldo, Ruby Mason, Joe Murray, Myla Rugge, Ila Schauer, Marion Schwartz, Nathan Vickers
• Division Steering Committee: Dianne Castor
• Absent: Tina McNamara, Naomi Wright

II.    Minutes Approval - The minutes for the CIG Division Meeting on October 4, 2005 in Las Vegas , NV were approved. Chairs were e-mailed a direct link to the minutes and asked to review them prior to the meeting - www.nacada.ksu.edu/forleaders/CIGD/Minutes/CIGDFall05Minutes.htm.

III.   Meeting Packet Overview - Julia Wolf briefly reviewed the contents of the packets distributed to meeting attendees and noted when each would be discussed. She also mentioned that their conference registration bags could be picked up at conference registration after the Leadership dinner or on Wednesday.

1:40 p.m. Special Visit

President Jo Anne Huber, Vice President Jane Jacobson, Incoming President Susan Campbell, and incoming Vice President Nancy Walburn stopped in for a short visit to thank the leaders for their time and efforts. Susan and Nancy explained the initiative they will be implementing during their term - " Building Upon Our Past, Strengthening Our Future ".

IV.   Division Overview

• NACADA Board of Directors and NACADA Council - Jill Johnson provided a brief summary of the association reorganization and how the Commission & Interest Group Division is represented on the Council and Board of Directors. Jill referred to the organizational chart, explaining that the focus was on advising and student development.
• Role of your Division Representatives - Jill Johnson summarized the role and responsibilities of the Division Reps, including coordinating the activities of the CIG Division, communication with Commission and Interest Group Chairs, planning meeting agendas, and taking issues from the Division to the Council and Board.
• Role of Executive Office and Liaison - Julia Wolf provided an overview of her role as the Executive Office Liaison to the CIG Division, referring to the handout in the meeting folders that provided a detailed description of the liaison role. She reiterated that they should contact her with any questions they may have or when they needed assistance.
• Goals of the CIG Division - Maura Reynolds mentioned that a primary goal was communication and networking with members of the commissions and interest groups. She emphasized the importance of shared governance within the association and that ideas were facilitated from the ground up through the Divisions. The Chairs were encouraged to network as much as possible with members and with other members of the leadership.
• Division Marketing (Brochure & Steering Committee) - Julia Wolf pointed out the revised CIG Division brochure. She also mentioned that these brochures had been included in the registration packets at all ten regional conferences to help inform members of the benefits of participating in commission and interest group activities.

Lee Kem provided an overview of a short promotional activity that she presented during lunch at the Region 3 conference in the spring of 2006. Lee highlighted the commissions and interest groups during this presentation, copies of which are provided in the division meeting packets for the chairs to review. She encouraged the other Commission and Interest Group Chairs to contact the Regional Conference Chair in their respective region to set up a similar presentation for the 2007 regional conferences.

VI.   Resources for Chairs 

• NACADA Web Pages and Online Resources - Maura Reynolds summarized the information available on the NACADA web pages and specifically, the CIGD web pages. She emphasized the use of the "search" function available to find resources.

At last year's CIG Division meeting, suggestions were made to separate the "general user" information for members from the "leader" information, in an effort to make the CIGD web pages more user-friendly. Julia Wolf completed this redesign per these suggestions.

Newly elected chairs are encouraged to review the orientation information provided on the web soon after being elected. Besides sending an e-mail with this orientation information to these new chairs shortly after being elected, it was also sent again during the summer before the annual conference, per another suggestion from last year's division meeting.

• Chairperson Handbooks - Jill Johnson provided a brief overview of the online Commission Chair Handbook and recommended to Chairs that they review it on their own time, especially the updated "Commission Chair Expectations" section. A similar resource is being planned for Interest Group Chairs.

• Budget Overview and Process - Jill Johnson explained that funds are appropriated each fall into the overall CIGD Central Fund account based on the total number of members for that membership year. The Commission Chairs were encouraged to submit proposals and budget requests. It was pointed out that, although these funds could only be requested by the Division Reps and Commission Chairs, Interest Group Chairs were encouraged to propose ideas that could possibly be implemented on a Division-wide basis or collaborate with a Commission on a joint project.

Chairs were asked to share ideas for possible fund requests and other suggestions for activities, which included:

• travel grants to attend regional conferences to present on underrepresented tracks/populations;
• travel grants for new advising professionals and/or graduate students to attend NACADA conferences (combine NACADA funds with institutional funds), including the writing of support letters from NACADA for new advising professionals to support their efforts to get funding to attend conferences;
• offer free 1-year memberships to graduate students to help pull new blood into the association; and,
• assistance in identifying topics needing more attention (i.e., special populations).  

• Steering Committee structure & purpose - Maura Reynolds summarized this information and referred the chairs to the web and to handout in the meeting folders for more detailed information. Julia mentioned that some commissions and interest groups were assigned to new Steering Committee members and a list of current Steering Committee assignments is in their packets.

• List serves and network etiquette - Julia Wolf explained that there are special leadership-related lists to which the leaders were automatically added after being elected. Regarding the open list serves managed by NACADA, Julia mentioned that the NACADA policy is that members had to personally subscribe to these open list serves, and NACADA could not add them automatically. Julia also referred the chairs to the "Network Etiquette" handout in the folder. This information was provided to help facilitate discussions and improve the use of the list serves. Julia also suggested to Chairs that they summarize those discussions on their respective list serves that could be beneficial to other members, and forward the summaries to be posted on their respective commission or interest group "Resources" web pages.

VI.   Chair Roles and Responsibilities

• Reports (Post-conference & Annual), Timelines, Relation to Strategic Plan - Jill Johnson and Kathy Stockwell gave an overview of the online reporting system, and that the primary intent was to connect their goals and activities to the NACADA Strategic Plan. These reports should be completed by the continuing chairs and the incoming chairs (in collaboration with outgoing chairs). It was suggested to the incoming Chairs that they meet with their outgoing Chairs sometime during the conference so they can show them how to access the online report and demonstrate how to complete entries in the report.

It was mentioned by some Chairs that having all the past report entries displayed along with more recent entries was confusing. Julia explained that the Executive Office was planning to work on a system for archiving the older information. This might include displaying only those goals and activities that have not yet been completed.

• CIGD Fair - Jill Johnson briefly explained the purpose of this activity. Julia Wolf added that the Fair would be a great place for networking and to recruit volunteers for commission and interest group activities, such as readers for conference proposals, steering committee members, authors for newsletter content articles, web masters, etc.

• Commission meeting during the conference (good place to find your replacement) - Jill Johnson briefly mentioned that the annual meetings were good places to find volunteers for activities, network with colleagues, share ideas, brainstorm hot topics and critical issues, set goals, and solicit candidates for Chair.

• Newsletter articles and updates (Commission Issue Articles and CIG Updates) - Julia Wolf explained the difference between the topical content articles for the newsletter written by commission and interest group chairs and the activity updates provided by chairs for the newsletter. Volunteers were solicited to write content articles for a few issues of the Academic Advising Today e-publication. Chairs were encouraged to collaborate with other units for these articles.

It was also suggested that preparing annotated bibliographies for their respective topical areas would be a good activity for their units to complete.

• Service to Commission Awards - Julia Wolf reminded the Commission Chairs to request $50 in funds for this award via the online report system if they wanted to solicit nominations and offer it in 2007.

VII.   Application for Commission Status - Theory & Philosophy of Advising — (Vote) -

Jill Johnson reminded chairs that this proposal was posted to the meeting information web site for review by the chairs prior to the meeting. Peter Hagen was available to answer questions the Chairs or Division Reps may have concerning the proposal. Discussion followed. A comment was made that there is a movement for the field of scholarly inquiry in addition to theory. Some felt this would bring credibility to developmental advising and that it was important to define advising for the benefit of people who don't understand the rigor of advising. It was noted that a NACADA task force was in the process of developing a statement regarding the concept of advising.

Joyce Howland made a motion to accept the proposal for commission status from the Theory and Philosophy of Advising Interest Group; seconded by Lynne Carlson. A verbal vote was conducted. Motion passed.  

VIII.   Task Force Report: Distinctions between Commissions and Interest Groups -

Jill Johnson reiterated that the purpose of this task force was to review the current similarities and differences between these units. Jill reported that, over the past year, the task force had communicated via e-mail and conducted two teleconferences. The task force will continue during the next year and she asked the Chairs to provide more detail on the pending issues. The only issue brought forth during the meeting was that interest groups would like a more of a voice in reading annual conference proposals. Interest groups do not get the opportunity to review related proposals and sponsor up to four sessions as do the commissions so they are not guaranteed any conference sessions related to their group's particular focus. Chairs of the interest groups noted that they are not asking for guaranteed spots, only an opportunity to offer feedback on the proposals for related session tracks.

Comments were also made that not all interest groups pine to become commissions, and there may be some commissions that want to return to interest group status at some point.

The members of the task force appointed last year include Victor Macaruso, Julie Givans, Marion Schwartz, Adrienne Thunder, Tina McNamara, and Jill Johnson, Chair. Julie and Tina will no longer be serving on the task force, and Mutlu Citim-Kepic, Bill Johnson, and Troy Holaday were added as new members on the task force.

IX.   New Potential Interest Groups - Jill Johnson reminded chairs that these proposals were posted to the meeting information web site for review by the chairs prior to the meeting.

• Advising Public & Urban Affairs Majors - Unfortunately, Adam Sikula was not able to attend the meeting to provide additional information other than that in the proposal.
• Appreciative Advising - Unfortunately, Scott Amundsen was not able to attend the meeting to provide additional information other than that in the proposal.
• Large Universities - Myla Rugge was in attendance at the meeting to provide additional information upon request. The question was asked as to the minimum student population at an institution that might be considered a "large university" per the interest group's focus. Myla responded that, while the figure mentioned in the proposal was 20,000+ undergraduate students, the members already joining the new group worked at institutions ranging from very small colleges to universities larger than that.  

X.   Updates - Julia Wolf provided details to the chairs for the following items.

• Commission and Interest Group Fair - Chairs can pick up display boards and push pins after the leadership dinner or at the conference registration area tomorrow. After the Fair was over, they could leave the display boards on the tables, but should take any items with them that they wanted to keep.

• Annual Meeting Head Counts/Procedures--Ideas to Get Feedback - Each chair was given an empty packet labeled with the date, time and location of their annual commission or interest group meeting. Chairs were asked to take head counts at their meetings, write the number of attendees on the packet, and return it to Julia or another Executive Office staff member before leaving the conference.

It had been decided via e-mail by the CIG Division prior to the conference that the feedback forms used in the past for these annual commission and interest group meetings would no longer be used. Each Commission and Interest Group Chair was responsible for designing their own form to gather feedback and other information from their members regarding the meeting agenda, unit activities, or other issues.

Chairs were asked to forward the templates of their meeting feedback forms to Julia after the conference so they could be posted online to serve as samples for future use by other chairs.

• Certificates for Presenters of Commission-Sponsored sessions - Packets containing printed certificates for commission-sponsored session presenters were distributed to Commission Chairs. Chairs were asked to either give these certificates to the presenters during their respective annual commission meetings or at the actual session prior to the beginning of the presentation. If not able to present a certificate during the conference, chairs should return it to Julia before leaving the conference. If there was a change in presenters, notify Julia of this as well and corrected certificates will be sent to the presenters.

• Commission Chair Signatures - Julia asked the incoming Commission Chairs to sign a sheet of blank white cover stock. Their signatures will be scanned and saved in files to be printed on applicable commission-sponsored session certificates next fall.

• Elections in Spring 2007 - Julia pointed out the leadership nomination forms in the meeting folders and in the back of the conference program, and asked chairs to nominate members for any of the positions being elected, and the Commission Chair positions, in particular. Jill Johnson mentioned that nominations were also needed for the elected CIG Division Rep.

• One-on-One Meetings - Julia offered to set up individual meetings during the conference with incoming or continuing Chairs who might want to meet to discuss questions they may have about their roles or division procedures, or ideas and activities for their units. She would be available either in the conference registration area or NACADA exhibit booth for those who wanted to stop by and visit.

• Additional Items - Julia mentioned the special toll-free number available for use by NACADA leaders when calling in to the Executive Office. She encouraged Chairs to call or e-mail her any time throughout the year if they had questions/ideas or needed assistance. Julia mentioned she would be out of the office after the conference until October 31 due to her stepson's wedding in Illinois . Chairs were reminded they could pick up their conference registration materials and tote bags at the conference registration desk, and asked that they remove and turn in the extra name badge lanyard since they had already received theirs.

XI.   Questions and Comments -

• Bill Johnson posed the question as to whether conference sessions were being spread out too thin because there are too many commissions and interest groups. He questioned whether this might be an issue of taking presentations from other potential presenters who might not have any other means of getting funding to attend the conference.
• Jill Johnson mentioned that an external review of the association was being asked to be conducted, primarily to determine the success of the reorganization that occurred in 2003.

XII.   Announcements

• Annual Business Meeting - Chairs were encouraged to attend the NACADA annual business meeting on Friday, October 20, at 5:45pm in the Westin Grand I Ballroom.
• Division Meeting Feedback Forms - Feedback forms for the CIG Division meeting were distributed to all Chairs. Chairs were encouraged to complete these forms and offer ideas for future meetings and/or activities of the CIG Division.
• New Advisors Breakfast - Nathan Vickers invited everyone to the breakfast hosted at the conference for new advisors.
• Leadership dinner - Chairs were reminded about the Leadership dinner immediately following the Division meeting and that outgoing leaders will be recognized at this event.

XIII.   Adjournment / Dinner

A motion was made to adjourn the meeting by Lynne Carlson and seconded by Victor Macaruso. The meeting was adjourned at 5:15 p.m.