Sunday, January 7, 2007, The Ground Round, St.
Cloud, MN
Present: Sandy Nieland (President), Michele Neaton
(President Elect), Dan Cronn-Mills (Past President), Larry Schnoor (Treasurer), Karen P. Wilson
(Secretary), Dave Warne (College/University Rep.), Angie Siefert Anderson
(Community College Rep.), Gregg Sawyer (MN Education Theater Assoc. Rep.), Mark
Quinlan (MSHSL Rep.), Scott Durocher (Metro Geographic Rep.), Jody Saxton West
(SE Geographic Rep.), Kathy Ebnet (NE Geographic Rep.), Mary Schmidt (Central
Geographic Rep.)
Meeting was called to order at 11:45 a.m. Minutes from Sept. 14, 2006 were approved.
President’s Report: Sandy Nieland began with a welcome and introductions.
Congratulations were extended to Angie on the arrival of Eva Marie Anderson!
Thanks to everyone who helped with the conference in September. The conference evaluations have been given to Michele and were very positive. The lunch and the ability to network were noted as highlights. The MN Opera requested the CTAM mailing list for an educational venture and this was provided.
Past President’s Report: Dan Cronn-Mills reported that he assumes Jill Lofald is still dealing with the Arts Consortium. The CTAM mailing list was discussed. General procedure seems to have been that if the list was requested by another nonprofit organization or an educational institution for purposes that relate to CTAM it has been sent out. Motion was made: A privacy check box will be added to the CTAM membership form to allow members to opt out of mailing address forwarding. Motion seconded and passed. In the next issue of the newsletter Larry will mention this new option. The Board of Governors will have access to the entire mailing list. Motion was made: The CTAM mailing list will be provided to educational institutions and non-profit organizations with purposes that relate to CTAM free of charge. If provided to others, a fee will be attached. Motion seconded and passed. (Upon general consensus “Rah Rah Rochester” was the “aye” vote throughout this meeting.) CTAM on the Road: Motion was made to try a new approach to CTAM on the Road using a format in which anyone can apply to the Executive Board for CTAM on the Road sessions and the role of the Past President is to publicize and coordinate this program. The Exec. Board allocates the funding for CTAM on the Road. Seconded and passed. Michele will add a question to the CTAM conference evaluation form to see if anyone has a specific need for CTAM on the Road sessions.
President Elect’s Report: Michele Neaton reported that the planning for the 2007 conference is proceeding, the Radisson Plaza Hotel is lovely and Rochester is eager to host CTAM. Please submit written session proposals, especially on college/university teaching topics. The theme of the 2007 conference was discussed and Larry suggested “Broadening the Circle” as a possible theme. Be sure to send the theme to Dan for the website. Discussion followed about why more college/university people do not attend CTAM. The personal connection seems to make a difference and the need to provide appropriate panels was discussed. Michele calls on every BOG member to invite and bring a new person to CTAM. Mary mentioned that it would be useful to have some type of “first time” notification on the CTAM name badges to make it easier to welcome new people to the conference. Rochester Civic Theater connections are also being explored for the conference.
Treasurer’s Report: Larry Schnoor reported that we are doing well with 317 members, a balance of $6,250 and just a few outstanding bills. A letter was sent to those who did not renew membership. As of Sept. 20, 2006, the CTAM Foundation quarterly report showed $2547 available for use. $605 dollars were donated to the Foundation at the 2006 conference. Past conference costs have been roughly $10,100 in 2001, $10,000 in 2002, $8,350 in Duluth in 2003, $12,500 at the Holiday Inn in Arden Hills in 2004, $6,673 in Mankato in 2005, and $13,500 at the Crowne Plaza in 2006. It is evident that conference costs are lower when the conference occurs out of the metro area.
Historian’s Report: (in absentia) No report at this time. There was a request for a “history of CTAM” session at the next conference.
Journal Editor’s Report: (in absentia) The last newsletter included a call for the journal. See the newsletter for more information.
Newsletter Editor’s report: Sandy reported for
Sarah Wolter, in absentia, that the latest CTAM newsletter was distributed via
postal mail earlier this week. The
deadline for submissions for the next newsletter is 8:00 a.m. Monday, January 8, 2007.
Central States/NCA Liaison’s Report: Diana Rehling (in absentia) sent her report to Dave Warne who distributed copies of the written report (highlights copied below)
Report on Central States Advisory Council Business Meeting, Friday, Nov, 17, 2006, San Antonio, TX
1)We may have two representatives to the Central States Advisory Council. Both can vote on submissions for CSCA States Showcase programs.
2) We may submit up to 3 programs for consideration as a CSCA States Showcase program.
3) Our two submissions were ranked 2 & 7 out of 12 and are both going to be presented at CSCA 2007.
Report on National States Advisory Council Business Meeting, Friday, Nov. 17, 2006, San Antonio, TX
1. The National States Advisory Council offered four awards: service to the state award, scholar of the year award, high school teaching award and an administrator of the year award. Award nominations are due May 15, 2007. Diana will forward further information and forms as these become available.
2. Note the new website:
www.statesadvisorycouncil.org and the new listserve: states-advisory-council@googlegroups.com
3. Two ideas for CTAM to consider: at Nebraska’s State Conference the National Federation of High School Activities was invited to provide sessions and workshops and in Georgia a public communication officer from their membership was appointed to be responsible for communication about the organization.
4. The College Board, with the help of Speech Communication people, created the College Board Standards for College Success that includes standards for speaking, listening and media literacy. Diana has a copy available at SCSU. The expectation is that some states may want to contact College Board members when creating their own state standards.
Clarification was made that Diana will select these reps unless the CTAM Board hears otherwise. Request to Diana: please send a description of the awards to Sarah Wolter and please consider submitting a proposal for a conference session about the college board. Central States 2007 is at the Hyatt Regency (Mpls.) during the last weekend of March.
BOG Members’ Reports:
Dave Warne discussed the fluid nature of who attends CTAM and reported that he is pursuing developing a mailing list of private schools. Adjunct and fixed term faculty might be other useful contacts to make to encourage them to attend CTAM. Tips on job searches, etc. might be useful session to offer at the conference to help draw more people.
Mary Schmidt reported that her husband turns 40 this year!
Mark Quinlan reported that the new MSCA website is Minnesota Speech Coaches.org and this will be publicized once the technical difficulties are worked out. Watch for further information. Mark announced that, as of next year, section restructuring will have occurred and that this will affect speech and one acts. There is a proposal to take the schools that actually participate into consideration because the number of participants and strength of team seems to be one correlation. The new resectioning will start from the four corners of the state and work inward. There may be a formulaic connection to the number of free and reduced lunches at each school. Discussion followed. Mark’s fight to keep the stand-alone speech course continues and he hopes to put together a report on this issue. If you have any supportive material please send it to Mark.
Gregg Sawyer announced that the Theater Forum will be May 5, 2007 at the Perpich Center and he will be making a request to the CTAM Foundation for support. He encourages everyone to spread the word and he publicly thanked Ginger McFerran for her work on the Forum, for CTAM and for META.
Kathy Ebnet reported that there has been one strong response from a section secretary who is very worried about the upcoming resectioning. People need to be reminded that this is an issue with the MSHSL (not CTAM).
Jody Saxton West reported that she has been offering a new coaches workshop at the CTAM conference for a number of years. She is now running a new coaches mentoring program and this has been very successful (25 new coaches are paired with 25 experienced coaches). Jody’s email address has been published on the MSHSL website so people are going directly to her with requests. There are a lot of people needing mentors and she has received many notes from people who have been ‘assigned’ the speech team or who have been told they will be hosting events and they have no idea how to proceed. There is a lack of written documentation. Larry mentioned that the Big Nine booklet might be useful. Each conference and sub section should be encouraged to write a booklet or a handbook and to post these on line. Jody will try and have much of this information available by the next CTAM conference. How to host a tournament will be offered at the next conference. Might be another possibility for CTAM on the Road.
Sandy Nieland sent out letters to principals on behalf of those who presented at last year’s conference. Collecting contact information is challenging and suggested that a form be included in every presenter’s packet to gather this information directly at the conference.
Scott thanked everyone for doing theater sessions at last year’s CTAM conference. He is interested in connecting all the theater people in the State and he is gathering distribution lists. Discussion about privacy followed. Public school email addresses listed on the web are public information. Request was made for Gregg to send Scott the META list and Dan please send the electronic version of this list to Scott.
Angie Siefert Anderson has heard requests for more community college sessions so she will be proposing two sessions (best practices in on-line teaching and a GIFTS session). Suggestion was to send out a request on the list serve for presenters. Larry mentioned that it might be a useful session to discuss the impact of on-line teaching on departments.
Personnel Issues:
A. President-Elect Nominees. Need a high school level nomination and Denise Atkinson, Jody Saxton West, and Scott Durocher were suggested. The Executive Council will follow up. Please send any additional nominations to Sandy Nieland.
B. Secretary Nominees. Karen Wilson was suggested. The newsletter will note that nominations are now being accepted (deadline: Feb. 15).
C. Addition of MSHSL Rep to the BOG. Motion was made to add the MSHSL rep. position to the BOG. Seconded and passed. It is noted that Mark’s position on the MSHSL ends in 2008.
Presidential Appointments: Board of Governors vacancies. No vacancies at present.
Convention 2007: Sept. 13-15, 2007 at the Radisson Plaza Hotel in Rochester, MN.
The next CTAM Board of
Governors’ meeting: Thursday, Sept. 13, 2007.
Calls for 2008 convention sites should also be made.
Meeting was adjourned at 1:55 p.m. amid shouts of “Rah Rah Rochester.”
Respectfully Submitted,
Karen P. Wilson, Secretary