As the 2018 – 2019 academic year came to a close, AMTE’s Board of Directors has been and continues to be hard at work! Since the Spring Issue of Connections!, the Board has met three times: March 15, April 12, and May 17. The following paragraphs include a synopsis of the major discussions and any board actions from those meetings. In each board meeting, the officers share a report of their continuing work, and each division Vice-President, with support of the division’s board liaison, shares a report of the ongoing work in that division and brings any important topics for discussion or action.

March 15 Meeting of the AMTE Board of Directors

The Board considered and approved a new Memorandum of Agreement with NCTM to co-publish the Mathematics Teacher Educator (MTE) Journal.  Under NCTM’s new membership structure, their members will be able to subscribe to the journal as part of their membership package. AMTE members will still have access to the journal as an AMTE Member Benefit. Revenue sharing will change slightly under the new agreement, where NCTM and AMTE will share revenues from advertising and institutional subscriptions. We are pleased to continue this important partnership with our colleagues in NCTM.

The Board also considered a motion from the Awards Committee, shared by Maggie McGatha, Vice President for Membership, to implement a three-year rollover period for individuals nominated for Awards. The Awards Committee will retain the names of individuals nominated for awards for up to three years. Thanks to AVP Amanda Sawyer and the Awards Committee for their work to make this process even better. For more information about AMTE Annual Awards, please visit: https://amte.net/about/awards. Award nominations are due on June 15, so please consider nominating a deserving colleague. 

Our new AVP for Conferences, Trena Wilkerson, and the new AVP-Designee for Conferences, Colleen Eddy, have been hard at work learning about and planning for the 2020 Annual Conference in Phoenix. A newly formed Conference Committee has been meeting and will work with the AVP’s in the planning for our annual conferences. The Board approved funds to support a site visit for the Conference Committee in summer 2019 to the Sheraton Grande Hotel in Phoenix to meet with hotel staff and Site Services.

The Board concluded our business with a discussion of the strategic priorities for the coming year.

April 12 Meeting of the Board of Directors

The Board heard a report from Lynn Breyfogle, VP of Professional Learning, on behalf of the Conference Ad-Hoc Committee and considered two recommendations from that committee. The Board approved (1) A recommendation that proposals from committee/division sponsored sessions for the annual conference be reviewed by Program Committee Leadership outside of the regular proposal review process, and (2) A motion that sessions organized by a committee/division should not be listed according to individuals, but rather sponsored by the committee. Thus, these types of sessions should not count toward an individual’s limit of presentations in the program, nor should individuals’ names appear in the speaker index for the committee session. For more information about this, please contact the Program Committee. Many thanks to Past Program Chair, Dana Cox, for leading this ad hoc committee.

The Board considered a recommendation from the Executive Director Search Team and unanimously approved the search team’s recommendations for the position. Subsequently, Shari Stockero has accepted the position as Executive Director, beginning in February 2020. More information can be found in the newsletter about this exciting announcement. The Board also considered a report from the Awards Committee with recommendations regarding the 2020 Judith Jacobs Lecture and this motion was passed unanimously. Paola Sztajn has been selected as the 2020 Judith Jacobs Lecturer and you may find more information at the conference website.

May 17 Meeting of the Board of Directors

The Board approved the recommendation to appoint Mi Yeon Lee and Terri Kurz, both from Arizona State University, as the Local Arrangements Co-Chairs for the 2020 Annual Conference in Phoenix, AZ. We look forward to the conference, and know that the local arrangements team will be prepared to welcome our membership to Phoenix. Thanks to Mi Yeon and Terri for their willingness to lead this local effort!

The Board approved the Memorandum of Agreement between AMTE and Michigan Technological University to become the new headquarters of AMTE when Dr. Shari Stockero begins her term of service as the new AMTE Executive Director in February 2020.

May 15 Finance Committee Meeting

On May 14 and 15, Sarah Quebec Fuentes, AMTE Treasurer, made a trip to AMTE Headquarters in Raleigh, NC, where she could meet with both Executive Director Tim Hendrix and AMTE Financial Services Manager, Mary Beth Wallace. The purpose of this meeting is vital to the continued financial health of the organization.  

For several years, AMTE has functioned as a smaller organization with dual systems for financial record-keeping: using Quick Books for keeping track of transactions, and a completely separate spreadsheet system for maintaining records of operating budgets, special accounts such as STaR, and conference-related budget. Moreover, the categories in the budget spreadsheet and in Quick Books were not aligned, as the two systems were developed separately and at different times.  

Upon recommendation from the Finance Committee and our CPA, Sarah, Mary Beth and Tim took the challenge to realign our budget system with our QuickBooks accounting procedures, establish coding that is consistent across both, and further re-organize the AMTE Budget to reflect our new divisional structure. Sarah shared this work with the Finance Committee in an online meeting on May 15, and then further shared the revised version with the Board of Directors on May 17. As AMTE prepares a budget plan for the new fiscal year beginning in July 2019, we will implement (and refine) this new structure. Many thanks to Sarah Quebec Fuentes and Mary Beth Wallace for their hard work in this process, and to Anita Wager, former AMTE Treasurer, for her recommendations and advice during the process. You will be able to see the structure of this new budgeting system in the 2019 Annual Report at the 2020 Annual Business Meeting. 

As you can see above, just by the recommendations and motions considered, the AMTE Board of Directors is hard at work on your behalf. Committees and Associate Vice-Presidents within each division are working to provide AMTE members with professional development, with resources, with a networked community—all benefits of being a member of AMTE. Roughly 1000 members consider AMTE to be their professional community and home, and we are enriched by the commitment and volunteerism of AMTE members to carry out our vision. Have a wonderful summer, and look for information about:

• AMTE Awards Nominations due June 15
• Elementary Mathematics Specialists (EMS) Scholarship Applications due June 15
• Susan Gay Graduate Student Conference Travel Scholarship Applications due September 1
• 2020 Annual AMTE Conference—Registration should open in mid-August
• 2019 AMTE Volunteer Survey—open now with a deadline in early August (TBD) at http:// https://amte.net/form/volunteer
• Calls for Nominations/Applications for Vice-President appointments in Membership and Professional Learning.

Respectfully submitted, 

Tim Hendrix, AMTE Executive Director