2008 Board, Committees, Sections & Focus Group Meetings - Alphabetical
2008 Board, Committees, Sections & Focus Group Meetings - Chronological
2007 Education and Enrichment Section Minutes (pdf document)
2007-2008 Education and Enrichment Section Work Plan (pdf document)
National Council on Family Relations
2007 Annual Conference
Education and Enrichment Section Business Meeting
Pittsburgh, PA
Don Bower called the meeting to order introducing the officers and recognizing focus group section chairs and NCFR board representatives. Don noted the Lynette Olson, past chair, was unable to attend the meeting.
Secretary, Susan Walker, presented the minutes from the 2006 business meeting. Because copies were not available for members to review, Don Bower was asked to give highlights and key actions from the minutes from last year’s meeting. Two paper copies of the minutes were distributed. Bob Keim moved to accept the minutes. Susan Meyerle seconded the vote, and they were unanimously approved.
Susan Walker presented the treasurer’s report for the 9-month period ending September 30, 2007 and the 12-month report ending December 30, 2006. There were no questions about the reports.
Review of 2007 Annual report
Don delivered the section chair’s report for 2007 outlining work during the past year including conference program committee work. He noted that the report will be available on the NCFR website. As part of the report, functions and duties of the section are reviewed.
2007 Conference report
Beth Van Horn delivered the conference report noting that there were 85 proposals submitted, 56 accepted, for a 68% acceptance rate. The number submitted is lower than last year, but Beth said that Cindy Winter felt that the number could be due to location or theme of the conference. Beth noted that she made a false assumption that proposals accepted as papers were more highly rated, but found that posters and roundtables received high rankings as well. In short, the format of the proposal has little to do with rating or quality. There were 75 reviewers. Beth tried to have 3 reviewers per proposal, and called for more reviewers. One idea floated by Beth was to connect reviews to graduate classes, inviting students to be part of the review process. In her experience, students do a good job with reviewing and are thorough. She also asked for reviewers to include comments, as those submitting proposals like to read them.
The cutoff point for acceptances was 3.6.
Beth noted an issue with discussants. Some did not get the invitation to be a discussant, or receive confirmation of their assignment until very late. Some did not receive it officially and learned when the conference program was released. Another issue with discussants is the variable quality of execution by discussants as noted from section presenters. Beth said that this raises the questions about whether to even have discussants. Another limitation is that many do not receive the papers in sufficient time to do an adequate review.
Bob Keim echoed the idea of not having discussants. Judy Myers-Walls asked for guidelines for discussants. Don asked that for now, the issue be put on hold for discussion later in the meeting.
Student/New Professional Report and Awards Recognition
Brian Higginbotham presented the awards to selected Student/New Professionals. He thanked the students who submitted proposals and noted the hard work obvious in those winning awards. The awards presented were to:
- Sally B. Hunter, Heather Wallace (accepting), Andrea Marable, Heidi Stolz and Denise Brandon, University of Tennessee
- Xiao-fang Wang (accepting) and Suzanne Randolph, University of Maryland
- Michelle Craig (accepting) and Kay Pasley, Florida State University
Don noted that each proposal received blind reviews by 3 reviewers.
2008 Conference Program Plans and Call for Submissions and Reviewers
Beth noted that next year’s conference is in Little Rock, Arkansas and alerted Wally Goddard to find a good source of chocolate. The theme is Lenses on the Family. Beth requested that proposals be submitted and that section members sign up to be reviewers. The 2009 conference is scheduled for San Francisco, CA.
CFLE Update
Dawn Cassidy observed that this had been a busy year with the development of the CFLE exam, regular trips to Florida on item analysis, and conducting a survey with CFLEs. On the survey, a 47% response rate was achieved. Ten individuals have taken the exam to date: 3 on-site and 7 on computer. The response is that the test is fair and reasonable. An option was given to submit applications before the test was an option. This proved to be popular. 205 applications were received in September (before the test); 50 were received after the test.
Dawn expressed appreciation to the reviewers of the CFLE portfolios. Approximately 175 abbreviated applications were received (those from approved programs).
Dawn noted that her new title would be Family Life Education director.
2008 Plan of Work
Don noted that as part of this year’s plan conference proposals would continue to be processed, student awards would be selected and the Arcus award would be presented to recognize excellence in Family Life Education.
2008-2010 Section Officer Nomination Solicitation
Jodi Dworkin presented the draft slate of officer nominations for the 2008-2010 term. She thanked the nominating committee. The procedure for nominations for the section now coincides with NCFR policy for all sections. The slate was reviewed. Jodi requested additional nominations for all positions, but especially for the chair-elect, as there was just one nominee.
Don presented a proposed bylaws amendment regarding the process for nominating officers, based on the current NCFR procedures. A vote was called on accepting the bylaws changes. Howard Barnes moved to accept; Carol Darling seconded. The vote to approve the bylaws changes was unanimous.
Open Discussion
Don asked for Focus Group chairs to give updates and reminded them to take and submit minutes of their meetings. Michael Fleming, chair of the CFLE FG, noted that the liserv would follow up on employment opportunities. The meeting also served to help market the CFLE program and new initiatives. The group plans to build on NCFR’s model to create a code of ethics for FLEs.
James Marshall, Parent Ed FG, noted that Bob Keim was the co-chair. There were 23 members present, who took time to introduce themselves to each other. Some discussion was held about PE moving to be its own section. However, the FG also discussed lobbying the E&E section for visibility through student awards, special conference sessions or other activities.
Marriage and Family Enrichment’s chair, Linda Ladd, noted that there were 6 people in attendance. They are discussing collaborating with Extension’s group on this topic (National Extension Relationships and Marriage Education Network) to do a preconference. Susan Meyerle noted that the group also discussed resources available.
Judy Myers-Walls represented the Peace FG. Judy noted that the group explored her Purple Wagon website. As a result of distributing peace cards last year (“how do you define peace”), 29 were received. She also said that Kathy Walker set up a wiki site for section members to contribute thoughts.
Marilyn Flick reported on the Sexuality group. Twelve were in attendance, and introductions of section members took most of the time. A new chair was selected, Kevin Gross. The conference program theme for next year was examined for proposal ideas. The group hopes to put a positive spin on the concept of sexuality.
Don noted discussion at the Board level related to Focus Groups. Evidently there is some confusion among some newer members about the function and natural life of focus groups. There may be some effort to tighten up on focus group operations, essentially so that they do not stay in place after they have achieved their stated purpose. Don noted that focus groups are sometimes in violation of NCFR bylaws based on the number in attendance, that those attending must be E&E section members, etc. Wally noted that he favors revising the bylaws on focus groups rather than getting rid of them. Bob Keim asked that focus groups be given at least 90 minutes to meet. Michael Fleming asked if there might be cross interests among focus groups that might encourage a possible merge.
Don suggested a return to the discussion of conference session discussants. Several issues were noted: discussants may not be notified, or are notified very late; they may not be given papers at all or on time; papers may be too long; discussant quality varies. The discussion was opened as to whether to have discussants.
On the PRO side:
- Keep, but give more direction to the discussants
- Keep the number of papers in a session limited (3)
- Keep the job of discussant separate from that of presider
- Having a discussant offers a different perspective rather than separate papers
On the CON side:
- Without discussants, the presenters get more time and Q and A
- Could have a concentration on facilitators rather than discussants
Because this appears (from conversations others at the conference have been part of) that this issue is not unique to the E&E section, it was recommended that the NCFR board/Diane Cushman (Exec Dir) create and distribute guidelines related to discussants and protocol for notification of selected discussants.
Don also shared new policies on financing sections. Rather than members paying an extra fee for each section joined, they now choose as many sections as they like without additional payment. Each section will get a flat allocation of $2,500 annually, starting in January 2008. Unspent money from this allocation cannot be carried over. Funds currently in section “savings” are not affected by this new policy. Current section expenses were reviewed (e.g., chair travel to program meeting, student/new professional travel to NCFR, awards, etc). Don asked for ideas on how to spend this $2,500 that is about $500 more than we traditionally receive from section memberships.
Ideas offered include:
- $500 (1 year, competitive award) internship (similar to that offered by Family Policy, Family Therapy)
- Create a dissertation award
- Recognition of non-PhDs
- Increase the dollar amount of the student award
- Offset costs of section officers’ travel to NCFR
- Reimburse section officers’ annual conference registration costs
A call was made to focus on the section objectives in determining how to spend the money.
Don ended the meeting by inviting members to take part in the NCFR visioning process that was taking place the next morning.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:15 pm.
Submitted by:
Susan Walker
E&E Section Secretary-Treasurer
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