AACRAO NetNews

Volume VII, Number 3

March 15, 1999

American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers

Editor:  Paul Aucoin, pgaucoin@samford.edu

Subscription Manger:  Erika Watts, wattse@aacrao.nche.edu

Past Issues

IN THIS ISSUE:

• Important Revisions to Proposed Constitution and Bylaws Changes

• Fiscal Year 2000 AACRAO Budget Proposal

• New Research and Analysis Web Page at AACRAO

• Caught in the Surf, Websites You Can Use

• Volunteer for Welcome Booth and Breakfast in Charlotte

• Charlotte LAC Has Tours Planned, But Deadline Approaches

• Is Your Y2K Solution Only Temporary

• More of the Less Educated Climbing Aboard the Internet Train

• Calendar of Events

• Position Announcements

• Contact Addresses for AACRAO Board Members

Important Revisions to Proposed Constitution and Bylaws Changes

The proposed changes to AACRAO Constitution and Bylaws published in the February Data Dispenser were reviewed by participants in the February Leadership Meeting. The event, which brought a broad cross-section of AACRAO’s national leadership together, provided an opportunity to review the proposed changes, and receive comments from the participants. The documents you will read below incorporate suggested revisions and technical corrections to the proposed changes published in the February Data Dispenser.

1. Allow system offices for colleges and universities to be regular members of the Association, combine associate and affiliate membership into a single group, Affiliates, and re-letter succeeding paragraphs. Constitution: Article I, Section 1 and Bylaws: Article I, Sections 1& 2

2. Change the name of the Association to "The Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers," (ACRAO). Due primarily to the success of our annual meeting programs and other workshop and training sessions held throughout the year, we have been able to attract the interest of many school administrators who are employed outside of the United States. As we see this as a healthy step in forwarding the interest of admissions officers and registrars worldwide, and as we recommend continued efforts in this direction, we recommend that we discontinue the use of the term "American" in our name. This change would adjust the following sections of the Constitution and Bylaws. Constitution: Article I, Section 2, Section 4b, and Section 4e; Bylaws: Article I, Section 2, Section 2(a), Section 2(b), Section 2(c), Section 2(d), Section 2(e), Section 2(f), Section 2(g), Section 2(h), and Section 3; Article II, Section 2, Section 9, and Section 9(b); Article VI, Section 1, Section 1(c), and Section 1(e)

3. Revise the Mission Statement. In keeping with our heritage of being a forum for discussion and a recommending body of best practices and procedures rather than a standards setting body, it is recommended that a change be made to the mission statement of the organization. This change clearly delineates our role in the areas of admissions, records, registration, enrollment management, administrative computing technology, and student services. It also provides clarification that we serve as a forum in the discussion and development of best practices for individual institutions. Constitution, Article I, Section 3

4. Provide clarification that the Association may choose to do any or all of the activities listed in this section of examples but emphasize that this is not an all-inclusive list. Constitution, Article I, Section 4

5. Change the word "implementing" to "fostering" as the latter word more accurately describes the nature of the relationship of AACRAO/ACRAO with state/regional groups. Constitution, Article I, Section 4e

6. Re-word to clearly indicate that it is the member institutions that shall designate who the voting members are from their institution in concordance with Article I, Section 1 of the Bylaws. Constitution, Article II, Section 1

7. Eliminate the confusion with By Law responsibilities caused by listing only one of the many duties of the voting members and refer to the Bylaws where all the duties are covered. Constitution, Article II, Section 2

8. Add a new section by moving the second sentence of the previous section, which delineates the ACRAO Board of Directors responsibilities for the Association, eliminate the sentence from Bylaw, Article II, section 2 that conflicts regarding responsibility for association activities, and re-number subsequent sections. Constitution, Article II, Sections 2 and 3; and Bylaws, Article II, Section 2

9. Eliminate the unnecessary words "as may be." Constitution, Article II, Section 4

10. Remove awkward wording regarding additional voting membership to clarify that an individual payment must be made for each additional voting member desired. Bylaws, Article I, Section 1 (c)

11. Change "an" to "the" to reflect which membership fee is to be paid by high school affiliate members. Bylaws, Article I, Section 2 (h)[New (g)]

12. Specify 30 days as minimum notification of the membership regarding a change in the annual membership fee, that the Secretary-Treasurer/Vice President for Finance would be responsible for notification of financial and policy issues, that member approval is required for membership fee changes, and remove the reference to the "non-existent" Association newsletter. Bylaws, Article I, Section 4; Article II, Section 5 and Article IV, Section 2 (b)

13. Revise the titles of officers:

• Secretary Treasurer to Vice President for Finance
• Vice President for Enrollment Management, Admissions and Financial Aid to Vice President for Admissions & Enrollment Management
• Vice President for Registration and Records to Vice President for Registration, Records & Information Technology
• Vice President for Professional Development, Research, and Publications to Vice President for Professional Development & Publications
• Vice President for Regional Associations and Institutional Issues to Vice President for Association and Institutional Issues

Bylaws, Article II, Section 1, 5, 7, 8, and Article VI, Section 1

14. Add a section specifying that Officers may only serve without voting membership status for 90 days and re-letter subsequent sections. Bylaws, Article II, Section 9(a) and change the current 9(a)-9(c) to 9(b)-9(d)

15. Change AACRAO reference to the "the Association". Bylaw, Article III, Section 2(c) and 2(e)

16. Revise placement of wording regarding annual meeting business and re-letter the subsequent sub-sections. Bylaws, Article IV, Section 2(a)

17. In the section regarding Board Meetings, add a section allowing two-thirds of the Board members to call and convene special meeting without being called by the President or President-Elect and re-letter the current paragraph as (a). Bylaws, Article IV, Section 3

18. Add task forces to appointive committees and allow them to be responsible to the Executive Director as well as another Officer. Bylaws, Article V, Sections 1 and 2

19. Allow up to four years of committee and task force service, and allow committees and task forces to report to the Executive Director. Bylaws, Article V, Section 2

20. Re-title Bylaw Article V by adding "and Task Forces" to Appointive Committees and add a section to cover the appointment of Interassociation Representatives with a term of three years and re-appointment only by two-thirds vote of the Board. Proposed Bylaw Article V, Section 3

21. Change Bylaws Article VI, Section 1 (e), concerning the Office’s responsibility for association financial activities to (a) and re-letter all subsequent sub-sections. Bylaws, Article VI, Section 1(e)

22. Clarify the Office’s responsibility for Association publications. Bylaws, Article VI, New Section 1(c)

23. Delete reference to responsibility for the placement service as it is no longer in operation. Bylaws, Article VI, Section 1(d)

24. Re-word from "Service" to "Serving" the Office’s coordination of projects, and re-letter as "e" to conform to the deletion above. Bylaws, Article VI, Section 1 (f)

25. Insert a new sub-section assigning the Office a supporting role in maintaining the association’s strategic plan. Bylaws, Article VI, Section 1 new (f)

For the text of the changes in context, see:

http://www.samford.edu/groups/sturec/addendum.htm

For further information contact Barmak Nassirian, AACRAO Associate Executive Director, at nassirianb@aacrao.nche.edu or at (202) 293-9161 ext. 6401.

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Fiscal Year 2000 AACRAO Budget Proposal

This is the budget proposal that will be voted on at the Annual Meeting in Charlotte in April.  Be sure to attend the business meeting to cast your vote. 

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New Research and Analysis Web Page at AACRAO

Visit AACRAO's new Research and Analysis web page for up-to-date information on student tracking, record-keeping, and institutional reporting issues. The site can be accessed at:

http://www.aacrao.com/govrel/r&a.htm

Issues/topics currently featured include:

An Update on the Federal Race/Ethnicity Reporting Changes, The IPEDS Redesign Initiative, Findings from AACRAO's Nontraditional Education Study, Efforts to Standardize Postsecondary Data Language, New FERPA/Directory Information Guidance, Graduation Rate Survey and Student Right-to-Know Reporting and Disclosure Requirements, and others. The site will be updated monthly.

Contact Brenda Ashford of the AACRAO Office (ashfordb@aacrao.nche.edu or 202/293-9161 Ext. 6102) with any comments or questions.

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Caught in the Surf, Websites You Can Use

While doing research for a presentation on articulation, Bonnie Scranton, Associate VP for Enrollment Mgt. at Wayne State College in Nebraska, pinpointed a number of web sites with transfer equivalency
information/guides:

Arizona:  http://www.acpe.asu.edu/publications/ceg.html

Arizona:  http://www.asu.edu/provost/articulation/tg.html

Illinois:   http://www.itransfer.org

Maryland:  http://artweb.usmd.edu/index.html

Michigan:  http://www.macrao.org/mcm3rd.htm

Montana:  www.montana.edu/wwwtrans/equiv.html

Virginia:  http://www.so.cc.va.us/transfer.htm

Washington: http://www.aa.ewu.edu/transfer_guides/index2.html

Wisconsin:  http://www.uwsa.edu/tis/tis.htm

There is a new location for the NCES website, which is now at http://nces.ed.gov/Ipeds/whatsnew.html, and  is designed to keep you informed about the redesign of IPEDS.

Check out http://www.charlotte.com/livinghere/10things.htm for an "Insider's Guide" to Charlotte. Or see http://www.charlotte.com/livinghere/0102boyte.htm for a story and pictures about Charlotte's architecture. 

And if museums are your thing, go to: http://www.charlotte.com/et/calendar/museums.htm for information about local museums, including the Mint Museum of Crafts & Design, pictured here.

And don't forget, all the information about the AACRAO Annual Meeting in Charlotte is on-line at http://www.aacrao.com/am98/index.html. You will find information about the meeting schedule, things to do in Charlotte, and a link to the program database for a full listing of session and workshop information.   Click on the program code number for details about a session. 

Note:  If you know of a website that you think may be useful to your colleagues, please send the URL to me so that it may be considered for inclusion in a future issue of NetNews.  Tell a little about why you like it, and be credited with the catch.  Send it to pgaucoin@samford.edu

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Volunteer for Welcome Booth and Breakfast in Charlotte

Each year AACRAO welcomes many new members and first-time attendees to its annual meeting. The welcome booth helps the first-timers "settle in" and feel welcome so they can relax and enjoy the meeting. To accomplish this, the Member Orientation Committee needs your help as volunteers to work at the booth for short periods of time on Sunday, April 18, and on Monday morning, April 19.

Volunteers will answer basic questions related to the meeting, hand out special information sheets, and remind the first-timers about the continental breakfast and orientation session on Monday morning designed just for them.

Volunteers are also needed at the breakfast to serve as facilitators, get a free continental breakfast, and meet our new members and first-timers.  You will be provided with written instructions and ideas to assist in "breaking the ice" and encouraging discussion.

If you or someone in your office would be willing to serve in one or both of these capacities, please contact Claudia Wright at Sul-Ross State University at 830-773-8974 x17 for details. Or send her an e-mail at crwright5@sulross.edu

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Charlotte LAC Has Tours Planned, But Deadline Approaches

The Local Arrangements Committee has planned an exciting array of tours to compliment the annual meeting. Tours range from a tour of the Biltmore House and gardens to spending the day at Paramount Carowinds. Other highlights include a tour of the Charlotte Motor Speedway and a golf tour at Highland Creek, a Clifton, Ezell, Clifton course.

Shopping and dining tours have also been scheduled including a moonlight dinner cruise. The committee has put together a schedule that should accommodate every taste. A complete schedule can be viewed on the AACRAO homepage.

Members are reminded that the tour registration deadline is Wednesday, April 7. On-site tour registration will not be available for tours that include dining. For all other tours, on-site registration is subject to availability and purchases must be made on a cash only basis.

The LAC is looking forward to sharing the beauty and diversity of the Carolinas with "y'all".  You can call Debi Barber, Director of Admissions at Winthrop University at 803-323-2191 if you need additional information, or send her an e-mail at barberdg@winthrop.edu

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Is Your Y2K Solution Only Temporary

According to an article in today's San Jose Mercury News, the fix used to patch 80% of the worlds' computers to avert a Y2K crisis is actually only a short-term remedy called "windowing." Rather than using a permanent fix called "expansion," which requires transforming all two-digit year-dates found in software into four-digit year-dates, the "windowing" patch is a trick that forces software to "guess" whether dates fall in the 1900s or the 2000s; typically, lower numbers (perhaps up to 30) will belong to the new century, whereas higher numbers (such as 87) will belong to the old century.

Although many experts say this is the only practical way to solve the problem, others are warning that the "windowing" approach is just pushing the problem under the rug for awhile. Keith Rhodes of the General Accounting Office says, "It's like the Fram oil filter guy: You can pay me now or you can pay me later. It's not solving your problem. It's delaying the inevitable."

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More of the Less Educated Climbing Aboard the Internet Train

According to an Associated Press release earlier this year, a study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press indicates that the online audience is rapidly changing from an elite computer-savvy group comprised of young, well-educated and affluent males to a more mainstream American group, with middle-aged and middle-income people of both sexes coming to the Internet in increased numbers, as are people with less formal education.

Although the 74 million Internet users in the U.S. are still younger, better-educated and more affluent than the population at large, 40% of Internet newcomers never attended college and 23% have household incomes below $30,000 a year.  Something to think about, as more of us use the web to convey important information.

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Calendar of Events

The New Jersey-New York Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers will hold its Spring Conference on Wednesday, March 17 at Drew University in Madison, NJ. Conference information is available on the Web at http://pages.nyu.edu/~nag2/njny-acrao.html or by contacting Ninette Gironella, Program Chair, at ninette.gironella@nyu.edu,
or (212)998-7150.

NERCOMP (The New England Regional Computing Program), "Doing IT: Partnering for Practical Campus Solutions and Outcomes", March 21-23, Sturbridge, Massachusetts. For more information see: http://www.educause.edu/nercomp/

Council of Independent Colleges and EDUCAUSE, March 25-27, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  This is the annual working meeting to keep independent colleges and universities on the cutting edge of technology. The workshop is designed for administrators and faculty. For more information see: http://www.cic.edu/conferences/technology/technology.shtml

AACRAO's 85th Annual Meeting, April 18-21, 1999 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The planned program and other information is available on the AACRAO Website, http://www.aacrao.com/am98/index.html

CUMREC '99 - "Breaking Through: 2000 and Beyond"
May 9-12, 1999, San Antonio, Texas.  See: http://www.cumrec.com/cumrec99/cumrec99.html

Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council Member Meeting and May Conference, The Ellipse Conference Center at Ballston, Arlington, Virginia
Member Meeting, May 13, 1 pm to 5 pm
May Conference, May 14, 8:30 am to 4 pm
http://www.StandardsCouncil.org

MOSIS (Managers of Student Information Systems) will hold its annual conference on July 18-21 in Daytona Beach.  Please see http://mosis.sc.edu/ for the details about this premier summer conference.

AACRAO Annual Meetings:

April 18-22, 1999, Charlotte, NC   http://www.charlotte.com and http://www.aacrao.com/am98/index.html
April 9-13, 2000, New Orleans, LA  http://www.neworleans.com
April 21-25, 2001, Seattle, WA   http://www.seattle.com/visiting/index.html
April 13-18, 2002, Minneapolis, MN
April 6-10, 2003, Washington, DC

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Position Announcements

You may now view position announcements at the AACRAO website. Point your browser to the AACRAO home page at http://www.aacrao.com, then click on the Jobs Online link in the light green box on the home page.

Contact Steve Alexander at the AACRAO Office if you wish to place a paid announcement on the site, (202) 293-9161 or by e-mail to:  alexanders@aacrao.nche.edu  

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End of NetNews, an AACRAO Electronic Newsletter

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