Discussion about SLAPT's relation to AAPT
Dear SLAPT members,
On Friday, Jan. 4, we had a good discussion about the relationship between SLAPT and the Missouri Section of AAPT (MAPT). Thanks for the many e-mail contributions to the discussion as well. Here's the reader's digest version of the meeting:
Present: Jack Wiegers, Pat Gibbons, Jim Borgwald, Debbie Rice, Jim Cibulka, Val Michael, Mark Schober
SLAPT seeks to bring about a formal connection to AAPT.
We sought section status because repeated contact with AAPT employees indicated that affiliate status no longer existed.
Affiliate status does exist in AAPT's constitution, but SLAPT did not turn in annual reports to AAPT around ten years ago, and we disappeared from AAPT's radar at that time.
AAPT Sections cannot have overlapping zip codes, thus MAPT would have to agree to release zip codes to SLAPT for us to become a section. AAPT's constitution disallows teachers to be members of more than one section. The MAPT leaders present did not seem to think that the release of zip codes would be a problem if SLAPT wanted to pursue it.
AAPT affiliates do not have geographic restrictions and can overlap with sections. This is important for SLAPT because of our Illinois and Missouri members.
Affiliates do not get the same rights as sections: section representatives can vote, section reps. get financial assistance to attend meetings, and sections get funding for running PTRA workshops--affiliates do not. Both sections and affiliates can submit materials to be shared with AAPT's membership through the Announcer magazine, but this is no longer being published--moot point.
The representatives of SLAPT and MAPT expressed their desire to promote cooperation through enhanced communication between the groups, joint meetings, and outreach to physics teachers not yet involved in our communities.
So:
Debbie Rice has changed our request to AAPT for discussion at the Baltimore national meeting. Rather than requesting section status, we will request affiliate status -- for now. She will also indicate to the AAPT council that a better solution is needed and that SLAPT and MAPT will work together to jointly propose a structure that works to our mutual benefit.
AAPT is ripe for this: they have been discussing how to better be structured at the state and local levels to best serve the physics education community. Some short-term fixes would be to allow SLAPT to be a "voting affiliate" or allow SLAPT to be a section that overlaps the Missouri and Illinois sections and allows concurrent membership in both the St. Louis and state sections.
Therefore, your job:
At the next few meetings, we will be slipping in some side discussions about how AAPT can be the flagship organization for physics teachers through strong local and state sections that are well connected and supported by the national organization.
If you have ideas for how the new AAPT structure would/should work, send them to me, and I'll compile them as we work toward creating our joint SLAPT-MAPT proposal to AAPT.
Thanks,
Mark Schober
January 4, 2008: Further Section Status Discussion
When: Friday, January 4, 2008; 4 pm
Where: Kirkwood High School, room 201 (Use the Dougherty Ferry parking lot.)
To SLAPT members, Missouri Section Officers, and AAPT Council Members:
Recent discussion between AAPT and SLAPT regarding our (SLAPT's) request to become an AAPT section has identified the need for clarifying relationships between SLAPT, the Missouri Association of Physics Teachers, and AAPT. AAPT's Constitutional requirements may require actions for section status that run counter to SLAPT's original intent of increased collaboration with the larger physics education community, and for that reason a meeting has been called to further discuss possible solutions.
SLAPT will hold a meeting Friday, January 4th, 4:00 pm at Kirkwood High School, Room 201, hosted by Debbie Rice. (Use the Dougherty Ferry parking lot.) For those of you unable to attend, please send your comments to me (Mark Schober) and I will share them at the meeting.
Thoughts for discussion, and background for MAPT and AAPT leaders:
Here's the issue: Steve Iona, AAPT Secretary, writes: "The AAPT Constitution indicates that Sections cannot overlap postal codes, so as St. Louis completes their application to the AAPT Council, they will be identifying the postal codes that they wish to include within their Section.
The fundamental question is whether the Missouri Section is willing to let the St. Louis area form a separate Section within Missouri.
The final approval is made by the AAPT Council, and it will be on their agenda for their January 2008 meeting in Baltimore. Council cannot form a new Section unless the territory is "released" by a current Section."
We, SLAPT, have long thought of ourselves as an affiliate organization of AAPT, until we learned that AAPT has not recognized that designation for years. So, seeking to formalize our relationship with AAPT, we formalized our own organizational structure and requested section status. Our original intention in seeking section status was to share the strengths of an exemplary organization of physics teachers dedicated to AAPT's mission of improving physics teaching -- which we do as well as the best AAPT sections -- perhaps inspiring other sections to embrace activities similar to our own.
SLAPT and MAPT do not operate to the exclusion of one another, as each group has a different focus. SLAPT meets six to eight times a year for pedagogically focused workshops led and attended primarily by high school teachers. In recent years, MAPT has met twice a year for single-day conventions in which participants' current research is presented and a business meeting is conducted, attended primarily by post-secondary instructors. SLAPT has also held joint meetings with the Illinois section of AAPT, hosted by Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville.
I do not believe that SLAPT wants to be involved in "turf wars" with our MAPT colleagues, or, for that matter, the St. Louis portion of the Illinois section that we serve. Some sort of complementary co-existence, as we have practiced for many years, would still be a desirable goal.
It is possible that SLAPT could continue to function as an independent organization as it has for the past 20 years, but collaboration between groups of common purpose would certainly be advantageous, particularly for strengthening AAPT at a local level, even if such collaboration does not fit into AAPT's current section structure.
Though I have heard that AAPT has been reviewing its Section designations and structure, I do not know anything about the ideas raised in these discussions. (Information along these lines would be helpful.) Do we want a St. Louis section that has been carved out of the Missouri Section? Perhaps SLAPT is an organization requiring an AAPT designation other than "Section". Perhaps we need to propose a constitutional amendment to AAPT. Above all, what will be best for the physics teaching community?
Please share your ideas, and we'll continue the discussion on January 4.
Mark Schober and Debbie Rice
