04/27/2010

Celebrating CSCA in Cincinnati!

 Celebrating CSCA in Cincinnati! 

Greetings! 

First and foremost, I'd like to thank the 760+ people who participated in our 2010 conference in Cincinnati!! Under the leadership of Steve Hunt, our primary program planner, and his team of superb interest group and caucus unit planners, conference attendees enjoyed enlightening and engaging sessions as well as great occasions for socializing. Truly, this conference offered something for everyone, and I applaud the rich and diverse panels throughout the program. 

I had the tremendous privilege of serving as CSCA President this year, and I continue to be deeply honored by and grateful for this opportunity. Even though I have now moved into the role of Immediate Past-President, as I mentioned at the various unit business meetings throughout the conference, I remain in your service on the CSCA Executive Committee until CSCA-2011, and I invite you to contact me with any suggestions, questions, or concerns during the coming year. 

Along those lines, during my visits to unit business meetings, I received some excellent input from members, and, to follow up on those conversations, I want to take a moment to share the following information with all of our membership. 

Interest Group/Caucus Listserves and/or Others Materials on the Website

More than one interest group raised the question of adding interest group listserves to our CSCA website so that members can interact with each other more easily throughout the year. We certainly want to foster such interactions, and I am grateful for this suggestion. After discussing this matter with the Executive Committee and our webmaster, we would like to accomplish this goal in the following manner: Although we do not currently have the necessarily web resources to add and supervise listserves directly on our website, we would like to encourage units to create free listserves on Google or Yahoo and/or to perhaps create a Facebook group. We will then promote those listserves to members by adding a link to them on our CSCA website and by sending e-bulletins to alert members. If your interest group currently has (or decides to develop) such a listserve or Facebook group, please contact Kathie Cesa, our webmaster, at csca@kocmemberservices.com, and we will take steps to publicize it on the CSCA website. Additionally, if interest groups would like to post links to newsletters, blogs, etc. on the website, please just contact Kathie as well, and we can easily add those links under the interest group section.  Please be sure to include Nancy Brule, CSCA Executive Director, csca.nbrule@gmail.com, in any requests you make. 

Best Practices Resources

One of the units asked if CSCA had any information about "best practices" in terms of ideal class sizes for communication courses, in general, and/or standards for (or examples of) online courses. The members of that group noted that it would be valuable to obtain such information so that they could present it to administrators as support for desires to keep performance class sizes at a manageable size and to develop effective online courses. The members of the CSCA Executive Committee certainly agree! Although CSCA does not currently possess such data-based information, I will be contacting NCA to explore possible links to materials that might be available. Additionally, if you know of any research that has been conducted in these areas (or related ones), please contact me! We want to facilitate access to such valuable information. 

Conference Child Care/Family Outings

The issue of child care came up at a number of the interest group meetings. Although CSCA is not in a position to formally offer child care at our conferences, we do want to help our members who travel with their children to our annual meetings. We will work with our local hosts to identify child care options and to make them available to our members well in advance of the conference. Additionally, we will strive to publicize family-friendly attractions in the area of our conference hotel. A few members mentioned the desire for a CSCA-sponsored family outing which could be offered in a manner similar to other trips that CSCA has offered throughout the years. (For example, in 2010, members registered to visit the Creation Museum during the conference, and, in 2009, members registered for and toured the Anheuser-Busch Brewery on the pre-conference day.) We are certainly open to this possibility! If you would be interested in proposing such an outing in Milwaukee, please contact Scott Myers, smyers@mail.wvu.edu, CSCA First Vice-President and 2011 Primary Program Planner, and he can discuss logistical and other planning details with you. 

Once again, thank you very much for the opportunity to serve the Central States Communication Association! Please just let me know if you have additional suggestions or questions, and I'll be happy to help in any way that I can. 

Hope that you enjoy a terrific end of the school year/beginning of summer! Start thinking about those ideas for CSCA-2011 now. 

Christie 

Dr. Christina S. Beck
CSCA Immediate Past-President