Annual Business Meeting Minutes, October 21, 2005, Orlando, Florida

Mission
Strategic Priorities
Partnerships
Governance
International
Our History

Hanson announced the new Board officers for 2006. They are Chair, Robyn Render; Vice Chair, John Bucher; Secretary, Jeffery Noyes; and Treasurer, Ellen Waite-Franzen.

Reports

Nomination and Election Committee Report - Susan Foster

The charge of the committee is to develop a slate of four candidates. The committee evaluated 57 candidates, using vision and leadership as the most important criteria, and then considering gender, ethnicity, and type of institution. The percentage of members voting was 30.6%. Lucinda Lea and Marilyn McMillan were elected to the EDUCAUSE Board and will serve four-year terms beginning January 1, 2006.

Treasurer's Report - John Bucher

EDUCAUSE continues to operate in a fiscally sound manner, while providing quality service and programs for its membership. The operating costs are in line with the annual budget and there are ample reserves.

The association received an unqualified auditor's report with no audit findings related to its grants or other operations for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2004.

EDUCAUSE is in good financial condition. The association has seen its reserves grow during the year and they are in good shape. Investments have done well through the years. The reserves are strong enough so that the Board approved a motion at its August meeting that would allow for a draw down on reserves of between 5% and 7% each year to be used for Strategic Initiatives. This is a positive move, as it will add additional services for the membership without providing additional risk to the financial well being of the association.

At its last meeting on Monday, the Board approved the proposed budget for the 2006 fiscal year along with the 2006 Program Plan.

The annual conference, concluding today, provides a substantial amount of the annual revenue and appears to be a programmatic and financial success again this year. Registered attendees of the conference exceed 7,000, an all-time high in the history of the association.

President's Report - Brian L. Hawkins

Brian Hawkins was unable to be at the meeting. Chair Perry Hanson delivered the report Hawkins had prepared.

Hawkins apologized for not being at the meeting in person.

The past year has been an active one for EDUCAUSE, with the organization 

  1. meeting member needs well,
  2. gaining increasing respect in the higher education community,
  3. operating soundly from a financial perspective, and
  4. offering a variety of new and improved programs. 
    • The annual Member Satisfaction Survey indicated the highest level of satisfaction in the history of the association, with improved ratings on every one of the thirteen dimensions.
    • Surveys of the leaders of key higher education associations, and other entities with whom we work to evaluate their perceptions of EDUCAUSE in serving the higher education community, were also the highest in history, and this increases our credibility and ability to be effective in our policy and other Washington, DC activities.  The details are available on the "balanced scorecard" section of the EDUCAUSE Website.
    • Membership in EDUCAUSE is currently running 3.2% up from last year, making this the seventh consecutive year of increased membership.  It might be of interest, to note that membership has increased by 46% since the merger.
    • EDUCAUSE is very sound financially. This strong and stable footing positions us to take on new initiatives and to weather economic fluctuations, while keeping dues increases low.
    • The EDUCAUSE Core Data Service is increasingly successful, with more than 900 campuses participating this year.  This success will be enhanced significantly next year with the ability to incorporate the wonderful work of Dave Smallen and Karen Leach, and the COSTS study into the Core Data Service, effective in January.
    • We had a successful transition from NLII to ELI and growth in our work in the area of teaching and learning.We made significant progress with the EDUCAUSE E-content initiative, with the addition of Blogs, podcasts, and other efforts.
    • The success of our regional conference program continues, as evidenced in part by attendance being up 24% over 2004, as well as higher conference evaluations.
    • The new Security Professional Conference was up 39%, and the terrific work of the Security Task Force continues to provide a valuable resource to the community.
    • The Frye Institute had its highest evaluations in its history in 2005, and I am pleased to let you know that it will continue for at least one more year, and we are working on a longer term strategy with several foundations.
    • You all should be aware that billing for .edu domains will begin in January, as EDUCAUSE has been subsidizing this for several years now.  It will be a minor charge of $40 per year to recover costs, so that we can invest in other programs.

This past Monday, the EDUCAUSE Board met and approved the Program Plan for 2006.  This plan adds four new initiatives to the already extensive set of offerings provided.  These four new initiatives include:

  • Expand IT Summits to Provide Thought Leadership
  • Further Expand the EDUCAUSE Content Initiative
  • Create the EDUCAUSE Toolkit
  • Develop the EDUCAUSE Identity Management Initiative

The Vice Presidents of EDUCAUSE will in turn update you on our professional development, research, policy, advanced networking and teaching and learning programs and services.

Vice President Cynthia Golden

This year's highlights:

  • The regional conference strategy continues to be successful. Five regional conferences served over 1,600 people, and our affiliation with NERCOMP serves the New England area. Data continue to show that the regional conferences are reaching an audience that typically does not attend annual EDUCAUSE meetings.
  • Launched a series of one day seminars – this year's topics covered security, management and educating the net generation.
  • Launched the EDUCAUSE podcasting initiative, featuring content from special topic, regional and annual conferences, as well as individual interviews.
  • Launched the EDUCAUSE blog service.
  • Inaugurated an Instructional Technology Leadership program under the auspices of the EDUCAUSE Institutes.

Next year:

  • We will hold a conference targeted at administrative and enterprise computing professionals in May of 2006 in Chicago.
  • We will continue work on the EDUCAUSE content initiative through additional web functionality
  • We will launch the EDUCAUSE tool kit project, which will bring existing and new applied content to the membership.
  • EDUCAUSE will continue its thought leadership initiatives by holding at least two "Summits" – gatherings of leaders from within and outside of higher education to address our key challenges and future directions.  Results of these one or two day events will be synthesized and disseminated via multiple channels include traditional print and web publications, blogs, podcasts, white papers, conference presentations, web seminars, etc.  Topics will be determined by the EDUCAUSE executive team with input from a multitude of constituents.

Vice President Richard Katz

ECAR

  • ECAR membership has grown to 360 members.
  • ECAR has formed partnerships with the Burton Group, NSSE, and the Council of Independent Colleges.
  • ECAR achieved a financial breakeven status last year and will produce a surplus in the current year of operations.
  • Next year, in additions to producing reports and studies, ECAR will be forming the ECAR Academy in conjunction with NERCOMP and will be creating the ECAR Almanac.

Corporate Relations

  • This has been a record year of corporate support. However, we are experiencing the vendor consolidation phenomenon. In addition, many corporations are shifting away from sponsorship of event activities and to thought leadership initiatives. Consequently, this class of sponsorships at E2005 was down 35% this year, despite a generally very positive year in corporate participation.

EDUCAUSE Internationally

  • We continue to be viewed as a leader world-wide in technology and instructional technology.
  • We have worked with the scientific committees of numerous international conferences on information technology.  EDUCAUSE executives and members have been keynote speakers in both Europe and Australasia.
  • We are devising strategies to step up international efforts.

Vice President Mark Luker

  • The EDUCAUSE identity management initiative is at aimed at reducing the cost and complexity to our members of implementing identity management on an institutional basis. Substantial discounts for identity management tools are available through Verisign and Geotrust.
  • HEBCA, the Higher Education Bridge Certification Authority, is almost in production and will verify identity credentials institution to institution, and institution to governmental agencies.
  • The Net@EDU working groups have been very busy. It appears that CALEA will require a large investment on each campus, though actual requirements are still not known.
  • The Net@EDU annual member meeting will be in Tempe, AZ on February 6 and 7. Glen Rickart will be one of the keynote speakers.
  • The Computer Network and Security Task Force has been very productive. Luker suggested looking at their Web site for a summary of their activities.
  • The NSF Middleware Initiative is in its final year of funding.
  • The policy program has been busy active with respect to Telecom Reform and CALEA. EDUCAUSE has assumed the leadership of two different coalitions, one for Telecom Reform and the other for CALEA. We are working with the leading presidential associations in this effort. EDUCAUSE has also been named the chair of the Higher Education Information Technology Alliance.

Vice President Diana Oblinger

  • Based on a strategic plan, the NLII was recreated as the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) in May, 2005. The mission, focus, services, and have been updated to reflect the current challenges in higher education teaching and learning. .
  • ELI released EDUCAUSE's first e-book (Educating the Net Generation) which has been very well received. Electronic distribution made it possible to reach more readers than with a print publication, particularly internationally.
  • ELI's most popular new product is a publication series entitled Seven Things You Should Know About… These two-page briefs describe new learning technologies in a no-jargon fashion. The Seven Things briefs have been consistently in the top 10 of EDUCAUSE publications since inception.
  • Innovations & Implementations is another new publication created by ELI. These are brief case studies that illustrate innovative practices in teaching and learning.
  • ELI launched a series of white papers; the first series of three white papers was on e-portfolios.
  • To explore emerging topics, ELI has created Explorations. Explorations begins with a thought-provoking paper, followed by an interactive dialog with members using a wiki. The first topic in the series is Visual Literacy.
  • ELI launched a series of Web seminars similar to EDUCAUSE Live, but designed for the ELI audience.
  • The ELI annual meeting has grown to over 300 people in attendance.
  • ELI also offers one and one-half day focus sessions on specific topics. Those have grown from sessions of 60 to sessions of 100. Each focus session has sold out progressively earlier even though the number of seats available has grown.
  • Web traffic on the ELI site has grown by 50% each month since July.
  • ELI has explored a number of alternative media, such as podcasts, blogs, wikis, vlogs, and so on. Some of these alternative media (e.g., e-book and podcasts) have reached a greater number of international users than was previously possible.
  • Next year, ELI will focus on increasing its membership.

New Business - Perry Hanson

Hanson recognized the talents of the EDUCAUSE vice presidents.

Meeting Adjourned at 8:00 a.m.