AAPT Local Membership Engagement Task Force

The AAPT Board is forming a task force focused on engaging members at the local and regional levels. The goal of this task force will be to conduct a broad inventory of the connections between AAPT as a national association and the activities and functions of local and regional groups, such as AAPT sections, that will lead to the development of a robust membership pipeline. This task force supports the new AAPT Strategic Plan with the Goal “Build community, connections, and engagement” and the desired goal achievement “AAPT provides structures that support and encourage meaningful professional relationships and interactions at the regional and national level.”

Charge:
The charge of the Local Member Engagement Task Force is to evaluate the current structure and relationship between the AAPT, as a national association, and the local and regional sections which may operate as independent groups. The LME Task Force will then develop a plan to leverage and transform existing relationships to create and nurture local engagement and networking opportunities for physics educators.  The plan should include incentives for educators at all levels to formally join AAPT and make recommendations for changes to these structures to the Board of Directors.

Deliverables:

  1.  Perform an inventory of current sectional/local status, including an estimation of the number of individuals involved with AAPT-like initiatives.  (It is anticipated that Section Reps will be key in this work.)
  2.  Propose revisions to the roles and responsibilities of Section Representatives. Because Section Representatives receive funding to support their attendance at the AAPT Winter Meetings,  a set of reasonable responsibilities should be required of Section Representatives.  For example, the LME task force may consider what Section Reps might do to foster deeper connections with AAPT at the local and regional level, including presentations about national AAPT at Section meetings, more regular reporting of Section activities to national AAPT, etc.  In addition, the task force may consider ways for Section Reps to take on key volunteer roles during national meetings.
  3.  Propose a plan for using existing AAPT channels to increase local engagement and networking opportunities including potential incentives for educators at the local and regional levels to become national AAPT members.
  4.  Develop key performance indicators to evaluate the effectiveness of new membership initiatives.

Timeline:

  •  September 2022 -  Appoint Task Force members
  •  October 2022 - Task Force work begins
  •  January, Spring, and Summer 2023 - Updates/current status reports to Board
  •  Fall 2023 - Final Report to Board with Recommendations

Estimated Workload:

  •  We estimate that the task force will meet virtually for 1-1.5 hours per month.
  •  We anticipate that each task force member will spend approximately 2-3 hours each month between meetings to accomplish assigned tasks.

Task Force Membership:

  •  Section Rep Chair
  •  Section Rep Vice Chair (Chair of the Task Force)
  •  AAPT Director of Membership
  •  6 members at large from the AAPT Membership
Sam Sampere (Chair)
Beverly Cannon
Chad Ronish
Cliff Gerstman
David Sturm
Douglas Petkie
Grace Bosse
Jim Freericks
Jon Anderson
Joseph Wigenton
Kathleen Harper
Marilyn Akins
Mike Hall
Raymond Zich

Contact information:
For more details and information about the Local Membership Engagement Task Force, please contact AAPT's Executive Office at eo@aapt.org.