2021 ATHEN Annual Meeting Minutes

November 9, 2021 (Tuesday)
Virtual Meeting
Minutes by Michele Bromley, ATHEN Secretary
Brought to order at 12 p.m. Mountain Time (MT) by Dawn Hunziker, Executive Board President. 

Executive Council Members Attending

  1. Dawn Hunziker, President
  2. Krista Greear, Vice–President
  3. Michele Bromley, Secretary
  4. David Schwarte, Treasurer
  5. Shannon Lavey, Membership Coordinator
  6. Wink Harner, Member at Large
  7. RaLynn McGuire, Member at Large

CHECK: Ascertained a quorum of members in attendance.
•    We have a quorum.

Membership Update – Shannon 

  • 56 Professional Members
  • 33 Institutions with a total of 140 Institutional Members
    • ATHEN does not currently have a limit to the number of members who may join a single institutional membership.
  • 6 Associates/Partners Members
  • 1 student Member
  • 2 Honorary Members 
  • Approximately 62 members signed up or renewed recently – as part of AHG and/or the STEM Virtual Conference

Treasurer Report – David 

Balance

  • $32,820.08 as of October 31 2020
  • $30,896.73 as of October 31 2021

Expenses include

  • Scholarship and Professional Development Awards: (Tabled for this year)
  • Infrastructure support (webhosting, Zoom client, SurveyMonkey, captioning):  $1,923.35

Full financial report available for those who want it

Approval of 2020 minutes – Michele

  • Joe Humbert made a motion to approve 2020 ATHEN Annual Meeting Minutes.
  • Heidi Scher seconded the motion.
  • There were no calls for discussion
  • Final vote: 19 Aye votes and 0 Nay votes
  • CHECK: Unanimous pass using Zoom’s raise hand feature

Election Results – RaLynn

  • Vice–President – Krista Greear
  • Treasurer – David Schwarte
  • Member at Large – Wink Harner

Proceeding Year Activities

Teresa Haven Scholarship Award – RaLynn

  • The Teresa Haven Scholarship Award is an academic scholarship for a student with a disability.
  • The scholarship was not awarded in 2021 due to COVID-19 impacts. 
  • We will ask for volunteers for the 2022 selection committee via the listserv sometime around January 2022.
  • We will begin accepting nominations sometime around February 2022.

Ron Stewart Professional Development – Krista

  • A professional development award to cover a 1-yr membership to ATHEN, hotel and conference costs for AHG, free of charge, to someone who has never attended AHG and who is working in higher education in accessibility. 
  1. There was a question regarding whether the criteria, “never attended AHG,” means that someone has never attended in person or that they’ve never attended either in person or virtually/online.
  2. The Executive Council will meet to discuss.
  • Award postponed for 2021 due to uncertainty on AHG conference venue and COVID–19.
  • Nominations will open around August 2022.

Quarterly Meetings – Krista

  • Quarterly meetings held January, February and July.
  • Well attended and we will continue to hold quarterly meetings in 2022.
    • February = STEM Conference
    • Wednesday, April 27, 2022, 2PM Eastern
    • Wednesday, July 27, 2022, 2PM Eastern
  • Minutes from the meetings are posted online on https://athenpro.org.
  • Information for meetings will be sent to the ATHEN list and everyone is welcome to attend.

ATHEN Virtual Conference – Krista

https://athenpro.org/content/athen–virtual–conference
We are hosting the first ever Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) Accessibility: Starting with Math virtual conference on February 10th and 11th, 2022! We are striving for a diverse conference where experts can share their best practices, solutions, techniques, etc. for accessing and creating accessible STEM content in higher education. This is going to be exciting, novel, resourceful, and enlightening to all who care about accessible content in STEM fields in higher education. There will be 2 concurrent sessions offered each hour so you have reduced FOMO (fear of missing out).

  • Keynote speaker
  • Planning for a 2-day virtual conference 2/10 and 2/11
  • Free for ATHEN and AHEAD members
  • $100/day for non–members

Additional logistics/information

  • There is an open call for proposals: Submit your proposal (Google Form)
    • There will be only 14 sessions.
    • Proposal process closes: November 30, 2021
    • Notification of proposal status: after December 15, 2021

Questions from membership

  • What is the best way to promote this conference; would love to Tweet about it.
  • Share the conference website: athenpro.org/content/athen–virtual–conference 
  • If we registered, will we be able to access the content after the conference?
    • Yes; registered attendees will have access to the recordings afterward.

New Business

Listserv – Dawn

  • Update – we have tabled this move for several reasons. Since the list is active and UW is still willing to host the list, we decided to research more options before moving forward. 

Website – Dawn

  • We are currently working to migrate the ATHEN website. In the process of contracting with a web developer to assist with this progress. 

Acknowledging Norm

In the past, ATHEN has recognized colleagues who go above and beyond in their field of work to share their knowledge and expertise regarding access, assistive technology, accessibility, etc. in the Higher Education environment. We have yet another colleague to celebrate and recognize for their contributions in our field. 
In honor of this recognition, ATHEN prepared a plaque which has been sent to Norm Coombs. Additionally, we requested ATHEN members share their stories regarding Norm which are shared below and provide a snapshot of Norm’s contributions to the field of assistive technology over the years. The plaque reads: “Access Technology Higher Education Network (ATHEN) proudly presents a Lifetime Honorary Membership to Norm Coombs upon the occasion of the 24th Annual Accessing Higher Ground Conference. Norm is recognized as an individual of distinction based on his lifetime of outstanding and noteworthy service to the field of Access Technology in Higher Education.”

Read the Bio and stories shared about experiences with Norm at athenpro.org/norm-coombs-2021

Recognition from others

  • Michele Bromley:  Congratulations, Norm!
  • Joe Humbert: Congratulations, Norm!
  • Anne Carpenter: Congratulations! Norm!
  • Darren Gabbert: Norm, I thought you were old 30 years ago! You’re the [Energizer] bunny of assistive technology
  • Stephen (Alex) Marositz: Norm, you were one of the first to give me an opportunity in this field, thank you so much.
  • Shannon Lavey: A huge congratulations to you Norm!
  • Laurie V.: Congratulations Norm!  This is Laurie Vasquez from Santa Barbara City College. The first secretary of ATHEN. working with Ron Stewart. Thank you for your persistence and knowledge contributing to our field.  Always enjoyed the EASI workshops. Know that you have built a foundation we have all benefitted from.
  • Carolyn Gardner: On a lighter note. The EASI parties at CSUN were a great way to meet friends.  I loved seeing Norm and Beth.
  • Norm Coombs: We did too.

Other topics

 No other topics brought up

Meeting adjourned at 12:58 p.m. Mountain Time (MT) by Krista Greer. Dawn Hunziker seconded.