Candidates for Office – 2022-2023

Candidate for Vice-President / President Elect

Leah Dean, PhD

Leah Dean’s first involvement with MAPOR was in 2018, when she presented a portion of her dissertation work. Since then, Leah has earned a BA in French Language and Literature from Transylvania University, a Master of Public and International Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh, and her PhD in Political Science from the University of Cincinnati. She has been a survey scientist with RTI International’s Survey Research Division since April 2020. Her expertise is in health surveys at the national level. She served as MAPOR’s Associate Conference Chair in 2021, where she assisted in the development and execution of the hybrid conference planning. Leah currently serves as the 2022 Conference Chair. Leah looks forward to the opportunity to help MAPOR continue to grow and evolve in its engagement with professionals and students.

Candidate for Associate Conference Chair

Jenny Marlar, PhD

Jenny Marlar has worked for Gallup since 2008 and is the Director of Survey Research. Her work focuses on methods for recruiting and retaining probability-based panels, address-based sampling methodologies, emerging technologies for data collection, and surveying hard-to-reach populations. She is a member of the AAPOR Standards Committee and the AAPOR Online Panel Taskforce and is excited about the opportunity to serve MAPOR. Jenny has an MS and PhD in Survey Research and Methodology from the University of Nebraska and attended her first MAPOR conference as a student in 2008. She remembers that first experience (and every MAPOR conference since) for its strong program of papers and speakers and for being friendly and welcoming. Prior to beginning her graduate studies in 2006, Jenny was an event planner and owned an event planning and decorating business. 

Candidate for Associate Conference Chair

Rebecca Powell, PhD

Rebecca J. Powell is a Research Survey Methodologist at RTI International. Rebecca joined MAPOR 10 years ago as a graduate student from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she earned a PhD in Survey Research and Methodology. Her main research focus is on improving survey response quality through visual design principles in self-administered questionnaires, and her work has been published in the Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology. Rebecca is a strong advocate of continuous education. As a certified RStudio tidyverse trainer, she has taught multiple courses on analysis of survey data in R for MAPOR and AAPOR. Rebecca joined the MAPOR Executive Council in 2021 and serves on the Online Learning Committee where she organizes opportunities for students and professionals to learn about best practices and new methods in survey research and analysis. She hopes to continue her work on the MAPOR Executive Council as Associate Conference Chair to further promote continuous education for all MAPOR members.

2022 Student Paper Competition

The Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research invites eligible students to enter the association’s MAPOR Fellows Student Paper Competition. Two winning papers, the Doris A. Graber Award in public opinion and the Allan L. McCutcheon Award in survey research methodology, will receive $500 and one free conference registration. The winning papers also will be accepted for presentation during a session at the May 2023 AAPOR conference. 

Eligibility

  • For the purposes of this competition, an eligible student is someone enrolled in a graduate or undergraduate program at the time of submission OR who received a graduate or undergraduate degree during the preceding academic year. A paper authored by more than one person is considered eligible only if all authors are students according to the above definition. Students need not be members of MAPOR. 
  • Students who have already won a MAPOR Student Paper Award are not eligible to submit as a sole or co-author. A student who has not won the award can submit in multiple years, but cannot submit the same paper multiple times (this would be unfair because all student paper competition entries are reviewed and provided with detailed comments by at least one MAPOR Fellow)
  • Papers submitted to this competition should be primarily students’ work, although student author(s) are encouraged to seek advice from a faculty mentor. This requirement does not preclude recognizing the faculty mentor as a co-author on a later paper that is based on or incorporates some of the work in the student paper. In most cases the student would be first author on such a later publication.

The topic of the paper must fall under one or both of MAPOR’s general areas of scholarship, which are (1) public opinion and (2) research methods in public opinion and survey research. When submitting, the author(s) must indicate the topic for which the paper should be considered. The papers need not be quantitative nor must they report data in order to qualify for consideration in this competition. Each student may be an author on only one paper submitted to the competition.

Procedure

1. Submit an abstract to the MAPOR conference at mapor.org. In addition to a title and abstract, you will be asked to provide the name, institutional affiliation, and email address for all authors. Students must provide the name and e-mail address of a faculty mentor when submitting their abstract. Abstracts can be submitted until 11:59pm CDT on Friday, August 12th, 2022. 

2. Students whose papers have been accepted for the 2021 conference can have their papers considered for MAPOR Fellows Student Paper Competition.  Here are the requirements:

  • Send full paper in Word format that follows all the instructions below to Allyson Holbrook (allyson@uic.edu) by 11:59pm CDT, Friday, October 7th, 2022.
  •  Remove all acknowledgments and other identifying information and run “Inspect” in Word to remove all authorship information that Word stores in the document.
  • Include a title page with title, abstract, and the word count (number of words of text including footnotes).
    • Maximum length is 6,500 words of text including footnotes.
  • Put the following at the end of the manuscript and do not include them in the word count:  tables, references, and appendices.
  • All papers must adhere to the AAPOR Code of Professional Ethics and Practice. Review the information about the AAPOR Code of Professional Ethics & Practices and make sure this information is included in the appropriate places in the manuscript. (Please pay particular attention to the disclosure elements in Section III.)
  • Include the following in the email that accompanies your submission: 
    • A subject line that says:  MAPOR Student Paper Competition-Student Name
    • A statement that your manuscript includes the information required by the AAPOR Code of Professional Ethics and Practices.
    • The names and email addresses of all authors.
    • The USPS address, phone number, and email address of the contact author.
    • The name and email address of the faculty mentor for the paper.
  • Identify a faculty mentor and ask them to do the following by Friday, October 7:
    • Review the submission to ensure it meets professional standards of readability, grammar, and so forth. This ensures that the reviewers can attend to the substance of the paper.
    • Review the submission to verify that it does not exceed the length limitation
  • The faculty mentor you identify will also be sent an email asking them to complete an online form which must be completed in order for a student to be eligible to win the competition. This form will ask them to:
    • The name of the student entering the competition who they have mentored.
    • Confirm that they have reviewed the submission to ensure that it meets professional standards and does not exceed length limitations.
    • Briefly describe the student’s role and contributions to the following aspects of the paper: (1) the formulation of the main research question or topic, (2) reviewing and synthesizing the literature, (3) gathering data, (4) analyzing the data, and (5) writing the paper.

A committee composed of MAPOR Fellows will judge all papers submitted to the competition. Winners will be announced at the Friday Awards Session.

AAPOR Code of Professional Ethics & Practices

All submissions must abide by the AAPOR Code of Professional Ethics & Practices. Manuscripts that make use of survey data must include, at minimum, the information below from Section III-A of the Code:

A…. [I]nclude the following items in any report of research results or make them available immediately upon release of that report.

1. Who sponsored the research study, who conducted it, and who funded it, including, to the extent known, all original funding sources.

2. The exact wording and presentation of questions and responses whose results are reported.

3. A definition of the population under study, its geographic location, and a description of the sampling frame used to identify this population. If the sampling frame was provided by a third party, the supplier shall be named. If no frame or list was utilized, this shall be indicated.

4. A description of the sample design, giving a clear indication of the method by which the respondents were selected (or self-selected) and recruited, along with any quotas or additional sample selection criteria applied within the survey instrument or post-fielding. The description of the sampling frame and sample design should include sufficient detail to determine whether the respondents were selected using probability or non-probability methods.

5. Sample sizes and a discussion of the precision of the findings, including estimates of sampling error for probability samples and a description of the variables used in any weighting or estimating procedures. The discussion of the precision of the findings should state whether or not the reported margins of sampling error or statistical analyses have been adjusted for the design effect due to clustering and weighting, if any.
6. Which results are based on parts of the sample, rather than on the total sample, and the size of such parts.

7. Method and dates of data collection.

All submissions must include the following:
8.
The response rate and details of its calculation (if response rate is not appropriate, the refusal rate). Accurate reporting of the response rate requires consulting the AAPOR Standard Definitions (aapor.org), to identify the appropriate response rate definition. If the AAPOR recommendations are not followed, authors should explain why a nonstandard approach was employed.

9. For models fitted to the data, the equations of the models should be presented, including the numerical values of the parameter estimates, the respective standard errors, and goodness-of-fit statistics for the model.
In addition, authors need to agree to make other specific information about the study available within 30 days of any request for such materials. This information is listed in Section III-B of the Code located at aapor.org/Standards-Ethics/AAPOR-Code-of-Ethics

MAPOR Council Public Meeting Minutes – January 2020

MAPOR EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MONTHLY MEETING AGENDA
January 24th, 2020
12:00 – 1:30 CST/1:00 pm – 2:30pm EST
Dial-in: 1-866-244-0944; passcode: 5175115#

MAPOR MOMENT of the MONTH: Our MAPOR Moment of the Month is for our new webmaster Ashley for learning WordPress and making the necessary 2020 updates. Thank you Ashley!
Attendees: Ned, Ipek, Kevin, Evgenia, Lindsey, Mary, Stephanie, Patrick, David, Ashley
Agenda:
I. Approve minutes (Ned)

(Request for Ned to attached previous meeting minutes when he sends monthly agenda)
Decision to defer minute approval to next month, when we will approve both December and January minutes

II. Membership Survey (Kevin)
a. Updates based on feedback
b. New instrument
c. Launch date

Decision to keep Q13 on overall satisfaction with conference. Add question on speed networking and formal interview options. Will remove reference to discussants. Make some other minor adjustments, based on feedback.

Plan is to make final changes next week, program, then send via Qualtrics. Kevin will send a test link, and requests that Council members run through and send feedback on bugs. Kevin will send Ned draft of invitation email to approve. Plan is to launch by 2nd week of February, which is just before our next monthly Exec Council meeting. Prenotification communication will be sent 2-3 days before survey. Kevin will send through CVent.

Concerning sample – should we send just to members or to everyone (“friends of MAPOR”)? Decision: send just to current and last-year MAPOR members.

Student survey (on topic of cost burden): have only 8 responses; different universities have different policies on how they do or don’t cover costs of attending conference. Intention of survey was to collect information to help us make decisions on distributing student travel grants. Responses will be summarized and shared with Council (Evgenia).

III. Treasurer’s Report (Kevin)
a. Updates
b. Membership list updates

Current bank account balances:
Checking: $27,578
Savings: $45,023

Accounts are pretty stable right now, no big change from last month/end of year figures. Two sponsors who have not yet paid; trying to track them down – but our surplus is still higher than we projected last year.

Kevin will update membership list and make sure it’s complete before sending the survey.

IV. 2020 Conference (Sara/David)
a. Conference theme
b. Speaker Updates
c. Call for Conference Participation and Student Paper Competition Announcements
d. Student Paper Competition Award Updates
e. Chromebook acquisition: when, what, how many?

Sara and David have not had a chance to connect (congrats again to Sara!); they will have a more substantial update for next month’s meeting.

Brief discussion on purchase of new Chromebooks for use during conference presentations. Patrick offered to help determine needs (5 machines; what specs?) and keep eye out for good deals.

V. Potential 2020 Mixers (Evgenia/Lindsay)
a. Potential cities and times of year
i. Should we consider a Chicago one (since a lot of us are here :))
b. Who is attending from MAPOR Council?

Lindsey asked for input from both Madison and Ann Arbor colleagues. Madison suggested to wait until summer, rather than this semester. Ann Arbor suggested to avoid various spring breaks, AASRO, etc. Neither location was able to identify concurrent conferences or other events on which to piggy-back. Still need more discussion on Ann Arbor timing – is April too close to Chicago event (see below)? Is there a benefit to holding during SRC’s Summer Institute session? Is waiting until September too late (consideration of deadline for 2020 conference abstract submission)?

In Chicago, AAPOR Council meeting is March 9-11… idea to have MAPOR mixer event on March 10. Ipek/Mary will check with Nora Cate, and Ned will check with Kevin regarding last location/arrangements.

Should we identify local universities/organizations that don’t currently participate in MAPOR and target them with mixer invitations? Suggestion to cover 1 drink and appetizers at each event.

VI. Past President (Ipek)

Initiative left over from last year is student awards – we have $$, so need to decide how much to spend. Ned and Ipek will create committee (Ned, Ipek, Kevin, Evgenia) to explore number of awards, dissemination, etc.

VII. Sponsorship (Allison/Mary)

What are possible targets for additional sponsors? Who has been in the mix for years? Who has never been in the mix? Ron L. or John S. may have started a spreadsheet to track this – Mary will pursue. What is our pitch to potential sponsors – what’s in it for them? More info will be shared at February meeting.

VIII. Communications (Justine)
a. Newsletters for 2020: February (Winter), May (Spring), October) Fall
b. Plan to solicit content for Winter newsletter in early Feb
c. What other communications in winter/spring?

Last year we had 3 newsletters. Justine will reach out to others to finalize content of February newsletter – can be heavily based on last winter’s.

Also thinking about social media releases – ex. March 10 mixer in Chicago.

IX. Website (Ashley/Patrick)
a. Updates
b. Conference presentations updated?
c. Ned will review for content and other changes we could make over year

Ashley completed initial updates. Ned will review and make further suggestions.

X. Webinars (Patrick)
a. Late Spring: Rebecca Powell?
b. Fall: AAPOR short course or other presenters?

(Patrick had to leave the meeting early. Ned will follow up for an update)

XI. AAPOR All Chapter Unofficial Event Updates (Ned)

Ned is on the committee to plan the AAPOR All Chapter event in Atlanta – rooftop party!

XII. Other business?

Committee Composition:

I. Conference (Sara, Dana, David)
II. Sponsorship (Allison, Mary)
III. Webinar (Patrick)
IV. Website (Ashley, Patrick)

MAPOR Council Public Meeting Minutes – December 2019

MAPOR EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MONTHLY MEETING NOTES
December 16, 2019
12:30 – 2:00 CST/1:30 pm – 3:00pm EST

MAPOR MOMENT of the MONTH: Our MAPOR Moment of the Month is for our outgoing council for a successful MAPOR 2019, with special thanks to our Conference Chair Dana Garbarski. MAPOR 2019 was an outstanding event characterized by professional execution and collaboration.

Attendees: Ned, Justine, Lindsey, Mary, Kevin, Sara, Patrick, Ipek, Alison, Dana, Genny, David

Agenda:
I. Welcome New Council Members: Introductions
a. Stephanie Chardoul, David Sterrett, Lindsey Witt-Swanson, Ed Ledek
i. Need to add to website
b. Welcome new Student Liaison Evgenia Kapououz!

New council members – please send photos to post to the website to Ned unless you would prefer we use photos you provided for the election.

II. Past President (Ipek)
a. Hotel Bill

The final hotel bill was $26,226.17. This was lower than previous years. Dana reviewed the bill and identified several areas where the bill was lower than usual. Kevin delivered the check and it has cashed.

III. 2019-2020 Council Transition (Ned/All)
a. Monthly meeting schedule
b. MAPOR Google Group; Google Drive; Website; and MAPORnet

Ned will reach out to new members and make sure they have access to the appropriate folders and files. Please reach out to Ned if you find you do not have access.

c. Committees/new roles/transition meetings
i. Conference (Sara, Dana, David)
ii. Sponsorship (Allison, Mary)
iii. Webinar (Patrick)
iv. Website (Ashley, Patrick)
v. Student Events (Evgenia)

Kevin will send a list of email addresses of early career and student members to Genni so that she can send an email and query about their expenses. Kevin will reach out to Genni to discuss revising questions and reaching out to those folks.

Grants/Awards Committee – We need to get together a group to begin considering how we are going to distribute funds in 2020. Ned, Ipek, Dana, and Kevin will start this out and will pull in others soon. Kevin presented a list of tasks during the in-person meeting and the business meeting during the conference. This information is contained in the slides from the business meeting.

Ned suggested a speed networking event during the next conference?

IV. 2019 Conference Debrief (Dana/All)
a. All expenses paid/conference hotel receipt?
b. Thank you notes to sponsors/any unpaid invoice?
c. Conference overview
d. Business meeting items

The only remaining outstanding cost for 2019 finances is to cover the cost of the video editing of Barbara’s presentation. The video is being edited now and the costs will be finalized before the next council meeting.

There is only one outstanding invoice for sponsors. Alison and Kevin will follow up with that group. In previous emails, the sponsorship chair has sent an email asking sponsors for feedback and thanking them for their support.

Hotel gave us a 10% discount on the final bill. They forgot to give us a projector for the keynote and for this and other oversights they decided to reduce the bill. They did not include all of the costs for the desserts we added during the conference, we weren’t sure if that was intentional or not.

Having more breakout sessions was very helpful. It was unfortunate that the air temperature could not be better adjusted in the rooms which had been broken in half. We should consider this next year as it doesn’t seem possible to regulate the temperature in those rooms to comfortable levels.

We talked about purchasing Chromebooks or other simple laptops that we could usde instead of having to borrow laptops from RTI or another organization. Ned and Ipek should think about how much they want to spend for these. Patrick believes that a good estimate of cost would be around $250 per unit. We should have a group review what type of models we should purchase. It would be nice to be able to have laptops purchased at the same time so that they can be updated at the same time.

Dana will upload the latest documents from the conference onto the drive. She will work with the website group to make sure the slides or other digital materials are uploaded and available. Dana will work with Ned to make sure the appropriate communications go out to MAPOR members letting them know when these are available.

V. 2020 Conference (Sara/David)
a. Conference support committee
b. Other items

Member spoke with Sara about volunteering for support on the conference. She will include her in meetings about the conference going forward. Dana and Patrick will also continue on the conference support team for 2020.

Sara will be in out January because of her soon to be delivered baby! : )

We need to start thinking about a theme but Sara has a tentative theme of, “Why Representation Matters”. She is going to be very intentional about thinking about speakers in line with this theme. She will think about getting communications out about this soon.

VI. Member Survey (Kevin)
a. Plan to launch early February
b. Next steps

Kevin will make the first review the survey and distribute to EC members for feedback. Conference chair and President should pay particular attention to the survey and consider what they would like to edit, add, or delete. We should be mindful about only including survey questions where we have a plan for the data, otherwise we just include length and increase burden to the survey.

Ned suggests asking Ed if he can assist with this process.

VII. Treasurer’s Report (Kevin)
a. Updates
b. Membership list updates

Checking: $28,094.65
Savings: $45,022.44

Kevin will close the books on the 2019 budget at the end of the year. As of now we have a surplus of approximately $8,200.

Kevin will work to compile the member list for 2020. After this is complete we can send the member survey.

VIII. 2020 Mixers (Ned)
a. What should we do?
i. Events in Ann Arbor, Madison (or elsewhere)

  1. Coincident with other events

What are conferences or events that occur in these cities where we would consider having a social event? It is nice when we can try to have an event where we would invite other who are not MAPOR members so that we can try to recruit them to membership.

IX. Communications (Justine)

Social media was great during the conference this year and we had a special emphasis on sponsors.

X. Website (Ashley)
a. Updates
b. Ability to upload conference presentations
Ned to update the new EC members for the website. Ned will reach out to Ashley to get those updated.

XI. Webinars (Patrick)
a. Plan for 2020
We had a late spring and fall webinars last year. Ideally we would continue this is 2020. Target for April and October. Patrick is going to reach out to Rebecca Powell about having a webinar on using R. She presented at a previous AAPOR conference and her talk could probably be reduced down to a MAPOR webinar.

We may think about recruiting important and significant speakers during the AAPOR conference. Can we recruit more persons and plan for more than two conferences per year?

Kevin will look into if AAPOR speakers are able to share their presentations with other groups? He will review the agreement between AAPOR and their webinar presenters. We want to be sure we are not asking them to do something they have agreed not to do.

XII. Other business?

MAPOR Council Public Meeting Minutes – November 2019

MAPOR EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MONTHLY MEETING AGENDA
November 18, 2019
12:00 – 1:30 CST/1:00 pm – 2: 30pm EST


MAPOR MOMENT of the MONTH: Our MAPOR Moment of the Month recognizes 2018 – 2019 Executive Council members. Thank you all for your hard work! It has been a pleasure serving with you.


Attendees: Ipek, Kevin, Ashley, Mary, Mandy, Josh, Sara, Dana, Justine, Patrick, Ron, Colleen, Allison, Ned.

Agenda:
2019 Conference (Dana)
Registration (238 as of 11/18; most likely will break last year’s record)
Follow-up emails to first time attendees, early career, and students. Colleen will follow-up with students about these events. Ipek and Ned will follow-up with the others.


Add more to continental breakfast? note people who stay at hotel get breakfast. We have a larger group for the short course so may need to increase this to accommodate the increase.


Program addendum: printed or posted? We will print addendums and put them on the registration tables.


Program + signs. Should be delivered within the next day or two.
Set-up logistics and support needs. We used WhatsApp in the past and we will use it again this year. Kevin and Patrick will show with the equipment and MAPOR materials around 3. Kevin will send a WhatsApp text when they arrive so folks can help bring up the materials. Dana and Colleen will do the walk through around 2:30.


Friday lunch counts and event orders. 98 for lunch.


Tables for networking events: review so we are taking the lead at a table. We have assigned a few tables and we will place people where we need them the day of the conference.


Sponsor tables. We have 5 tables confirmed. We will remove the 6th table.
Counting attendees at each session. Can we have moderators report if the conference session was well attended or not attended? This may be a better way to collect this data than trying to make actual head counts. Sara and Dana will develop a form for moderators to capture this info.


Point for next council to consider: early registration from participants to prevent last minute pulling out of the conference! Other organizations handle this in different ways. Dana can look into how this is done as ASA. We put this topic on the agenda for the next meeting with the new council.
Student engagement/events at the conference (Colleen) . Colleen has been in contact with student members about events. The new student liaison can assist Colleen during the conference.


Certificate for the student paper competition winner (Kevin). Kevin will pass this to John or Ipek.


Volunteers and table staffing (Kevin). Kevin has 2 students and 2 staff from his lab to help out. He may need other times for people to fill in briefly while he goes to lunch or goes to the bank to get Stephanie added to our account. Kevin will reach out via WhatsApp for assistance when it is needed.


Awards session (Ipek). Plaque is made, Ipek will bring it to conference. We are set for the keynote and the Awards ceremony.


AAPOR @ MAPOR (Ipek). AAPOR will have a table with registration. Adam Thocher will be at the conference and will be at the booth at some times throughout the conference. The AAPOR chapter and relations chair will be at the conference and will attend the business meeting for a brief presentation.

Member Meeting (Ipek)
Slide deck (Ipek, Ron, Ned, Dana, Kevin, Allison, Colleen)
Final slide section to Ipek by 2:00pm Saturday

Ipek will email the speakers to update their slides for the meeting.

2019 Council Lunch During the Conference (Ipek)
Cantina Laredo (508 N State St, Chicago, IL 60654)
November 23rd (Meet at lobby @ 11:45am)

Please RSVP with Ipek if you have not done so.

Council Contact During the Conference (Ipek/Ned)
Council Contact Document Hyperlink

Please update your name and number of the list. Ned will set up the WhatsApp group for this year. Expect an invite soon.

Communications (Justine)
Social media postings and pictures during the conference
Volunteers to assist
AAPOR 75th anniversary digital message request

We want to make sure we have an official presence on social media during the conference. Justine will be posting but needs assistance for others. Colleen and Mary will tweet out where they take part in the conference. Justine will meet with them to share access to the MAPOR Twitter account.

Sponsorship (Allison/Ron)

We are waiting for payments from 4 groups although they have all confirmed their sponsorship. Allison will follow-up with 1 more group.

MAPOR 2019 Election Updates (Ipek/Kevin)

Congratulations to our new council members!

Treasurer’s Report (Kevin)
Update
Member Survey

Checking: $55,149.33
Savings: $45,022.09

Current hotel cost estimates are lower than anticipated. Current estimates of year-end budget indicate a surplus of ~$4,000. This is primarily driven by increases in overall conference registration numbers, however unanticipated increases in the short course attendance and increased revenue from webinars also contributed to this surplus. Other expenses were lower: printing costs were lower, we only named one student paper award winner, and council meeting costs were less than anticipated.

Historically the member survey has gone out in December or January. However, last year the member survey went out shortly after the conference. Kevin was the lead on this as the Associate Secretary / Treasurer. Without an associate, I have not had the time to push this forward and take input from council on the survey. Kevin recommended putting the survey on the agenda for the next EC. Ron suggested that we get at-large members to assist with the survey in the future.

2019-2020 Council Transition (Ipek/Ned)
Meeting schedule
Updating Google Groups

Other Business?

The IT restrictions for RTI laptops have increased since last year. Patrick will have individual log-ins for each computer and will set these up on Thursday.

Sara can help with the recording of the pedagogy hours.

AAPOR anniversary messages. AAPOR has identified a platform by which members can identify as MAPOR members and provide anniversary messages or express gratitude for AAPOR. We will make a video during the MAPOR lunch.

Next Meeting: Member meeting Saturday, November 23 at 4:30 pm

MAPOR Council Public Meeting Minutes – October 2019

MAPOR EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MONTHLY MEETING MINUTES

October 21, 2019

12:00 – 1:30 CST/1:00 pm – 2: 30pm EST

Dial-in: 1-866-215-5503; Passcode: 9109781#

MAPOR MOMENT of the MONTH:  Our MAPOR Moment of the Month recognizes Dana and the conference committee for their diligent work on the annual MAPOR conference planning. Also, I would like to thank Patrick for his work on organizing the MAPOR webinars. 

A message from Kevin – “Big shout out to Patrick for hosting such a successful event.” 

Present: Ipek, Ned, Ron, Ashley, Dana, Justine, Allison, Josh, Sara, Patrick, Colleen

Agenda:

  1. 2019 Conference               (Dana)
    1. Registration (72 registrants to the conference as of 10/18/19 at 3pm)
      1. 59 general, 16 students; 33 for lunch so far
      2. 16 for short-course (room can do 35 in classroom style; could convert to theater style if get to close or go over); we expect another ten from Amerispeak at least
      3. Friday morning working group will recap February interviewers + interviewing workshop. The working group has 15 registrants so far
    2. Conference program
      1. Two papers have been withdrawn
        1. Still need chairs/discussants (Sara) and final images (Allison)
          1. Allison says will have EOD (Dynata and U of C SLAB)
            1. Dana will follow-up if necessary
          2. Waiting for info from Frank M. as well
    3. Hotel room block 
      1. Haven’t heard from Ranka recently. Ipek suggested Dana to call Ranka as she is more responsive via phone.
        1. As of 10/7 were on track
          1. Dana will follow-up with Ranka, Jeff, Anada
          2. May need to send email to registrants
    4. Budget/estimated costs
      1. Budget will be similar to last year with some small changes
    5. Student paper competition 
      1. Received additional paper from solicitation from Dana; 3 submissions in total
        1. Have reviews back from half of fellows at this point
        2. All appear to be substantive, and so may only give one award this year
    6. Sponsor tables and info
      1. We only have one firm “yes” so far
    7. Laptops + Book raffle donations + printer/signage 
      1. Won’t be doing book raffle this year, rather next year’s registration fees will be the raffle prices. 
      2. Dana will get signs printed at Kinko’s in advance of conference
      3. Patrick will provide laptops from RTI
        1. One will have HDMI for keynote; will test built-in webcam
        2. Could get better webcam if will be doing more streaming in the future
    8. Anything else? 
      1. Dana suggests going to lunch tables to lead conversations with people may not necessarily know, so that is a true “networking” lunch; will be a way to bring in new people
      2. Will have programs printed and delivered directly to NORC
      3. Sara is in need of two session chairs, and Ron, Allison have volunteered
  1. Student engagement/events at the conference             (Colleen)
    1. 16 students registered so far
      1. Ned, Ipek, or Dana will send note to early career people about Sara’s early-career panel as well as events that Colleen is planning
        1. Will likely have lunch at Quartino on the Saturday
        2. Happy hour was on Thursday at the Kerryman last year, with approximately 10 RSVP, 7 attendees
          1. Will open happy hour to “early career”
      2. Ipek will send an email about student activities at MAPOR and highlight free student lunch on Friday via MAPORNET and AAPORNet
  1. Other conference related updates   (Ipek)
    1. “In memoriam” session updates/plans
      1. Joe Murphy working with Tim Johnson on a tribute to John Loft
      2. Chuck Whitney (past president 1985-86) also passed during 2019 and Fellows also acknowledge this along with their tribute to George Bishop. 
    2. Fellow and student paper award announcements at Keynote
      1. Ipek will ask Nora Cate or John S. if they prefer presenting the award
      2. Ipek will share draft keynote agenda and her talk with Dana
      3. Ipek will order a plaque to be presented to the 2019 Fellow 
    3. AAPOR Booth and presentation at the conference
      1. AAPOR MCR chair Tamara Terry and Kellen staff Adam and Eric will be there with the booth; Tamara will present on AAPOR membership at business meeting    
  1. Sponsorship     (Allison/Ron)
  • Ron suggests acknowledging sponsors earlier in conference, based on feedback from Question Pro
  • Could have a “meet the sponsors” table at lunch
  • Ipek will thank the sponsors before the keynote
  • Justine and Allison will thank sponsors individually via social media, and tagging them

  1. Treasurer’s Report               (Ipek on behalf of Kevin)
    1. Budget updates
      1. Checking: $32,755.70 (increase due to conference registration, webinar)
      2. Savings: $45,021.71
  1. MAPOR equipment inventory 
    1. Kevin will create inventory list when back in town 
  2. Registration materials/name badges + ribbon for name tags
    1. Ipek will confirm with Kevin have enough tags, ribbons
  3. Ipek will confirm with Kevin to make sure we have a certificate for the student paper competition winner
  1. Communications                     (Justine)
    1. Plans on upcoming social media postings/communication w/ members
      1. Sponsor highlights
      2. Conference related updates
    2. Social media postings at the conference 
      1. Dana will follow-up with Justine re conference-related postings
  1. Succession Planning         (Ned)
    1. Ipek and Ned meeting this week to discuss plan for succession in appointed positions (Student Liaison, Webinar Coordinator, Sponsorship Coordinator etc.) as well as newly elected positions
  1. MAPOR 2019 Election Updates   (Ipek)
    1. Ipek and Kevin meeting soon to discuss programming and schedule
  1. AAPOR Chapter Party (MAPOR representation)         (Ipek/Ned)
    1. SAPOR organizing chapter party
    2. Ned and Ipek will talk offline about being representative
  1. Anything else?
    1. Recent webinar had 27 concurrent log-ins

MAPOR Council Public Meeting Minutes – September 2019 (in-person meeting)

MAPOR EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE IN-PERSON MEETING AGENDA

September 16, 2019

9:00am – 4:00pm (CST)/10:00am – 5:00pm (EST)

(Breakfast will be served at 8:30am CST)

Location: 

NORC’s Chicago Downtown Office 

55 East Monroe Street, 30th Floor

Chicago, IL 60603 

Arrival to NORC: Check in and badge

Upon entering the building, take the bank of elevators marked with NORC’s logo directly up to the 30th floor and sign-in with our receptionist. You will be required to sign the log book and show a valid government ID when checking in. You will be given a visitor badge to wear throughout the day. Please sign-out and return the visitor badge at the end of your visit.

Remote Dial-in Information:

Join the meeting via Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/5676267335 

        888 788 0099 US Toll-free

        877 853 5247 US Toll-free

Meeting ID: 567 626 7335#

Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/alX3E8aa3

Agenda: 

8:30 – 9:00am BREAKFAST

9:00 – 9:15am Welcome, Review of Agenda, and Meeting Goals (Ipek)

9:15 – 10:15am Secretary-Treasurer Updates (Kevin)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17EKguVKt6IU-s4n7sWIlHj8kMuTP6UGg/edit

MAPOR 2019 in-person meeting – 9/16/19

Secretary Treasurer agenda items

  • Overview of MAPOR finances (see slide)
    • Past expenses and revenues from 2011
    • Current and projections for 2019
  • Operating Reserves Policy
    • Established by 2019 Executive Council
      • 75% of MAPOR’s annual average expenses for the most recent three years.
      • Calculated by the Sec/T in December of each year
      • The 2019 ORP limit is $32,034 (Based on ~$62k in savings)
  • Operating Reserve – Annual Distribution limit
    • For 2020, I recommend we distribute $7,000 (see slide)
      • Based on a projected deficit for 2019 
      • Assumes we will again return a small surplus in years going forward
        • From 2015 and up (after the large deficit year, and after are established with the Embassy Suites) we have averaged a surplus of $4,700. My calculations average a $2,100 surplus
      • I am starting with a savings amount of $62,000. This was the amount in our accounts as of mid-December 2018, the time when we would be calculating the distribution limit going forward.
      • Based on forecasting, we could distribute this amount and be under the ORL for the next 4 years (assuming assumptions hold true) 
    • Recommendations
      • Council should commit to spending a specific amount each year
      • Secretary Treasurer calculates the Operating Reserves amount each December, from there S/T makes a recommendation for an amount to spend that is reasonably sustainable for the next three years
        • But reasonably sustainable, I mean that if this amount were distributed for the next 3 years, the reserves will still be above the limit as determined by the ORP
      • EC creates an ad-hoc position or committee to oversee the identification of winners and distribution of grants each year
        • I recommend that the dollar amount of the grants be stable. This ensures that students will know how much they would receive if they decide to apply so that they can calculate the benefit to them. I recommend that the number of students who receive it could change each year.
      • Grants Committee
        • Tasks:
          • Determine how much to distribute per grant
            • What are the average students costs for an MAPOR visit?
            • Hotel, food, registration, short course?
            • Transportation, other?
          • Determine how people will be eligible and win – What is the process?
            • Essay?
            • Do they need to present something at the conference?
            • Who will read and make the final determinations – committee
            • All students in student status in Fall, or can they be graduates from the past year or some other reasonable timeframe? Essentially making it a student / early career grant?
          • Some type of hardship grant? MAPOR Colleague Grant (get rid of the stigma)
            • Maybe only 1 or 2 a year? 
            • Open to any members who can convey inability to pay 
            • By valuing diversity we should open up the ability to attend MAPOR to anyone who is unable to do so
          • Create notifications, deadlines
            • Emails describing the grant or scholarship
            • Deadline for submission, deadline for notifications. 
          • Tax considerations? 
            • Is this a necessary consideration?
            • I don’t know how this works, but we need to be aware of it. How do other organizations handle tax dealings with grants? 

(As secretary treasurer, I would recommend that the administrative burden for EC is reduced as much as possible. For example, I would not recommend a system where we reimburse students by asking them to provide receipts. This is a significant drain on resources and time.)

(I would also recommend that we distribute uniform amounts. If people are being paid differentially, people may want to game the system, and we don’t want to deal with that. It also changes the number of people you give grants to, complicating the process further.)

  • Cvent “Onsite premium”
    • Event in a box
      • Ipads, printer, scanner, and print materials are shipped to the site
      • Tech support available for set up
      • 4 minutes to set up – “Plug and play”
    • Functionality
      • Allows for streamlined means to handle registration and sign-in on-site, the badging of attendees, and real-time tracking of check-in process
      • Allows for a conference mobile app for attendees to navigate the conference
        • Paperless program someday?
    • Annual cost of software and rentals
      • Current annual fee for Cvent is $1,300 (Our contract is for $1,000 for 200 persons and we pay a per-person amount for beyond 200 registrants.).
      • An additional ~$2,300 per year.
        • $985 for the rentals
        • ~$1,200-1,500 for the software licensing
    • Pros
      • Significant time burden reduced for Sec Treas. 
      • Dramatically improves the professional look of our sign-in
      • Using an app would reduce cost for printing the program
      • Sign-in and registration on-site is greatly streamlined
        • Tracking of people who have arrived
        • Up to date check-in and costs
    • Cons:
      • It ain’t cheap.
      • I believe it needs a hardline to the internet – not sure if we can get that from the hotel
  • Payment services
    • Currently we use three services (see slide)
      • Cvent
      • iPayment
      • Authorize.net
    • Average cost of current deductions is approximately 11%
      • Kevin called Cvent and negotiated a “rates and fees review”
      • I expect reductions to drop down to about 6%
    • Cvent services is supposedly flat fee of 3.95% from all transactions
      • No monthly fee
      • No annual fee
      • They do ‘hold’ funds for the month vs. immediate transfer to our account

10:15 – 10:30am BREAK

10:30 – 10:45am Council and Fellow Nominations and Election Updates (Ipek)

Ipek has finalized the slate and nominations have now been accepted. Ipek will work with Kevin to send communications about the slate in the next few days. 

The fellow has been selected based on the input from Executive Council. 

10:45 – 11:00am Sponsorship Updates (Allison)

Sponsorship has reduced slightly this year. We had one sponsor drop from gold to silver. Allison is working other contacts for new sponsors. Council will assist with additional personal contacts where we might reach out for new sponsorship opportunities. 

Allison has questions about the tables at the conference and the requirements for artwork and advertisements for the program. Artwork should be submitted by October 1st. 

Kevin will check up on the code for sponsors. 

Allison will reach out to Josh to get the logos updated for the website. 

Allison and Ron will meet to discuss the specific events and which sponsors will be credited for sponsoring. 

Slides: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1s7Aq_4I3NRexS5CLOjrOi8qaidcJiwb_

11:00 – 11:10am Communication Updates (Justine)

  • Plans on upcoming social media postings/communication w/ members
  • Communications schedule/chart
  • Next newsletter content and due dates

Justine and Ipek put together a condensed time frame that details regular communications from MAPOR. It seems that 3 newsletters a year seems like a good mix. It aligns well with content in relation to when the conference takes place. 

If we want to promote webinars, we might consider having a mini-newsletter to promote it. Perhaps sometime in the spring? Alternatively could be sent after the AAPOR conference. 

Current schedule is not conducive to real-time information – job postings, job fairs, etc. This information is more conducive to be sent via social media. 

Could we add a section about ‘member updates’? Staff transitions, promotions, etc. We would need to actively solicit that information from members. 

Presidential addresses need only be included when there is substantial information to convey. Justine’s calendar allows us to have a more structured newsletter schedule, as well as an understanding about targets for content. 

Should we consider a different communication medium? Instagram? Instagram also allows to push out simultaneously with Facebook. We would need to think about what the content would be sent on this platform- obviously it needs to visual only. 

Succession planning for MAPOR communications position. We need to think about how we could enact this. A year of transition would be helpful now that communications coordinator has become a more involved position. 

October 1st is the target date to send out the next newsletter. 

11:10 – 11:20am Webinar Updates (Patrick)

October 9th is the next webinar. Info will go out to AAPORnet next week. Patrick has recruited a new speaker for the spring webinar. He will work with communications to set the date and publicize this when need be next year. 

11:20 – 11:30am Succession Planning (Ipek/Colleen)

Colleen has two potential candidates who may be interested in the student coordinator role. Both are from Michigan and have two years remaining in their program. Colleen will follow up with connections at Nebraska to see if they have interested students. Ipek will reach out to contacts at UIC as well. 

Ipek will aggregate the list of nominees and ask council to rank them. Ned will take over some of the oversight for this because the next coordinator will be on his tenure’s council. 

11:30am – 12:00pm Guidelines on “in memoriam” sessions/events/activities (All)

Two MAPOR fellows passed away this year and we would like to think about guidelines for how we can designate a time to honor their contributions in the future. 

We would like to make a space available for people to be able to memorialize those who have passed. Depaul can be made available from 2:30 (during the refreshment break) through 4:15. The time covers the refreshment break so that people who are presenting in the last session can have time to join if need be. The room could be available for the entire time of the session for those to speak about past members. The time and room will be in the program as “In Memoriam”. This will allow anyone who wishes to honor past members, a designated space and time for this process. 

Ron moves that we designate a space and a time at the conference every year for members to be able to commemorate members who have passed away in the previous year. 

Mary seconds the motion. 

Council votes unanimously to adopt the measure. 

No abstentions.

The motion is passed. 

12:00 – 1:00pm LUNCH

1:00 – 2:30pm 2019 Annual MAPOR Conference (Dana)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/170fxPS0p9G1s9ff_29WssZBzSnE1n3UdUbkCWtUgyKk/edit?usp=sharing

Mary suggests that we should be very thoughtful about when we decide to have discussants or not. They should be selected so that they add value to the session. They should have some special insight concerning the content.

We will also revisit the guidelines for discussants.  We would like to draw attention to the revised guidelines and make sure potential discussants are aware that we are ‘raising the bar’ for the obligations of discussant. We will assign chairs for all sessions, and we will hand pick potential discussants.  

Dana will reach out to the hotel and ask for an estimated budget for the conference. 

Networking lunch: 

We will again have “The Grand” for the lunch option. 

We will probably use savings to pay for students lunch during the network luncheon. This will most likely result in more student attendees at the lunch hour. When reporting to the hotel, we will determine how many people pre-register for lunch and then add ten additional spots for late attendees who register at the conference. 

Sponsor registration – Kevin will begin to program the conference registration page and get the code for sponsors.

Kevin to check on links for conference registration and give links to Dana. 

We need to add a question in the conference registration to ask about early career (within 5 years post terminal degree graduation) or student status. 

Dana will reach out to students who submitted papers to give them a heads up about the conference. We want to do this in order to keep students in the know. She will send a general message about student lunch and other student events. 

Student paper award submissions have been made. They have been sent to John Stevenson although he is currently on vacation. 

Network luncheon. We will have the table topics at the registration table, and try to inform students and early career people about what the topics will be. We would like to keep it informal rather than having people sign up for specific topics. 

2:30 – 2:45pm BREAK

2:45 – 3:45pm 2019 Annual MAPOR Conference Working Session (Dana)

3:45 – 4:00pm Other topics/Closing

4:00pm Adjourn 

Codes for registration:

Sponsr19

Speaker19 (lunch included)

We get three room nights comped. 

Speakers book their own hotels, they don’t have to pay. But they provide their credit card numbers for incidentals. 

The hotel let’s us know when we have to pay for the rooms of the speaker. 

MAPOR Council Public Meeting Minutes – August 2019

MAPOR EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MONTHLY MEETING Notes
August 19, 2019

Attendees: Kevin, Ipek, Ron, Ned, Justine, Dana, Patrick, Josh, Colleen, Sara, Mary, Ashley, Mandy

Agenda:
2019 Conference (Dana)
Abstract acceptance status notifications
Abstract review and conference program
Student paper competition
MAPOR annual conference fees
Anything else?

Abstract notification sent this weekend. 3 rejected, 105 accepted. 13 posters. There may be one methodological brief session. TBD. The conference committee will make final determinations soon.

Dana expects that the length will give each speaker 12 minutes per session – we will have speakers for sessions with less papers. Dana feels like the sections we have now are sensible and group well together. We may end up moving a few around, we will discuss during the in-person meeting next month.

The student paper competition notices have been sent. These are due next month and Dana is in contact with those students to be sure they are ready for the paper deadlines.

Fees – Conference fees last year were $125 general, $100 for early bird. Students $75 or $50 for early bird. Short course $50. $40 network lunch, $15 lunch for students. Ipek feels that unless something drastic occurs we should keep costs flat. Ned – AAPOR has tried to keep conference flees flat as well. Kevin feels that in general our costs will be flat and therefore we do not need to increase fees. The only additional costs for this year will be for the MAPOR banners and tablecloth that needed to be purchased for the new logo. We will have costs for an in-person meeting this year as well, although the costs for this year will be lower than many in-person meetings as a majority of EC members are already in Chicago.

Dana has tried to balance sessions but we have the ability to use 5 rooms concurrently this year. There is only one room that we will block for a session because we need time to turn over the room after the short-course. This was based on a request from members to have a classroom style layout for the room for the short-course.

Email from MAPOR Fellows regarding an “in memoriam” session at the annual conference (All)
(See attached)

Two fellows have passed away this year. Both were very active and significant MAPOR members. Fellows have asked to have a time to recognize John Loft and George Bishop during our conference.
Council suggested a few ideas that might work, given that it is already too late to add another session to the conference. Coffee break? Poster as memorial to members who have passed?

We don’t want to have one person overshadowed by others who are memorialized. The issue council is facing is trying to be consistent with memorializing members.

Council agrees that for this year, having a space available during the coffee break will allow members to talk about past members. It is also important that any type of memorial should be voluntary – that all members should not be required to attend – for example if we had it during the keynote or other all-member event.

Going forward, we will have an ‘in memoriam’ session that is blocked every year for members to be able to speak about past colleagues. We know there are many past MAPOR members who pass away every year, this gives all members the opportunity to speak about any person in the field who passed away. MAPOR is an organization of members, it is not composed of just past MAPOR presidents or fellows.

Ipek will reach out to fellows and let them know of these decisions. We will need to dedicate a little more time to finalizing the logistics of this. More discussion at in-person meeting for guidelines.

Treasurer’s Report (Kevin)
Budget updates
Getting back the MAPOR banner from AAPOR
CVENT “Onsite Premium” software
Transitioning the management of collecting funds from our third party vendors to CVENT (one-stop shop)

Checking: $24,370
Savings: $45,021

Checking has gone up because we are bringing in money from Sponsorship.

Kevin sent another reminder email to Yvonne about the banner. Received an out-of-office email saying she will return this Wednesday.

Kevin went to a demonstration of CVENT’s “Onsite Premium” software at McCormick place last week. The software offers an integrated way for the Secretary Treasurer to handle the registration, sign-in, and badging of conference attendees. Software also includes the ability to have a conference application and would allow us to ultimately remove a paper conference program. The software is very sharp and reduces burden for the Sec/Treas. Although it comes at a price. The cost would be an additional $2,300 per year. Our current cost for CVENT is about $1,300 annually (Our contract is for $1,000 for 200 persons and we pay a per-person amount for beyond 200 registrants.). It is possible that we could use this software for one year and then not re-use for the next to see how it goes. We can postpone this decision until after the in-person meeting. Kevin will provide a pros and cons at the next meeting and we will make a decision at that time.

Transitioning of payment services to CVENT. CVENT could handle the processing of our payments so that we could eliminate the need to use iPayment and authorize.net. However, Kevin has run preliminary calculations and it seems that continuing with what we have is the least expensive method. Kevin will utilize the figures sent to him from CVENT and determine what is most cost effective. The decision to go forward with this change should be driven by one question – would the new method (using CVENT’s Payment Services vs iPayment and authorize.net in conjunction with CVENT) be less expensive for us overall?

Communications (Justine)
Plans on upcoming social media postings/communication w/ members
Next newsletter content and due dates

Justine and Ipek will meet soon to discuss what we want to put out in upcoming communications to members. Justine is putting together scheduled communications that convey information on the conference. If Council has any other information they would like to convey, please speak with Justine.

Ipek suggests putting together something to publicize benefits to sponsors.

Sponsorship (Allison)

Allison requested that EC members think about any other leads for sponsorship and send those to her. She is working on the current sponsors and following up with them. Ron is going to put out some information to other listservs to see if we can recruit any other sponsors.

Executive Council Face-to-Face Meeting (Ipek)
Date & Time: September 16, 2019 (Monday), 9:00am to 3:00pm
Location: NORC’s downtown office (55 East Monroe Street, Chicago, IL 60603)
Travel Plans and RSVPs

Ipek will send out an email with logistics and an agenda soon. Follow-up with Ipek if you have any suggestions for agenda items.

Webinar Plans (Ipek/Patrick)

Patrick following up with NORC folks to have a data visualization webinar in October. It looks like this is going to happen.

Patrick has another lead, Rebecca Powell, about a webinar in R. Patrick will talk with her about conducting this in the spring of 2020. This was fall to the next webinar coordinator.

Ned asks what Patrick feels is the optimal number of webinars per year. Patrick believes that 2 webinars a year seems like a reasonable amount.

Patrick is rotating off the council in the fall and we will need to think about who might be the next in line to be the webinar coordinator. (In the past, MAPOR council has offered this to persons who were in ‘at large’ council member positions.)

Election and Executive Council Input on Nominations (Ipek)
Call for nominations will go out soon to members
Potential Council and Fellow Candidates List from past years and the nominations so far from this year. Please include your nominations (if any): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_qeEYjY2nqwVzMFohy7LCPU598xdnNhFL6DTbMrniXg/edit#gid=1

The current list is available on the Google drive if any members want to nominate others for positions. Ipek will send the communication to Kevin about a call for nominations from members. This will go out this week or next.

MAPOR Council Public Meeting Minutes – July 2019

MAPOR EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MONTHLY MEETING NOTES

July 12, 2019

11:00 am – 12:00pm CST/12:00 pm – 1: 00pm EST

Attendees: Kevin, Ipek, Dana, Ned, Justine, Colleen, Ron, Patrick, Mary, Ashley

Agenda:                                                                            

  1. 2019 Conference                                                                                                                                             (Dana)
  1. Abstract submission updates
  • Abstract Review – Next Steps
  • Student Paper Competition
  • Anything else?

We have 125 submissions for the conference. On July 1st, we had 108, so the extension pulled in a few more. Dana is reviewing abstracts and putting them into topical areas. The process is somewhat easier as we asked people to classify themselves during the submission process.  She is about 95% through the process. Rejection rate is very low; so far only 2 possible rejections based on content that didn’t seem to fit. When she has what she believes the sessions to be, she will pass it on to the conference committee for a second review within the next few days. She will call on council for assistance if any issues come up. She believes she can give people feedback about acceptance before August 15.  She is taking input from the survey about whether to make more sessions or add methods briefs. Final decisions about this will be made in the next few weeks.

Student paper competition – Dana has been in touch with Nora Kate about this process.

  1. Treasurer’s Report                                                                                                                                         (Kevin)
  1. Budget updates
    1. Checking: $18,258
    1. Saving: $45,021
  • b.       Getting back MAPOR items from AAPOR
    • Kevin and Ipek have both reached out to AAPOR about this. Waiting for their response.
  • PCI Compliance
    • Kevin submitted compliance paperwork last month. We are good until 2020.

We briefly discussed the need for PCI compliance. PCI compliance refers to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). The PCI DSS is a set of security standards designed to ensure that all companies that accept, process, store or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment. MAPOR doesn’t collect this information directly, rather we use third party vendors to collect credit card information when we collect money for dues, webinars, and our conference. To comply with the standard, we essentially provide the compliance organization with the information concerning our payment vendors, and they ensure that those groups are compliant. This is one of the primary reasons we purchase the services of these vendors – so that they maintain a secure environment and we don’t have to deal with it.

We also briefly discussed whether we wanted to drop those other vendors – iPayment and AuthorizeNet – as Cvent now offers an integrated platform whereby they would collect credit card information for us. It is not clear how much we would save by this change, as the contract terms with Cvent will need to be renegotiated. It seems like it would make sense to only use one vendor (rather than the current three) although Kevin would prefer to do this in December or January, when we wouldn’t need to use the new system for the first time when we are ramping up for our conference. Both Jolene (previous sec/treas) and Kevin (current sec/treas) feel we should make the switch to simplify the process, we just need to commit to the (minor?) headache of making the change and adjusting to a new system. The reason we have not yet done so is because the new system is working, and we hesitate to make changes when the system currently functions. In other words, although it is complicated, it isn’t broken, so let’s not try to fix it.

  1. Communications                                                                                                                                          (Justine)
  1. Plans on upcoming social media postings/communication w/ members
  • Next newsletter

The Spring newsletter went out and Justine also sent materials concerning the conference abstract submission process. She plans to send a summer newsletter. Please reach out to Justine about any content you want to push for this newsletter. Justine continues to put out short engagement information on social media to “keep eyes on our account”.

Ipek suggests pushing other chapter events vis social media (specifically via Twitter) as another means of keeping folks engaged with our account.

Dana will work with Justine to send materials to be sent in segments concerning the hotel and other conference information.

  1. Sponsorship                                                                                                                                                    (Allison)

Allison will be sending materials out to our regular sponsors. If people have leads on new sponsors, please reach out to her. Allison and Ron will be sending out materials to listservs to fish for new vendors. Council will think of new potential vendors that we might reach out to.

  • MAPOR Reserves Policy Next Steps                                                                                                             (Ron)

Ron moved the adopted reserves policy document onto the drive. The next step is for EC to consider how much and how we will distribute.

Concerning how to distribute – There is overwhelming support that we should implement some type of grant program for students, although we need to continue to have discussions about how best to do so. This could be by covering student costs for hotels, or covering hotels of students in the paper competition, or it could be general travel grants for students.

Concerning how much to distribute – During the in-person meeting in September, Kevin will present a few potential scenarios for distributing grant money that is sustainable over the long-term. He suggests that we implement something where we know how much we can spend for the next 3-4 years, and we know that we can sustain that level of giving for a few years. There are a few factors that would drive the amount of money we could allot for grants.

  • How many students applied for the paper competition this year?
  • How many students regularly attend the conference?

Knowing these numbers will give us an idea about how much we might offer. Kevin would prefer to give a fixed pot of money out each year, and we would make the determination about how mush to distribute based on the number of students or applicants we expect to have. Dana will put together the number of students so we can calculate a cost per person.

It is not certain that we can do something long-term that we could implement this year. We do not want to implement something this year and then change up next year; it would probably be best if we establish a system, and then stick with it for a few years. If done this way, it would work best as an incentive to students that would could present at MAPOR this year. However, EC is open to ideas for getting funds out to support students this year.

For whatever we decide – for this year or the long term, we need to continue the conversation so we are ready to go for next year. Please continue to think of ideas about grants and how best we can incentivize more students to take part in MAPOR.

  • Executive Council Face-to-Face Meeting                                                                                                    (Ipek)
  1. Date & Time: September 16, 2019 (Monday), 9:00am to 3:00pm
  • Location: NORC’s downtown office (55 East Monroe Street, Chicago, IL 60603)
  • Travel Plans and MAPOR Reimbursement

How does the 9-3 time work for those who will attend?

Ipek will send an email about whether or not people will attend. Please respond so that we can set expectations about the cost of the meeting.

  • Executive Council Input on Nominations and Fellows                                                                            (Ipek)
  1. Call for nominations will go out mid-August to members and fellows

Please add your nominations to the Google calendar. After EC has named potential candidates, we will call for nominations to the membership.

  • Anything else? 

Next meeting: August 19 (Monday) @ Noon CT/1:00 ET                                                                                

MAPOR Council Public Meeting Minutes – June 2019

June 17, 2019

Attendees: Kevin, Ipek, Ned, Ron, Allison, Colleen, Josh, Dana, Patrick, Sara,

Agenda:                                                                            

  1. 2019 Conference                                                                                                                                             (Dana)
  1. Abstract submission updates
  • Announcement(s)
  • Student Paper Competition
  • Meeting w/ the hotel
  • Anything else?

Ned and Dana met with folks at Embassy Suites. Meeting went well and they appreciated touching base with the staff. They mentioned to them a few changes they wanted to implement.

11 submissions to the site so far. The number of submissions is comparable to previous years. We know that most of the submissions come close to the deadline. Postings have been going out on AAPORnet and our social media. Next announcement will be the newsletter which will go out soon. We may extend the deadline if it doesn’t affect our ability to conduct the abstract review.

Conference committee will meet soon and have a few more agenda items for our next meeting.

  1. Treasurer’s Report                                                                                                                                         (Kevin)
  1. Budget updates
  • b.       Getting back MAPOR items from AAPOR

Checking: $18,306.66

Savings: $45,020.23

Kevin gave his card to Adam Thocher and asked to have the items sent to him at the UChicago Survey Lab. No items have yet arrived. Kevin will reach out to Adam to see if the items have been sent.

  1. Communications                                                                                                                                          (Justine)
  1. June Newsletter
  • Plans on upcoming social media postings
  • MAPOR Vision and Mission (Website update, Announcements to membership)

Justine has a few more social media posts to go out in the next few weeks advocating for conference submissions. If anyone has other suggestions for social media posts please reach out to Justine.

Justine will unpin the AAPOR posts and change them to posts concerning the conference.

The spring newsletter is ready in draft form and she will circulate to EC to review. ETA to go out this week. Please review and send feedback to Justine.

Need to finalize a plan to distribute MAPOR vision and mission. This will be coming out in the newsletter, Ipek and Justine will discuss rolling this out on the website. Ipek would like to have some discussion in the newsletter about the process of how the vision/mission statement was created so members don’t feel like it came from nowhere. Justine and Mandy will work to include this.

  1. Sponsorship                                                                                                                                                    (Allison)

Allison will reach out to Ron to set up a time to meet and discuss the plan to reach out to our sponsors. This timeframe was about the time they started reaching out to sponsors last year.

  • MAPOR Reserves Policy                                                                                                                                   (Ron)

Ron, Kevin, and Mary drafted a policy for EC to review. They recommend keeping the amount for operational reserves to be somewhere between a full year of our average operating costs, or half of a full year of operating costs. The “average” would be the average operating costs from the most recent 3 past years. (For 2019, the average annual operating costs from the last 3 years is $42,712.)

Patrick wants to make sure that any amount we ultimately spend takes into consideration being able to spend funds going into the next several years. We wouldn’t want to spend all of the remaining funds after this year, and then not be able to sustain that level of spending going into future years.

Kevin notes that this policy only creates an amount that will not be spent during the fiscal year, it does not make a recommendation about how much of the remaining amount should be spent. the group of Mary, Ron, and Kevin agreed that the designation of what to spend should be determined through a separate policy. Ipek plans to discuss this in more detail with EC during the in-person meeting in September. 

Ron proposed that we change the policy to reflect that we should maintain ¾ of the average three-year operating costs to the operational reserves.

Ned seconded the motion.

Council voted majority to approve the motion.

There were no objections or abstentions.

The motion is accepted.

  • Executive Council Face-to-Face Meeting                                                                                                    (Ipek)

Ipek spoke with several EC members about having an in-person meeting and she feels a majority of the EC see value in conducting the meeting this year. Ipek will send a Doodle poll to EC about a date in September for the in-person meeting.

  • Executive Council Input on Nominations and Fellows                                                                            (Ipek)

Please add your input for nominations for EC. Should we implement the voting in Cvent or another platform? Ipek will set up a meeting for Ron, Ipek, and Kevin to discuss how we will roll out the elections. We should select the option that is easiest to implement while maintaining the security of members’ votes.

  • Next Meeting: July 15 @ Noon CST/1:00 EST                                                                                            (Ipek)
  1. Do we need to reschedule due to the ESRA Conference?

Ned and Ipek will send out a Doodle to determine the best day and time to move the meeting. Ipek will be out for two weeks, so Ned will need to chair the meeting.

  1. Anything else?                                                                                                              

Kevin received notification about re-certifying MAPOR’s PCI Certification. Ipek will an this as an agenda item for next month’s meeting and Kevin will give an update on progress.