Tag: Assistant Commissioner

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RMAIR – Update

By Joseph Curtin, RMAIR President and Assistant Commissioner – Institutional Research & Analysis, Utah System of Higher Education

We had a great turnout at the RMAIR SIG meeting that was held in New Orleans on June 1st. Thanks to all who were able to come and join us. With the national conference over and summer in full swing, I would like to remind all that there are several things that they should look for over the summer.

Nominations for RMAIR leadership: This year we will elect a new Vice-President and a Secretary. The Vice-President is a three year commitment with the first year as the Vice President, then a year as the President and the final year as the immediate past-president. The RMAIR Secretary is also elected to a three year term. The responsibilities of the Secretary include: taking minutes of the annual business meeting and at the RMAIR special interest group meeting at the AIR Forum. If the Secretary is unable to attend either of these meetings, s/he may arrange for another individual to record meeting proceedings. The Secretary will be responsible for maintaining a current list of membership, providing and maintaining permanent historical records of RMAIR activities, and overseeing elections and voting.

Please consider either running for one of these office yourself or nominating someone from a RMAIR state who will be committed to RMAIR. Nominations for either the Vice-President or the Secretary position may be sent to pastpresident@rmair.org.

Nominations for Emeritus Status: Each year at the annual meeting, RMAIRians have the opportunity to honor long-time members by granting them Emeritus status. Traditionally these are people who have recently retired. To date, we have three nominees; Hans L’Orange, Mark Chisholm, and Fred Lillibridge. If you know of other deserving people, please send your nominations to the RMAIR Past-President at pastpresident@rmair.org.

Conference Proposals: Sometime in the next few weeks, you should see the call-for-proposals for the RMAIR annual conference. The conference will be held in Bozeman, Montana on October 26-28th. The annual meeting will also host a pre-conference workshop made possible by our train-the-trainer grant. This workshop will be – IR & IE: Enhancing Personal and Professional Effectiveness provided by Mya Starling. More information will be available soon at the www.rmair.org website.

One goal identified in the RMAIR strategic plan is to expand the membership in RMAIR. Now is a great opportunity to do so. RMAIR is once again waiving the membership fee this year so it costs nothing to join RMAIR. Now would be a great time to reach out to interested faculty and students and invite them to join us in Bozeman and present their research. Full-time graduate and undergraduate students are only charged one-half the conference registration fee to attend, helping to make the RMAIR conference an affordable option to obtain valuable conference presentation experience.

I look forward to our next RMAIR meeting in Bozeman and hope to see you all there.

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RMAIR – Update

By Joseph Curtin, Assistant Commissioner – Institutional Research & Analysis, Utah System of Higher Education

I am pleased to announce that representing RMAIR at this year’s Annual Forum in New Orleans will be RMAIR 2015 – Best Paper winner Renate Otterbach, University of San Francisco “Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Methods to Identify Modifiable Factors for Retaining First-Time Freshmen” as well as the RMAIR 2015 – Best Presentation Mark Leany and Robert Loveridge, Utah Valley University “Course Enrollments – Our Interactive Dashboard, from the Why to the How”. This year’s AIR forum will be held in New Orleans on May 30th to June 3rd. For those of you who will be attending the National Forum please consider applying for a RMAIR Train-the-Trainer grant.

The Train-the-Trainer grant provides $500 to members to attend a workshop at any conference related to institutional research, but emphasizes support for the AIR Forum because of its matching grant program. AIR Forum Support awards will be matched by AIR for a total of $1,000. Presentation of the workshop at the RMAIR Conference is a mandatory condition of the award. Members receiving awards who do not present must repay all awards to RMAIR and, if AIR matching funds were awarded, to AIR. Members should email the Train-the-Trainer application to the RMAIR Secretary (secretary@rmair.org), describing why they should be considered for the Train-the-Trainer program subsidy as well as what benefits that their training would bring to RMAIR.

In addition to the RMAIR presentations, please add to your schedule at the Forum the RMAIR SIG meeting that is usually held on the Wednesday evening. I can’t guarantee a post-meeting dinner like last year, but you should be able to take advantage of the opportunity to connect with your RMAIR colleagues.

Highlights of the 2016 AIR Forum include:

  1. Compelling keynotes by thought leaders in higher education: Higher Education in the New Normal of the 21st Century – An Era of Evidence-Based Change by David Longanecker, Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education President, and Data-driven Behavioral Nudges: A Low-cost Strategy to Improve Postsecondary Education by Ben Castleman, author and University of Virginia Assistant professor;
  2. More than 300 concurrent sessions reviewed and presented by your peers;
  3. The opportunity to network and share ideas with 2,000 colleagues from around the world.

Register by February 26 and save $25 off the regular registration fee. To register or for more information, visit the 2016 AIR Forum website.

Finally, The RMAIR Annual Conference is scheduled for October 26th -28th in Bozeman, Montana. Thanks goes to Rebecca Belou (Rebeccabelou@montana.edu), RMAIR 2016 Local Arrangements Chair, and Dawn Ressel (dawn.ressel@umontana.edu), RMAIR 2016 Program Chair, for their work in putting together this year’s meeting. Please consider submitting a proposal for a pre-conference workshop, paper, or other work for presentation at the conference. Also, now would be a good time to invite faculty and students who teach or are studying education-related topics to join us and present some of their research. A call for proposals should go out late-spring or early summer so now is a good time to start making plans for Montana.