From the President

As I prepare my final president’s letter for the year, I thought it might be helpful to provide a perspective on what EACUBO’s goals and objectives were for the 2003-2004 year, and then give a sense of the accomplishments we have reached. Of course there is much more information available on all of these, through the website, prior issues of the newsletter, and in the Annual Report information prepared by each committee, but this overview gives a general sense of the areas of progress for the year, and the challenges that lie ahead!

As a brief reminder, EACUBO’s Mission is “to promote effective and ethical business and financial administration in colleges and universities in the Eastern Region, in support of the instructional, research, and public service missions of higher education.” The specific goals and objectives identified for this year follow, with accomplishments noted.

 
2003-2004 Goals & Objectives
 

Goal 1: Provide the membership with timely, relevant, high quality professional development opportunities.

Objective #1: Provide the necessary resources and support to allow committee activities to align effectively with EACUBO goals and objectives, by building on existing structures (such as the Board liaisons, and the ongoing support work provided to APCs), and creating new tools to advance this goal, such as continuing to expand the Committee Chair transition process.

Accomplishments: in addition to continuing to support committee chairs as they pass on information to the following year’s chair, the EACUBO web-site has been dramatically enhanced, now providing easy access to the Operations Manual, the capacity to post minutes of all Committee meetings for access by interested parties, and the ability for all EACUBO participants to update their own contact information, so that committee lists are current, and members are easily reached. Board Liaisons continued to work with their individual Committee assignments, so that information was passed more smoothly, and committees had somewhere to go with questions.

Objective #2: Support the role of the Programming Council to further the professional development objectives of EACUBO. Continue to identify appropriate topics of professional development to be presented at local, regional and national levels and duplicate, coordinate and schedule appropriately for our membership. Coordinate offerings, when possible, with NACUBO activities.

Accomplishments: the APC committee continued to work on providing satellite-broadcast programming each spring, so that local APCs could structure their spring meeting around a high-profile speaker available to all via satellite downlink. By working with the ACUBO initiative, EACUBO now has access to a web-broadcast software product, and available funds for providing professional support to any group or committee that wishes to use the tool for professional development programming. Also through the ACUBO initiative, a marketing survey was completed for all four regions and NACUBO, providing much additional information on what PD offerings are most valuable to members. And it included a survey of non-members, in order to better understand ways in which we could meet the needs of those who do not currently participate with us.

Objective #3: Continue to enhance the use of technology to further the professional development and other objectives of EACUBO, including through the website, the HedE job postings, and the use of MRA’s iPlan, as well as the new distance learning tool being developed as an ACUBO initiative.

Accomplishments: as noted above, the website enhancement has made enormous strides, and the distance learning web-broadcast tool is now available via ACUBO. The HEdE job posting area on the EACUBO website now has a sponsoring entity, so that the cost of posting jobs has been able to be reduced significantly, and the number of posting has significant increased. iPlan continues to be an important tool for the Annual Meeting and Annual Workshop committees, and we are actively working with MRA on providing additional manual/help information for new users.

Goal II: Maintain an active membership that reflects diversity in the size and type of institution in our region.

Objective #1: Provide guidance on committee memberships and recruitment so that volunteers reflect the membership base and increase their effectiveness to the organization, and support the work of individual committees to provide services to their constituents, such as the Large Institution Committee’s hot topics, the Small College listserv, the Member Services mentoring project, etc.

Accomplishments: The Committee appointments process this year included a large number of volunteers, and allowed for committees to be appropriately staffed with the mix of members that would best serve that Committee’s needs. We have also started a review of the Operations Manual indications of committee size in order to ensure that each committee is sized to accomplish its goals, particularly as we enhance the support available through services such as MRA and Conferon.

Goal III: Promote communication, coordination and cooperation among members, regions and with NACUBO.

Objective #1: Support the orientation process for new Board members and committee leadership to increase their effectiveness and ensure greater alignment with EACUBO objectives, as well as providing written guidance to committee members, chairs, etc.

Accomplishments: The Board orientation process continues to evolve, as well as the engagement of chairs and vice chairs throughout the year at the board retreats, and through committee conference calls, etc.

Goal IV: Ensure that EACUBO’s organizational structure and financial resources are adequate to fulfill our mission.

Objective #1: Continue to match resource allocation to the EACUBO goals and objectives to ensure the attainment of desired outcomes.

Accomplishments: The work with the ACUBO initiative in the marketing survey that has been completed, and the work on the curriculum development front that will shortly begin, both ensure that we have a robust understanding of members’ needs, so that we can use our resources to best advantage.

It has been an honor and a pleasure to serve as the EACUBO President this year. I hope to see all of you at the Annual Meeting, and I thank in particular Terry Sampson, the immediate Past President, and Yoke San Reynolds and Don Aungst, the incoming President and First Vice President, respectively, for all of their help and support throughout this year. And thank you to each of you for providing the interest and support and volunteer initiative that makes EACUBO possible!