INFORMS Open Forum

2018 Fall Board Meeting Summary

  • 1.  2018 Fall Board Meeting Summary

    Posted 11-19-2018 13:25
    The Board of Directors met on November 3rd and 4th. The following is a summary of the Board meeting.

    • Health of INFORMS: INFORMS is very healthy and continues to grow – this year we have record meeting attendance, submission rates, full-text downloads, career fair employer participation, and exhibitors and sponsors. New initiatives are expanding our audience and our membership remains steady.
    • Advocacy: The Board approved funds to continue the INFORMS Advocacy Initiative. The goal is to build champions for O.R. and Analytics on Capitol Hill.  INFORMS seeks to become a resource to policy-makers, enabling policies that benefit INFORMS members, higher visibility for O.R. and Analytics, and more opportunities for INFORMS members.  The Board discussed capturing content from the INFORMS community that could be disseminated to demonstrate the societal impact of O.R. and Analytics. 
    • Meetings: Attendance at the Annual Meeting in Phoenix reached nearly 6200, setting a new record. The first INFORMS Security Conference is slated to take place in the San Jose, CA area in 2020. This conference will alternate with the INFORMS Healthcare Conference, which will be held in 2019 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
    • Code of Conduct: The INFORMS Meetings Code of Conduct is now posted: https://www.informs.org/Meetings-Conferences/Meeting-Code-of-Conduct.
    • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI): Members of the DEI Committee visited various subdivision meetings at the Annual Meeting to relay the INFORMS DEI message. Subdivision officers are encouraged to use the dashboard to review DEI data.  In order for the data to be accurate, members still need to ensure their membership information is complete. Click here to login and update your information.
    • Professional Development: The INFORMS Analytics Body of Knowledge, edited by Jim Cochran, is now available for purchase. The Board reviewed current programs and conducted a brainstorming exercise to identify additional target markets and course topics. A Call for Proposals will be issued to members in December 2018.
    • International Activities: The Board continued discussions to develop a vision to expand international activities and programs as would best benefit INFORMS members.
    • The next Board meeting will be February 1, 2019.


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    Victoria (Tory) C. P. Chen, Ph.D.
    Secretary of INFORMS
    secretary@mail.informs.org

    Professor
    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
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