by Roger Tourangeau, President
Welcome from the members of the 2016-2017 Executive Council! We will have a busy year ahead of us. Some of the high priority items that Council will be dealing with include:
- Figuring out how to improve on the highly successful annual conference in Austin;
- Keeping the Transparency Initiative moving forward;
- Continuing to cope with the fallout from the FCC’s TCPA ruling;
- Providing quick responses to journalists on the performance of the polls during this Presidential year;
- Encouraging diversity in all our activities, task forces, and committees;
- Partnering with kindred organizations;
- Increasing our fund-raising efforts to bolster AAPOR’s finances; and
- Improving our service to members.
by David Dutwin, Conference Chair
If I dare say so myself, the 2016 AAPOR Conference was one of the best. Our conference in Austin was the largest ever in terms of number of presentations submitted, and in the number of attendees. We expanded the conference to allow for no less than 100 breakout sessions. We continued a great tradition of new attendees (275) through a call for attendance to data science programs, local Texas schools and organizations, and other outreach efforts, and made a particular effort to be welcoming to newcomers via an expanded docent program, meet and greets, and other new social events. Our efforts to improve moderator and presenter quality I believe resulted in the strongest collection of presentations ever compiled at an AAPOR conference, which were nicely organized by tracks for the first time.
by Anna Wiencrot, Membership and Chapter Relations Committee Chair, and Morgan Earp, Associate Membership and Chapter Relations Committee Chair
It was great to see so many AAPOR members--new and old--at the 2016 AAPOR conference! This month’s Membership and Chapter Relations (MCR) Committee update features a plug to complete the annual survey, an update from our Student and Early Career Subcommittee Chair, and the first in our 2016-2017 series of “Chapter Spotlights.” (Are you a member of your local chapter? If not, learn more about the chapters here!)
by Janice Ballou, History Committee Chair
Do you know which of our AAPOR luminaries: Conducted surveys as a Vietnam veteran? Wanted to study about Burma and wound up a leader in media polling? Had to explain why the polls were “wrong” in a New Hampshire primary? Played a key role in the infamous 2000 Presidential election exit polls? The answers to these questions and many, many other fascinating insights about their experiences and contributions can now be found in the new additions to our Heritage Interview series.
by Justine Bulgar-Medina, MCR Student and Early Career Subcommittee Chair
Thank you to those that participated in all of the events for Student and Early Career (SEC) members at the 71st Annual Conference in Austin - you helped make it a great conference experience for new and veteran SEC folks! In addition to amazing presentations, speed-networking and other professional development opportunities, we also took time out to explore Austin together. We enjoyed live music together on 6th Avenue patios and Rainey Street, a lunch take-over (with 39 of us!) at Easy Tiger and two other dinner meet-ups on Wednesday and Friday nights around town. Thank you to those that joined us and made for some great outings, we hope you’ll join us again next year!
by Education Committee
AAPOR, ESOMAR and WAPOR have collaborated to launch the first-ever international online training tool for journalists to help improve media reporting about polls and survey results around the world.
Aimed at journalists, media students, bloggers, voters and anyone who wants to know why polls work and how they are conducted, the course is hosted by Poynter, which provides online training for journalists. Thanks to AAPOR, ESOMAR and WAPOR funding, the course is available free of charge.
by Gina Walejko, 2016 DC-AAPOR President
The Baltimore-Washington Chapter of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (DC-AAPOR) has experienced a fruitful spring and is looking forward to an eventful summer.
Membership Chair Ashley Amaya has grown DC-AAPOR to 423 members since this time last year. In April, some of these members participated in two events, the “Introduction to R Short Course” taught by Jill Dever and the “Spanish Survey Translation and Administration Workshop,” in which DC-area Spanish translation experts presented and discussed their work.