From One Dupont Circle: Quarterly Update

Gregory Roberts
ACPA Executive Director

Greetings to the New Year and to the many activities of the spring semester. It is difficult to believe that we are wrapping up the preparations for the 89th Annual Convention of ACPA. Just imagine what it was like 89 years ago when nine professionals came together to create what is now know as ACPA. What a difference a “few years make.”

2013 is unique in that we are hosting the largest professional development program of the year, the annual convention, with NIRSA – Leaders in Collegiate Recreation, who will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of intramural sports in American higher education. Our focus for this convention is on health and well-being. There is no better way to recognize this agenda than with our colleagues from NIRSA, who challenge our campus communities to become active in some way on a daily basis. Our profession can truly use a little stimulation as it relates to balance, well-being and healthy living.

The substance of our efforts the past two years is reflective of the vision of the future for our profession and how ACPA will rally to the cause to ensure that our profession is as vibrant and visionary as it has been in its first 89 years of existence.

There will be continuous work on the recently approved strategic plan (2013-2016) and we are excited about the vision for the future and the course it outlines for ACPA:

• Career Development
• Professional Development
• Leadership in Higher Education
• Social Justice
• Research and Scholarship
• Association Performance and Excellence

There will be ample time devoted to receiving your additional thoughts and feedback as we move the Association forward. These six strategic priorities are the results of many months of “meetups,” retreats, meetings and conversations with all segments of the Association membership and past leadership. Our “road map” is clear and we are working to create the infrastructure that will support these priorities for years to come.

For those of you who will not join us in Las Vegas, please be alert to tweets, blogs, summaries and other communication that will share the tenor of the discussions from the convention.

Also, at the Las Vegas convention there will be a special memorial for Phyllis Mable, former ACPA President and Executive Director of the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS). Phyllis passed away late last spring. The New Professionals Institute (NPI) was named in her honor a year prior to her death and we continue to ask members and friends to consider a contribution to the Phyllis L. Mable New Professionals Institute Scholarship fund. Your contributions may be mailed to ACPA: Mable Institute, One Dupont Circle NW, Suite 300, Washington, D.C. 20036.

Safe journey for those traveling to convention.

Until next time,

Greg