Advisory Board Updates

This past week, most of your NASPA Region IV-West Advisory Board Members met at the site of the 2010 Regional Conference at the Regency Marriott Hotel in Omaha, Nebraska.  The hotel was nice, the food was great, and the company was better.

Following an executive committee meeting, the Regional Advisory Board got together, and , being the social butterflies we are, it took me two times to call the meeting to order – thanks for pointing that out, Dr. Strawn.  Once we did get down to business, we hit the ground at 100 mph.  There were/are two major issues facing NASPA at this time, and I will do my best to summarize:

1.) Unification:  There hasn’t been much new to examine yet on unification, but there was great conversation around the fact that we would like a “better” professional organization, not just a bigger one. There were clearly some colleagues with very strong feelings on both sides of the issue, but it was tremendous we could have these conversations in such a way that modeled civil discourse – sorry that we weren’t podcasting the conversation.

It is still clear to me that there are a lot of questions that we need to answer before sending the unification question to a vote. I think Jan Rastall (KC Coordinator for Veterans Programs) said it best.  She reminded us all that, whatever the organization looks like, as long as we continue to work to help our students by keeping ourselves educated and abreast of issues, we will be able to support our students.

There were many other issues and ideas raised in the meeting that are paralleled on the NASPA Site.  If you haven’t checked out the updated NASPA site related to unification, I encourage you do to so.

2.)The second pressing issue was that of Arizona SB 1070.  The National NASPA 2012 Conference is scheduled for Phoenix, AZ, and the question has been raised about pulling the conference.  Again, the conversation was a model of civil discourse. Everyone felt the emotional strain of the issue, particularly for our Latino/a colleagues, and the likelihood of a boycott by some members of NASPA if we continue to host the conference there.  Others mentioned there are many other socially unjust laws around the country; yet we have not taken this stand previously, and while Arizona SB 1070 is a critical issue, so are many others.  There were also discussions on the costs of moving the conference, and the financial implications for doing so are serious.  I am expecting a conference call with the National NASPA Board this week, during which we can gather a better sense of both those financial implications and our real options at this time.  Many of you know that ACPA has pulled one of their smaller conferences, while AFA determined it would have been financially disastrous to move their national conference, even though many of us feel strongly about the social injustice of this issue.
After these conversations, it was funny that budget talks related to the Regional Conference and our Mid-Level Institute were low key and almost a welcome respite.  But those issues were also discussed, and I think you will be extremely excited and happy about the experiences you will have in Omaha this fall. 

We are working to have registration available quickly in order to allow some of you to take advantage of your budgets at the end of the fiscal year. Watch for that through direct e-mail.

You should be very proud of the Advisory Board and how well everyone spoke up for their respective areas.  I am very excited to be a part of that group.  As I promised them, I will be doing my best to keep you updated on the aforementioned issues, and full minutes will be forthcoming.

Feel free to drop me a note if you have questions or comments.