2008 Spring Board Meeting
Henzlik Hall at UNL, Lincoln, NE
March 7, 2008
Jean Detlefsen, hostess
President, Phil Hermann called the meeting to order. The following board members were in attendance: Donna Alden, Donna Binderup, Christine Brown, Amber Buhrman, Nancy Childs, John Claybaugh, Jean Detlefsen, Deb Goodenberger, Angie Fischer, Mary Gradoville, Deann Hanisch, Sheila Hubbard, Debbie Kippley, Christy Kosmicki, Deb Kubik, Cathy Lemmerman, Lucy McHugh, Carole Meyer, Sue Reiber, Julie Ryan, Pat Schultz, and Gladys Wassinger.
Minutes from the 2007 Fall Board Meeting were sent to the board via email and published in the Winter Perspective. Julie Ryan moved to accept the minutes and Nancy Childs seconded. Motion was carried.
The Treasurer’s Report, submitted by Sr. Margaret Proskovec via email, reflected the activities on the association account through March 7, 2008. Phil Hermann reviewed the specifics on the 8-month report and asked for discussion. The ending balance combined in the bank and savings is $35,970.76. This figure reflects a variance of $3,175.96 from the projected balance. This was in part, due to the successful 2007 Fall Conference. Jeanine Mohr submitted a report to Phil that showed that the conference in Chadron made $5,244.91. Gladys Wassinger motioned to accept and John Claybaugh seconded. Motion carried.
Angie Fischer presented the Past-President’s Report on the Nebraska State Visual Arts Contest. More than 2,000 entries were received and 540 were selected for the show. Artwork in the exhibition reflects the top 25%. To aid in the turn-around time between the jury process and the awards ceremony, the possibility of the awards ceremony being scheduled over Girls State Basketball weekend was discussed and the NSVAC committee will consider this alternative. Nancy Childs stated that the teachers really appreciate the rubric evaluation method.
Jean Detlefsen brought up a concern about conflicting State Shows. The overlap between YAM and NSVAC was discussed and both committees will work on this concern. Amber Burman and Angie Fischer head each committee respectfully.
In the President’s Report, Phil Herrmann announced that the 2008 NAEA Convention in New Orleans will have eleven Lincoln educators and one from Omaha representing Nebraska: Lynette Fast (North Star) Lucy McHugh and Jolene Walker (Clinton) Lorinda Rice (Beattie) Rosalie Claussen (Pyrtle and Belmont) Joan Phelan (Everett) Bob Reeker (Eastridge), Nancy Childs (LPS), and Mellissa Cleaver (Kellom).
In reference to NATA Board Appointments a committee for Exhibits was formed. John Claybaugh, Jean Detlefsen Christy Kosmicki will chair this committee together. Deb Kubik was added as co-chair with Sheila Hubbard for 2009 Fall Conference. Phil welcomed Dr. Donna Alden (UNK Elementary Art Educator) as Minority Concerns. The Women’s Caucus board position, as well as ESU 5, 6, 8 and 17 representative positions are still open. If there is anyone interested in any of these positions, they are encouraged to contact Phil or any board member. New appointments include Amber Buhrman (Lincoln) and Ashley Jurgens (Lincoln) serving as YAM co-chairs, Jerene Kruse (Boone Central) representing ESU 7, Jeanine Mohr (Chadron) and Ann Elwell (Sidney) representing ESU 12, 13, and 14 combined, and Susan Hanson (Perkins County) representing ESU 16.
NATA Board job descriptions need to be completed. The Executive Board will meet to complete job descriptions before the summer board meeting. Those holding positions that do not have complete descriptions may be called to attend.
President-Elect, Dr. Debbie Kippley reported on the National Endowment for the Arts, Education Leadership Institute. Only five states, Alaska, Kentucky, Nebraska, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, have been invited to the Institute in Chicago, Illinois on March 11 – 13, 2008. The goals for the National Endowment are to: 1. Give leaders a platform connected to school leaders, legislators, and policy makers to focus on and examine current conditions of arts education; 2. Discuss challenges of arts education in each state and identify trends; and 3. Develop concrete strategies to strengthen their state arts education policies and programs. Nebraskans for the Arts members: Charles Bethea, Jean Detlefsen, Shari Hofschire, Karen Janovy, Patsy Koch Johns, Joan Reist, Donlynn Rice, Marty Skomal, Deb Weber, and Lindsey Kennedy met with educational leaders on February 4th to offer guidance for the Chicago meeting. NATA board representatives included Phil Hermann, Debbie Kippley, Christy Kosmicki, and Deb Kubik.We look forward to news from the Nebraska Leadership Team after their March meeting.
Amber Buhrman, YAM co-chair, reported on the excellent work submitted for the Youth Art Month Exhibit at the Department of Education. The celebration at the Rotunda is scheduled for 1:30. Angie and Amber’s mom volunteered to carry balloons to help groups travel to the Department of Education and the reception. Christy and Debbie volunteered to distribute programs before the ceremony.
Amber felt that there should be a plan to encourage better statewide participation. She will discuss, with Donlynn Rice, the possibility of mailing postcard reminders to art educators across the state. Amber’s other ideas were to have Christine send out reminders on the NATA list-serve. Congressional Districts 2 and 3 continue their strong support for YAM and coordinated the winners of the Congressional Art Caucus (CAC) with NATA. Jeff Fortenberry (Lincoln) representing Congressional District 1, decided to discontinue his affiliation with YAM and conduct his own congressional art competition. Lucy McHugh (Advocacy/Legislative Rep.) will be contacting Fortenberry’s office to reconnect District 1 with the YAM program. She hopes to schedule a summer meeting with Fortenberry, Amber and herself.
Amber and Ashley’s suggestions for improving YAM includes: removing the scheduling conflict between NAVAC and YAM, revamp the YAM information on the NATA web site, get the youth more involved with the responsibilities of the YAM celebration, work at regaining uniform involvement and requirements with CAC, work on getting YAM information to all Nebraska teachers in a timely manner, focus on advertising and advocacy, and help the new co-chairs by splitting some of the responsibilities.
Advocacy issues regarding YAM publicity, advertising, promotional events were discussed.Lucy suggested that billboards featuring a piece of art from each ESU area could be sponsored by local businesses. The cost of a billboard is approximately $1,310. Creating an on-line YAM exhibition, coordinating advertising efforts with Music in Our Schools and Reading Across America would be viable possibilities. Deb Goodenberger commented that billboards are sparse in rural Nebraska, so a calendar that would feature student artwork from all ESU areas would be more effective. She felt this would also offer a less costly alternative. Jean recommended that the ESU representatives work on the YAM committee with Amber and Lucy to make plans for the next year. Amber and Lucy will organize and coordinate this planning meeting with the ESU Representatives.
Lucy (Advocacy/Legislative) has contacted Ron Raikes in regard to a display of student work in each of the education committee member offices. Lucy suggested that the runner up from each congressional district at YAM could be selected for this distinction. It was suggested that Dr. Donna Alden (Minority Concerns) work with Lucy on future legislative and advocacy concerns.
The board applauded the YAM committee of Amber, Ashlea Jurgens, and Jean Detlefsen for all their hard work. Jean extended a big thank you to Bob Reeker and Lorinda Rice for serving as YAM mentors. The board also recognized the enormity of the YAM chairman position. Lucy entertained a motion that the board create the following separate board positions to alleviate the problem: Spring Conference, YAM Exhibition, and the YAM Program Chairs. Jean seconded the motion. It was carried unanimously. Phil will confirm the appointments before the summer meeting.
Communications chair, Christine Brown, reported that we have 550 active members on the new NATA listserve. In response to the overwhelming email surge during the maiden voyage of the listserve, Bob Reeker and Christine created a NATA Blog site. The board agreed that there were huge communication advantages to supporting both sites. Debbie moved to accept the addition of the Blog site and John seconded. Motion carried unanimously. Christine will continue as the List-Serve coordinator and Bob Reeker volunteered to be the Master of the Blog. Christine explained how to post information on the listserv: type the address art at lists.k12.ne.us in the TO: heading of your email. When you are done with your email, click on “send” and your email will be shared with everyone that is a member of the listserv. You can also send your announcements, questions, comments to clbrown@esu9.org and Christine will post your email for you. If you have any concerns or suggestions for the Blog, you can contact Bob at breeker@lps.org. The Blog can be accessed at the following URL: http://nebraskaartteachersassociation.blogspot.com/
Carole (NATA Web Master), Christine and Erik Clark will work on removing the old listserve from the NATA web site and only have the new one available. Carole also reported that she will create an archive of the association minutes and our Perspective newsletters, as well as add buttons/links to the NATA Blog site and to Tom Lang (2008 Fall Conference keynote speaker) from Webster University.
2008 Fall Conference update was presented by co-chairman Sheila Hubbard and Deb Kubik. This year (2008) marks the 85th birthday of NATA, so come and join the festivities at Fall Conference. The Theme is Paper 2, to be hosted at Concordia University in Seward on October 17th & 18th. Keynote speaker, Tom Lang will be leading morning and afternoon workshops on Friday, October 17th. If you are interested in submitting presentation proposals for fall conference, contact Sheila or Deb Kubik. More information will be available on the NATA web site: http://artnet.nde.state.ne.us
Information for the 27 juried art show is already available on the NATA web site. The deadline for entries is August 2nd, so start your creative juices flowing. The juror is Bill Wolfram, retired professor and chairman of Concordia University.
Newsletter Editor, Julie Ryan reported that the Perspective won an Honorable Mention (2nd place) in National competition. Julie needs one of our fall conference chairs to submit an article on the Spring Conference. The deadline is March 1st, but Julie will accept submission up to the 2nd week of April. The other two Perspective deadlines for submitting articles are July 1st and November 1st. The board had very positive comments on the new design and felt the Lesson Showcase page was an excellent addition. Julie requested that news releases and photographs related to YAM and Spring Conference be sent to her ASAP.
Student Chapter Chair, Amber Kosmicki, reported via email. Student NAEA/NATA members can join the national listserve at student-request@naealistserv.org. NAEA student chapter registry can be accessed at http://www.naea-reston.org/student_chapter_registry.html. All new and active Student Chapters should register once a year. The registration deadlines are October 15th and February 15th. If your chapter needs a national contact, connect with the Student Chapter Advisor Dr. Linda Willis Fisher at lmwfis@ilstu.edu or National Student Chapter President, Sarah Cress at sarahcressnaea@gmail.com. Amber was in hopes that NATA could put up student chapter links on our web site and also include Nebraska art education undergraduates on the NATA listserve. Jean stated that she could get UNL student address contacts for the NATA list serve.
Jean Detlefsen, Higher Education Chair, reported that she, John and Christy are in process of compiling a list of Universities/College who would be willing to host the annual Undergraduate Show. The galleries work under varied formats and the directors have changed at various sites. Christy will check with John Fronzak and Mark Hartman at UNK and Hastings College, Jean will contact UNL and UNO, and John Claybaugh will contact Wayne and Concordia and any other contacts he may have. We hope to organize a host list with a 3 to 5 year rotation set up.
Kathy Lemmerman, K-12 Division Representative, reported that the Kansas City Art Institute has an excellent program for art educators. You can contact her for more information at clemmerm@esu10.org.
ESU Representatives: ESU 3 -Jane Kathol, ESU 4- Deb Kubik, ESU 9- Gladys Wassinger, ESU 11- Donna Binderup, ESU 15- Deb Goodenberger, ESU18- Nancy Childs, and ESU 19- Mary Gradoville shared their reports. Exciting art making workshops, YAM celebrations and advocacy activities abound across the state. To read more, check out the NATA web site. Some ESU events will be featured in the next edition of the Perspective.
Awards/nominations chair report was presented for Jeff Stern by Phil Herrmann. We need to make sure that all award nominations include all contact information. It was suggested to include the email or phone information of the nominator, so that Jeff can contact them incase some of the nominee contact information is incorrect or incomplete. Nomination forms are handed out at fall conference and are also available on the NATA web site. To encourage more nominations, the President Elect will send out reminders through email to all our ESU representatives to nominate teachers in their area. Christine will also send out reminders on the listserve.
Retired Art Teachers Representative, Sue Reiber is working to identify areas of involvement for retired art educators. She would like to focus on arts advocacy, legislative issues, research and compilation of statistics, promote the visual arts with local K-12 administrators, organize retired volunteers to assist in the classroom, and act in an advisory capacity to the NATA Board. Lucy and Sue could combine their efforts with advocacy and legislative efforts. Sue would welcome additional suggestion. Contact her at reibers@nctc.net.
Dr. Donna Alden from UNK is our newly appointed Minority Concerns Chair. Donna shared her job description ideas at Phil’s request. Her list focused on advocating respect and appreciation of diversity, promoting the understanding of unique art, cultural and ethnic heritages, promoting the development of culturally responsible and responsive art curricula, encouraging and supporting art educators in the acquisition of the attitudes, skills, and knowledge to teach about various cultures, promoting equity and understanding of diversity in the classroom, recruiting minorities into art education, providing support and encouragement to diverse faculty, administrators, students, and parents in schools from pre-K through universities, providing guidance when issues related to diversity manifest in the classroom, providing art education resource materials and educational strategies when possible, and promoting art education standards and policy statements for educational institutions, organizations, and policy makers. Donna would be please to work in tandem with Lucy (Advocacy Rep.). There was discussion to have a multicultural web posting on the NATA site.
In new business, Phil discussed nominations and voting procedures for the 2008 Officers. There was concern from the board that we only have one nominee for each executive post. Nominations were solicited at the 2007 Fall Board meeting and at the membership meeting at Fall Conference. To date, the nominees are: Sr. Margaret Proskovec for President Elect, Melissa Cleaver for Treasurer and Christy Kosmicki for Secretary. Deann Hanisch nominated Christine Brown as President Elect and Deb Kubik seconded. Phil will contact Christine to confirm that she accepts the nomination. (Christine had to leave the meeting early.) The board encourages more nominations to come forward. Nominations must be submitted to Phil, no later than March 31, 2008 at pherrman@esu9.org. Phil will need contact information for your nominee to confirm their acceptance. Ballots will be in the Spring Perspective.
2009 Fall Conference up-date was presented by Nancy Childs. October 3 & 4 are the dates set for the 2009 Fall Conference in Lincoln. Nancy Childs, Jean Detlefsen, and Karen Janovy are spearheading the event. They are currently looking at the Sheldon, Richards Hall and Teachers hall to be the site of the conference and they are investigating possible keynote speakers. Red Grooms and Maya Lin were two artists discussed. The membership is asked to email any keynote suggestions to Nancy at nchilds@lps.org. There will be an Art Educators Show accompanying the conference. There will be more discussion at the next board meeting if this will be a juried show or if the Art Educators Show will be juried bi-annually. NATA needs to have volunteer sites to host the Fall Conference in 2011 and 2012. Early scheduling aids the conference committee in planning and grant writing. Nancy’s committee will be sending Debbie Kippley fall conference information by February 2009 because SOS grant applications are due by March 1st. Debbie volunteered to write the grant again.
The Summer Board meeting has been set for Tuesday June 24th at UNK. Debbie Kippley and Donna Alden will coordinate to confirm the site and schedule. Board members will receive information in May. The executive board will need to meet earlier to complete the remainder Board Job Descriptions.
Discussion on Spring Conference was tabled due to the late hour.
Angie Fischer moved to adjourn and Deann Hanisch seconded. Motion carried.