The Board of Directors met on April 14-15 at the 2018 INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics in Baltimore, Maryland. Following is a summary of the meeting.
• Health of INFORMS: While membership numbers remain highly seasonal, the end of March number of about 10,500 is the best ever at that time of year. Particularly encouraging is the increase in retention from 68.5% in 2017 to 80.6% in 2018. INFORMS is also in excellent condition financially. The long-term investment position is $14.36m as of the end of March (vs. $13.2m in 2017). The working capital position is $7.7m (vs. $7.1m in 2017). Our reserves are enabling us to invest in the long-term health and future of INFORMS through new initiatives, increasing advocacy about the value of the profession and our members, and increasing member value through enhanced/new programs and activities.
• Visibility and Awareness: INFORMS will host its first Policy Summit on May 21, 2018 at "Top of the Hill" conference center on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Our consultants Charles Cooper and Nadeam Elshami from Signal Group provided an update on planning for the event. The overall objective is to increase awareness and understanding of Operations Research & Analytics among key national policy makers. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden and Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx will be keynote speakers. Leading experts from INFORMS will participate in panels on national security, healthcare, and transportation.
• Continuing Education: One of the most successful courses offered by our Continuing Education program is the Essential Practice Skills for High-Impact Analytics Projects' workshop for analytics professionals. The course is offered either as an open-enrollment public or on-site at an organization for a team of their employees. Currently, there is also a pilot where the content is being incorporated into a Master's level capstone course. The recently developed preparation course for the Certified Analytics Professional (CAP®) program is expected to launch late summer. INFORMS is developing a formal proposal evaluation process for new Continuing Education courses, that is expected to be completed this year.
• Diversity and Inclusion: The Board participated in strategic planning and breakout sessions to identify ideas for reaching and engaging a wider diversity of members for volunteer opportunities at INFORMS. Opportunities include serving as organizers for meetings, officers for subdivisions, and members of award committees. We also explored increasing "micro-volunteering" opportunities to involve more members. These are activities that do not require much time but are important to the success of programs.
• Meetings: Attendance at the Analytics Meeting set a record, and passed 1,000 for the first time.
• Information Technology: The Board approved appropriation of $550,000 for licensing and implementation of a new Association Management System, which will enable significantly enhanced services for members.
• Summer 2018 Election: The 2018 slate of candidates has been determined for the following Board positions: President-Elect, Treasurer, VP-Publications, VP-Education, VP-Meetings, and VP-Information Technology. More information is in ORMS Today, April, page 51. The online election will be held from August 1 through September 30.
• The next Board meeting will be in Baltimore, August 8-9, 2018.
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Victoria (Tory) C. P. Chen, Ph.D.
Secretary of INFORMS
secretary@mail.informs.orgProfessor
Department of Industrial, Manufacturing, & Systems Engineering,
Center on Stochastic Modeling, Optimization, & Statistics (COSMOS),
The University of Texas at Arlington,
Campus Box 19017,
Arlington, TX 76019
Email:
vchen@uta.edu------------------------------