MINUTES OF CACS EXECUTIVE MEETING MAY 26th 2002, 7.30 a.m. OISE/UT

Present:

Rita Irwin, Renee Fountain, Susan Tilley, Rebecca Luce-Kapler, Dennis Sumara, Kathryn Noel, Ingrid Johnston, Dolores van der Wey, Sam Robinson.

Approval of Agenda: Ingrid/Renee. Approved.

Slate of new nominees for CACS Executive brought forward by Sam Robinson:

Past President: Sam Robinson
President: Rita Irwin
First vice-president: Renee Fountain
Secretary/Treasurer: Susan Tilley
Publications Chair: Rebecca Luce-Kapler
Membership Chair: Dennis Sumara
Program Chair: Kathryn Noel
Student Representative: TBA
Motion to accept the slate: Rita/Rebecca. Approved.

 Minutes of Executive Meeting Teleconference held February 10, 2002. 

Amendments:
Correction of spelling: Ken Janecki to Ken Jacknicke
First line of Treasurer’s report was incomplete and taken out.
Rebecca/Renee proposed to accept the minutes as amended. Approved.

Business Arising from the Minutes:

There was discussion about translating CACS reports into French. Rita agreed to pursue possibilities and costs.
Rita reported that the Science group is currently discussing forming its own SIG.
Rita raised the question of CACS support for the International Association for Advancement of Curriculum Studies. This had previously been discussed at the teleconference.
Dennis expressed several concerns about CACS’s possible affiliation with the Association with some discussion following:

  1. Giving out our membership e-mail list without consent of CACS members is not acceptable. (Discussion focused on the need to ask members for permission to forward their name and e-mail)
  2. Some of the requirements for affiliation may not be acceptable to CACS members (Some possible amendments were discussed)
  3. CACS has insufficient funds to send representatives to the international conference on curriculum. (Renee suggested an honorarium might be a possibility if someone on the CACS executive was willing to attend)

It was agreed that these questions would be raised at the AGM and that Renee and Rita would work on an AdHoc committee with other volunteers to look more closely at the Association guidelines and bring suggestions to the Executive.

Sam reminded all present of the importance of looking internationally in the curriculum area and of the need to establish international networks.

Treasurer’s Report

Susan reported that CACS is in good financial standing. She explained that our current balance is $4803.11 but that expenses for this year are still coming in.

Motion to accept the Treasurer’s report: Susan/Sam. Accepted.

Celebration of Creative and Scholarly Work

A discussion about the new format for this Celebration led to approval of the same format for next year. Dennis was thanked for his work in organizing the event. Renee suggested we solicit more French submissions for next year and that we consider having a translator present for introducing authors/artists.

Publications Report

Rebecca reported on the success of the on-line newsletter and offered an update on the proposed new curriculum journal: Journal of Canadian Association of Curriculum Studies.  Rebecca and Dennis both suggested that the journal would need an editor who was not the publications chair. Dennis discussed a vision for the journal that would include a focus on curriculum history in Canada. Possibilities could be to profile curriculum scholars and to include significant curriculum essays from the past with updated reflections by the same authors. Rebecca spoke about the advantages of a web-based journal as opposed to a print journal.

It was agreed that a motion about starting the journal would be brought to the AGM.

Awards Report

Ingrid presented her report on CACS awards for the year. Teresa Dobson from the UofA was the winner of the CACS Outstanding Dissertation award for this year. There were 7 submissions in total (all in English). Renee volunteered to help publicize the award in Quebec for the coming year. The Statcan Curriculum Prize, offered in conjunction with Statcan (Joel Yan), was won jointly by teams from OISE/UT and Queen’s. Ingrid announced she would be asking for volunteers to review the Statcan submissions at the AGM.

Website Update

Renee reported that she has been experimenting with formats on the website. She suggested the new journal could be linked to the CACS site.

Teacher Education Pre-Conference

Rebecca and Dennis commented on the success of this year’s pre-conference on teacher education with 20 participants (8 presenters). There was discussion around having one or two pre-conferences in Halifax in 2003. Renee is pursuing the possibility of having Mark Kingwell in Halifax as a plenary and asked about an honorarium for him. This idea was supported in principle.

CACS Membership

Dennis reported that the profile of CACS was improving and that the Celebration of Creative and Scholarly Works helped to highlight the interesting activities of CACS members. Student members now account for one third of total membership. Dennis wondered about reserving a time slot on the CSSE program for graduate student presentations to avoid conflict with more “recognized” speakers and to ensure a more positive experience for current and potential student members of CACS.  Kathryn promised to pursue this possibility with the program committee. Dolores agreed that this idea would be a good initiative and also suggested that word of mouth was the best way to recruit more student members.

LARC Report

Kathryn presented a report on LARC (Language Arts Researchers of Canada). Membership of LARC is improving and there was an increase in the number of LARC proposals this year. She thanked Carol Leroy and her assistant at the UofA for all their work on reviewing proposals. Kathryn reported there was no Master’s Award given this year. There was only one submission and reviewers decided not to offer the award.

Provoking Curriculum Conference

Rita reported that the format and date for the conference at UBC now been decided. It will held on February 28th and March 1st, 2003.  Proposals for presentations are encouraged to be from teams of researchers and to be in a variety of formats (drama, dance etc). Dennis and Ingrid will request funding from their Dean at the UofA to help support the Aoki Celebration at the Conference.

Aoki Book

Rita now has material for the book honoring Ted Aoki’s life and writings and, in consultation with Bill Pinar, has contacted Erlbaum to publish it. Everyone agreed that the book is a fitting tribute to Ted.

Members agreed that the New Executive meeting originally scheduled for the following day could be cancelled.

The meeting adjourned at 9a.m.