2009 Summer Board Meeting
Henzlik Hall at UNL, Lincoln, NE
March 6, 2009
Jean Detlefsen, hostess
Members in attendance: Emily Adams, Donna Alden, Donna Arnett, Christine Brown, Amber Buhrman, Nancy Childs, John Clabaugh, Jean Detlefsen, Angie Fischer, Mary Gradoville, Karen Janovy, DeAnn Hanisch, Phil Herrmann, Sheila Hubbard, Debbie Kippley, Carole Meyer, Amber Kosmicki, Christy Kosmicki, Deb Kubik, Lucy McHugh, Margaret Proskovec, Bob Reeker, Sue Reiber, Julie Ryan, and Gladys Wassinger. The meeting was called to order and introductions were given by President, Debbie Kippley. Fall 2008 Board minutes were approved via internet within two weeks after the Fall Board Meeting. Christy Kosmicki thanked the board for their prompt response. She urges all board members to accept or amend the minutes so that they can be submitted to the Perspective and website ASAP. The Treasurer’s Report was given by Emily Adams. The current balance of checking and Waddell & Reed accounts is $32,943.03. Total income to date is $4,100.85. Total expenditures to date were $5,197.03. The NATA web site server, Art Educator Show, and Undergraduate Show may affect the proposed budget for the July report, so Emily needs these additions or changes by the end of May. Fall Conference 2008 Report was presented by co-chair, Deb Kubik. Accounts receivable totaled $15,615 which includes $3,000 in seed money. Total expenditures equaled $8,843.60. The current balance in the conference checking account is $6,771.40. Deb’s report included a detailed ledger of income and expenditures which reflected transactions related to the conference and the current bank balance. The account will be closed and the balance sent to Emily, treasurer. Deb will present the final Fall Conference 2008 report at the next board meeting after the bank account is closed. Total number of conference participants was 100. Deb suggested that a conference brochure be posted on the web site and the keynote speaker always be issued a 1099Tax Form. Fall Conference 2009 Report was presented by Nancy Childs, Karen Janovy & Jean Detlefsen, co-chairs. Form by Four: A Sense of Order and Growth is set for October 2-3 in Lincoln. Conference participants will work with four outstanding artists: Patrick Dougherty, Catherine Ferguson, Robert Hillestad & Michael James. The University of Nebraska- Lincoln, Richards Hall, Sheldon Museum of Art and the International Quilt Study Center & Museum will serve as host sites. The Joslyn Art Museum will supply financial support for Dougherty and Ferguson as a contribution to NATA. We still need support for the other two artists. Debbie volunteered to write the NAC grant and needs specific information for the grant, which Nancy will supply as soon as possible. YAM/NSVAC was presented by Amber Buhrman & Angie Fischer. On the positive side, the Dept. of Education supplied a temp to catalog all of the entries and organized all of the information. We received the same amount of entries for YAM as last year and the Congressional Art Caucus entries increased, especially in District 2. The Congressmen from District 3 and 2 are very happy with the CAC selection process and want NATA to continue choosing the winners. The negative side was that site management and communication was often confusing because this was our first attempt to combine CAC entries with NSVAC. Amber’s recommendations included: 1. CAC should become a permanent part of NSVAC; and 2. YAM should concentrate on elementary artists. Next year the Dept. of Education will only be able to reserve 2 display boards, because the rest have already been pre-booked by another organization. Suggestions for the YAM/CAC/NSVAC committee to consider: 1. Look into putting the whole YAM exhibit back into the capitol. (Nancy Childs volunteered to talk to Bill Ripley on this possibility.); 2. CAC winners could simply be selected from the Gold medal winners; and 3. CAC winners could still be recognized both at NSVAC in Omaha and at the YAM celebration at the capitol. Amber submitted her resignation as the YAM chair and the Board extended a huge thank you to her for outstanding leadership and insight. Debbie is asking for volunteers to come forward to serve as YAM chair and will appoint someone by the summer board meeting. Angie reported that NSVAC received a total of 1858 entries; 1,598 high school entries, 29 portfolios (26 art and 3 photography), and 224 middle school entries. For the exhibition, 455 high school and 133 middle school pieces were selected. The February 28th awards ceremony was well attended and most schools had their art teacher present, a total of 550, medals to their students. The following link contains the complete e-portfolio for each Middle and High School that was honored: http://ops.digication.com/2009nebraskastatevisualartcompetition/Welcome/.Spring Conference report was given by Jean Detlefsen. At pre-registration, there were 32 participants and 12 student members from UNL, Wayne & UNK. Karen Janovy explained that Dr. J. Daniel Veneciano, new director will speak on the new Sheldon acquisitions, specifically African American masters. Dr. John Raible, Professor of Diversity & Curriculum Studies will presenter on Bi-racial family settings. Debbie and her delegation from Malawi and The Great Plains Gallery will host the break-out sessions. The luncheon will be organized to facilitate division meetings: elementary, secondary, higher ed., and students. The board extended a huge thanks to Jean for once again, providing an excellent Spring Conference. There was still discussion concerning the practicality of a Spring Conference due to the small attendance. Most thought that the spring schedule was very busy and dubbed the culprit ‘March Madness’. It was suggested that our Division and ESU Reps should gather information from their constituents regarding the needs, expectations, or suggestions concerning a spring conference. When the Undergraduate Show is reinstated, it was suggested that Spring Conference could travel with this exhibition. The board tabled this issue to be addressed and finalized at the summer meeting.Regarding NAEA News, Bob Reeker recapped current national news. National Conference will be in Minneapolis, with 30 Nebraska educators attending. The Nebraska Party will be Sunday night after Western Region Awards. Contact Debbie or Nancy for details. The Nat’l Board is revamping; focusing on building relationships. They are writing position statements on educators, students & relationships and on curriculum & assessment. Baltimore will host the 2010 convention, Seattle in 2011 and Denver, Dallas or Fort Worth is slated for 2012 (options are still being weighed). Bob suggested that everyone visit the new NAEA web site and demonstrated the easy accessibility and highlighted the plethora of pertinent information. Bob also developed an interactive communications forum called NING for world-wide discussion & networking opportunities for the Elementary Division. Over 90 educators have joined. Bob has also created a NING for NATA to replace the blog; Christine will send out the information on this interactive tool. The board applauded the change and Bob’s work. Donna Arnett reported that our current membership is196 members which she most likely attributes to our ListServ. Donna will be retiring at the end of this year; therefore NATA will need a volunteer for Membership Chair. The board thanked her for her many years of outstanding service to NATA. Communications Director, Christine Brown, reported that we have over 900 members registered on our ListServ. Christine presented the board with its first NATA Directory 2008-09 in hardcopy and on CD ROM. The salmon color represents every school in NE; purple are all of the art educators in NE; green sheets are higher ed., retired, museum ed, and student pre-service art educators; yellow is organized by ESU areas; and the separate white sheet shows the CD ROM content. This will be a vital resource. Christine asks that any corrections or additions be sent to her ASAP. Julie Ryan, Newsletter Editor, distributed contact information and asked the board to update the material. The March 1st deadline for the Spring Perspective article submissions has been extended to Mar. 21st. Student Chapter Representative, Amber Kosmicki, reported that she was excited that so many students had registered for Spring Conference. She will be leading a fact-finding session to see how NATA can better meet the needs of the student membership. Exhibits Chair, Christy Kosmicki, reported that 10 college/universities replied to the Higher Education Survey pertaining to reinstating the annual Undergraduate Show: College of Saint Mary, Hasting College, Hastings CCC, Northeast Community, Southeast Community, UNK, UNL, UNO, Wayne and Wesleyan. She will meet at two sites, March 6th during Spring conference luncheon and on March 27th at MONA in Kearney. Christy will send the board and all college/university representatives and art chairman the results of these meetings. Committee & Division Reports were emailed by Nancy Childs, DeAnn Hanisch, Christy Kosmicki, Mary Gradoville, Deb Kubik & Jeanine Mohr. Thank you for getting your reports sent. Debbie reported that Christine Newton from Bennington has been appointed the new ESU #3 Representative. Sue Reiber, Retired Teachers Rep, reported that there are 13 NATA members. Their goals are to promote: 1. arts advocacy, 2. classroom assistance, and 3. research & compile statistics to reinforce the positive results of visual arts education. Sue is currently conferring with NAC and Nebraskans for the Arts to identify arts advocacy activities that retired committee members can promote. Debbie reported on Legislature news. She is planning a meeting with the new Commissioner at the Dept. of Education and drafting a position paper to reinstate the Fine Arts position. Debbie discussed the options for a host site for the NATA web site. She explained that Music Educators (NMEA) website was hosted at UNL, but when they wanted to have more features like online registrations, they could not use the UNL server. They have gone with a Lincoln provider called Virtual Creations which costs $10.00 per month. Phil made a motion that $10.00 per month was reasonable and that we should allow Debbie to move our site to Virtual Creations. After further discussion, Phil withdrew his motion. Jean Detlefsen amended the motion to: The board should appoint a committee of our computer-savvy members including Debbie, Carole, Christine, Bob & Julie to weigh all our options before moving forward with choosing a server. John Clabaugh seconded. Motion carried.Debbie reported for Jeff Stern, Awards Chair. Jeff has sent out the letters to the award nominees for 2009. We have a diverse slate of nominees with excellent credentials. Debbie discussed the importance of adopting a set of rubrics to be used for NATA Awards selection. Margaret suggested that the board should ask for volunteers to serve on an AdHoc committee.The following volunteered: Margaret, Bob, John & Jean. Bob will steer the committee. A job description for Awards Chairman was approved last October and will be shared with Jeff Stern so that the position duties/expectations are clarified. The Summer Board Meeting needs to be scheduled after June 30th, which is the date NATA ends the fiscal year. Donna Alden volunteered to host this meeting in Kearney on Wednesday, July 1st. Western Region Conference is slated for June 25-28. Debbie will distribute specific information at a later date. Debbie adjourned the meeting.