WALDEN UNIVERSITY • PHI DELTA KAPPA • CYBERSPACE CHAPTERWALDEN UNIVERSITY • PHI DELTA KAPPA • CYBERSPACE CHAPTER
Chapter Business Meeting,
March 2001
Reports from Officers and Committees
The Walden University Phi Delta Kappa Cyberspace Chapter officers meeting will now come to order. We will follow the agenda located at our meeting center as indicated.
Dr. Charles J.Smith, Sr., President
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Founding President and Chapter Advisor, Andre Elliot (3/20/01)
I wish to make a report at this time. First, I hope to recruit two or more new members. If each member recruits one, we could double in size this year. Second, I want our PDK to consider an initiation ceremony for our new members, one that occurs perhaps twice a year. On this Saturday past, I participated in the Tokyo PDK new initiates ceremony. The ceremonies are always splendid. Ceremonies are what PDK Intl expects. Presently, I think, we allow new members to visit our web site as they join as compared to having a specified period for a ceremony. PDK is revising the ceremony. We will know the new wording this summer. Important: According to my reading, an initiation date must me submitted with each member's application.
PDK Intl is offering membership contact via the web. Billie Spellman will assist in this area to enhance recruiting and retaining new members.
We should enter the newsletter and website contests. The deadline is May 1.
We have received a message from Dr. Kersey concerning a new member who contacted his office regarding membership in Walden PDK. This should not happen. We will effectively address this problem.
I have framed our unique charter. President Dr. Smith plans to deliver it to Dr. Poppenhagen at the next summer session. There will be expenses for framing and mailing. Presently, the framing cost $98.60.
My contact for T-shirts has not been favorable. I will make one more effort to see if T-shirts for a fundraiser can be obtained from my end of the world.
Question: What is the status of the five Reavis Reading Areas that are ours at not charge? This is a question for our Foundation committee.
Thanks for all of your support of the first PDK Cyberspace Chapter.
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First President and Founding Member of Walden University Phi Delta Kappa
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Faculty Advisor, Marilyn Simon (3/22/01)
Thanks Andre,
As always, you are right on top of things and giving us leadership and guidance. Thanks so much.
I am on the road again (what else is new?) so I don't have all my files and information, but I can update on a few things:
1. The Badges: All members who were listed as officers on our web page had badges made up in their name. The badges cost me $6.80/each. We made one up for Dr. Poppenhangen. I know that our treasures, Arthur Ogden, has never paid for his .. as well as two other people. Thus, I have collected $60, and spent $68.00. Hopefully the other folks will pay and then we can show a profit. I know Charles wants another and Theran never received one. To get this special deal I need to order in lots of 10.. so if we can get 8 more orders we can make up the rest. [Click here to order .]
2. Letter to Dr. Paige -- Dr. Paige received the letter from us requesting a re-look at the issues of standardized testing. Bad News - The Bush administration has not met a test it does not love. We were told that testing will increase and for higher stakes. Good news: Alfie Kohn is spreading the word that the PDK at Walden University cares about education and wants to work for social change.Mr. Kohn has contacted me many times encouraging us to keep up the fight. He has agreed to let Walden's MS and certificate programs use his material thanks to us! Let's keep the fight and figure out what else we can do.
Respectfully,
MarilynP.S. Thanks so much for your letters in support of me for distinguished faculty member. I cannot tell you how much it means to me! I feel very blessed!
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Hi everyone,
We have had steady progress over the past few months in bringing new members into the fold. Since the beginning of the year, we have seen the following activity...
January brought 2 new members:
- Ira Strauss of Jacksonville, FL straussi@db.erau.edu, and
- Rodney Ryan of Darien, NY rryan@waldenu.edu
February brought 1 new member:
- Sheree' Turner of Riverdale GA at Sturn01@yahoo.com
March will be registering 1 new member:
- Dr. Karen Bammel of Abiliene TX at Drsbkb@aol.com
In addition to this, members have been sent their charter membership certificates along with their Walden University certificate. These are on a file which makes it easy to print new member certificates to mail as soon as registration is mailed to International.
In a letter from International, the common problems to the registration process are not being experienced by our chapter, but we do seem to have a problem with people renewing their membership on time. The spring members audit has come around and we have the following membership:
- Good standing members (not including students) 86
- Good Standing gifts ($5) 6
- Members listed 121
- Students Listed 0
- Dual Members 5
- No good addresss 0
- 35 members not in good standing.
I wrote a letter and mailed it along with a membership reinstatement application. Since this was done last week, I don't know what the response will be, but let's hope for 14 reinstated memberships to plop us over the 100 member mark.
Respectfully submitted.
Sandi Gardner
VP Membership
Newsletter Editor, Theran Muggleston (3/22/01)
The next News Letter will be issued after the officers and members business meeting. Since it will be the last one before the elections and new officers etc. I would like to see all of the officers provide a few comments for inclusion in the News Letter.
Also, I have had no messages in response to the discussion question included in the last News Letter, not from officers or members. To be meaningful there needs to be discussion!
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Regarding our chapter programs, we are on track to fulfill our requirements for chapter programs during this year, except that we have not conducted an initiation ceremony. I believe if we plan for (and schedule) that event, we will be meeting all international expectations regarding programs. The initiation ceremony is an agenda topic for this month's meeting. I would suggest we plan the ceremony for late summer or fall. By then, the new wording that international is working on should be ready, and our website will have more options for interactivity. Also, we will then be able to include any new members who join during or after the Walden summer session.
I have not begun to plan a program calendar for next year. I will assist our next V.P. of Programs with this if requested. I hope one of our members will be inspired to take on this position for next year, and do more with it than I have!
Regarding the website, I have continued to extend it. Here are some of the recent updates:
- fixed problems with the way the Programs page displayed, and included the events held at Walden summer session
- added the last newsletter
- added a link to the Walden webmail site at the bottom of the home page
- removed the "Welcome to my world" sidebar on the home page (Only one member sent a photo, which wasn't enough variety to make it an effective feature.)
- created a page with info about ordering the name badges
- began work to update and re-link the original site material (accessed via the "Chapter Information" links). A new "Info center" page is in place now that links to these sections from the original site: Officers / Bylaws / Join (should I rename this to Membership?) / Goals / History.
- updated the Officers page, and added email address linking
- created a Membership page (accessed via the "Join" button currently). This lists our recent new members and has an email link to Sandi for membership inquiries. This page could also include a roster of members, include features about members' accomplishments and activities, and have links to members' websites. (It is also possible to put downloadable application forms on this page.)
I agree with Andre that we should enter the website contest to gain recogniton for our chapter, and I will continue to refine things until close to the entry deadline of May 1st. I have visited the sites of all the award winners from last year for ideas. Please let me know of your ideas for improvement, and DEFINITELY let me know of typos, or if anything isn't working correctly. I would especially like to include more information about the programs on the programs page.
I have been researching web hosting companies. I started by listing the features I think we must have, and then began comparing services. I would like to settle on one this month, and get our domain name registered before submitting the contest entry. This is the site I like the best so far, and maybe we should just go with it, unless anyone has alternative suggestions: http://thehostgroup.com . Things I like about them--it's an international company with high-bandwidth server locations all over the world which act as mirror sites for reliability and speedy access worldwide; unlimited email addresses (we could provide addresses to members freely); provisions for password protecting parts of our site (members only, like for voting) and full resources to "script" and manage discussion boards, and other interactive features as needed.
Gay
Treasurer's Report, Dr. Arthur Ogden (4/2/01)
Walden University PDK Members:
This will serve as your monthly financial report.
1. Balance on Hand 2/1/01 2. Deposits Refund - overpaymt on initiation Chapter Dues 3. Interest earned on account 4. BALANCE ON HAND 4/1/01 Respectfully Submitted,
Arthur G. Ogden
Chapter Treasurer
Walden '95