[Usittne] meeting minutes 4_1_10

[Crystal Tiala]

Dear members,
Below are the NE section meeting minutes from the USITT meeting at Kansas City.  I took the liberty of including the email addresses of those of you who are likely not on our listserve yet.  If you want to continue receiving email updates via our USITTNE listserve, go to http://www.usittne.org/USITTNEList.html  for directions on how to subscribe to our listserve. 
Sorry to those of you who experience duplications because you are on the listserve. 
Be well and thank you for a great meeting. 
Crystal


USITT NE meeting minutes
April 1, 2010  
 
In attendance:
Crystal Tiala, Andre Schiff, Ruth Conrad-Proulx, Jessica Cloutier, Arther Dirks, Mark Johnson, Mike Katz, Russ Swift, Joe Donovan, William Beautyman, Deborah Brothers, Jeff Roudabush, Keith Cornelius, Mark Constable, Laura Cabo, Merrilyn Jones Taylor, Lee Taylor, Ste en Gross, Cosmos Catalano, Michael Giannitti, Mary Pfister, John Forbes, Elinor Parker, Michael Franklin-White, Dan Bilodeau
 
1. 
Term limits for the chair have been approved. (A term is currently defined in our Bylaws as 2 years.)   We will need to add the following to our bylaws.
“The Chair of the New England Section cannot serve more than 2 consecutive terms but may return to be chair after a break of a single term.”
 
 
2. 
Mike Katz and John Forbes will continue working on updating the USITT NE website.  They will request specific funds from the Chair to hire a person to work on this website. This request will be made by April 30th.  
 
3.  
Jeff Roudabush will begin posting on the USITT NE  Facebook page to see to make the dialog more active.  We should pursue dialogues here concerning any issues we encounter in work and any workshops we may be creating.  It should work as a news feed.  
 
4.  
Addressing the concern that the current economic conditions are creating serious cuts in arts programming and academic departments, we are going to take the following action:
-  Crystal Tiala will be starting a blog to open the dialogue world-wide on why the arts and performance are crucially important to ourselves, our education and our humanity.   We will link this blog to the facebook and website and hope that everyone joins in the dialogue.
- Joe Donovan will send out specific information on how we can help send the message to the University of Maine that cutting the theater degree program is not a solution to their budget crisis.  
 
5.  
Many of us are addressing the assessment questions our administrations are asking us to conduct about the growth of our students.  These assessments come in many forms.  Crystal Tiala intends to continue the dialogue of how many of us have already or how we may go forward with assessments in the future.   She can compile a list of some the best ideas that people send to her. 
 
6. 
New business:
New management for USITT:
The issue was raised that the management of USITT seems to be changing and no one has been told how these changes are actually happening and how they will affect all of us.  They are requesting that the Chair find out specific information and ask that these changes become more transparent.  The members seem to be quite concerned.   
 
Complaints about the conference. 
Some members expressed a lot of displeasure about the conference because it (1) has been held on holidays and (2) that there is a lack of programming because of the 50th anniversary and many don’t like this change and (3) that the conference would be better for producing organizations if it happened about 3 or 4 weeks earlier so they could recruit employees more effectively. 
 
Voting for Chair and Vice-Chair:
We voted for the Chair and Vice-Chair nominations as a combined vote since each position only had one candidate nominated. 
There were 2 absentee votes for both candidates. 
At the meeting there were 24 votes in favor and 1 opposed. 
So please welcome our new officers who will serve until the March meeting in 2012. 
Chair: Joe Donovan
Vice-Chair:  Dan Bilodeau  
 
A group photo was taken.
 
The meeting was adjourned.  
 
 
Your former Chair,
Crystal Tiala
J
 
 

Crystal Tiala
tiala at mindspring.com
EarthLink Revolves Around You.
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