April 2019

As my last AAPOR Newsletter posting as your President, I must reflect back for a moment on a year, and a career (in progress!), that has led me to this point.  It is a funny thing: friends of mine know this story, that at my first AAPOR Conference in Portland Oregon in 2000,

The AAPOR 2019-2020 Executive Council election closed on April 1 and 34.23% percent of eligible AAPOR members voted. Please join me in thanking all of our colleagues who stood for election, and in congratulating our new Executive Council members whose terms begin at the upcoming 74th Annual Conference in Toronto, Canada:

​New England AAPOR continued to build off the work of previous leadership in 2018/2019. In the fall we held a midterm post mortem at University of New Hampshire with UNH polling Director Andy Smith and Michael Graham, Politics Editor at InsideSources/New Hampshire Journal. We had our third winter mixer where students, academics and practitioners had a chance to talk shop and and enjoy each others company.

We have several important conference-related updates for you:

For those of you that don’t know us, we’re a subcommittee of Membership and Chapter Relations, and while we were formerly known as the Student & Early-Career Subcommittee, we’ve changed our name to better reflect all of the great new(er) AAPOR folks we help welcome into our membership and annual conference.  You can get to know us more here.

Debuting at this year’s conference in Toronto, AAPOR will present the inaugural “Inclusive Voices” award.
 
AAPOR’s mission explicitly promotes the advancement of “the science and practice of survey and opinion research to give people a voice in the decisions that affect their daily lives.”

After a rigorous review process, we are excited to announce the finalists for AAPOR’s Got Talent! Come watch the finalists’ innovative solutions to some of the biggest research issues in our industry and cast your vote for who you think has the most talent! The finalists will present their proposals on Saturday, May 18th at 8:00 a.m. in the Grand Ballroom. The winners, $3000 Grand Prize and $500 Runner-up, will be announced at the banquet.

The 2019 Conference will include eight short courses to enhance your learning experience. These in-depth, half-day courses are taught by well-known experts in the survey research field and cover topics that affect our ever-changing industry. The 2019 Short Courses include:

The lineup of webinars for 2019 has been finalized and is available for purchase (either as a package or individually). The schedule of webinars for each month is shown below:

If you are in Toronto this May, you can follow the cowbell to find Ashley Hyon. Ashley is one of the behind-the-scenes folks that keep the AAPOR conference running. She has served in a variety of roles – docent, judge, conference support. Most recently, she led the 2018 Speed Networking event in Denver. She said that it is a lot of work leading up to the conference, but the actual event – working with volunteers and the “infamous” cow bells – is so much fun, she agreed to do it again this year. 

​The AAPOR Career Center connects employers with job seekers interested in applied research opportunities. Click here to learn more about the AAPOR Career Center.
Below are jobs featured on the AAPOR Career Center.
Research Assistant, Public Opinion and Survey Research
Kaiser Family Foundation - San Francisco, California, 94107
HR Generalist
Mathematica - Princeton, New Jersey, 08540

John P. Robinson, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Maryland, died March 24, 2019. John played key roles in AAPOR over five decades (including service as the 1976 conference committee chair, publication chair from 1980 to 1982, and POQ editorial board member from 1972 to 1982).
Read more about John P. Robinson