Databus Issue: 2010 1 01/30/2010
Winter 2010 President's Message
Dr. Kelly Calhoun CETPA PresidentCETPA Turns 50
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Anniversaries can be a special time. The passage of time brings accomplishments, milestones, things we want to acknowledge and celebrate. Sometimes the time itself becomes something to celebrate, such as when something, anything, lasts for 50 years. This year marks such a time, as we kick off a year of celebrating the 50th anniversary of the California Educational Technology Professionals Association. It is a great honor of mine to have been elected to serve as your President in such a remarkable time in the history of this great organization.
Anniversaries are a great time to look back and really survey the road leading to where we are today. I’m so excited to see how many of you want to participate in this effort to pull together all the stories, memorabilia, people and sure, funky old technology (and those of you that collect that stuff know who you are) that we’ll put on display and share with each other at our conference celebration next year. (Did you remember that’s October 19-22 in Monterey? Put that in your calendar so you don’t forget!) Our esteemed Past President Russ Brawn is going to take the lead on heading up the effort to make a 50th birthday party there that’ll be unforgettable. And Steve Carr, this year’s President Elect/Conference Chair, will be tasked with putting together yet another amazing conference, following a line of them that just seem to keep getting better every year.
Sure, we still find ourselves in the midst of an economic crisis of fairly epic proportions. Most of us are fairly certain that we haven’t quite seen the bottom of this in education yet. But under that adage that we should “never let a good crisis go to waste” (and I’d love to cite that for you, but there are a bunch of Republicans and Democrats all taking credit for having said it first), we have to remember that many of the very best ideas and solutions around us have been born and refined out of the fires of the most desperate of times. Our membership has made it 50 years on the tenacity and can-do spirit of our members and we’ll get through these times too.
Anniversaries can also mark a time to pause and reflect. You’ll hear me say this a lot this year, but I really do see CETPA as being an organization on the edge of great opportunity. We face many questions about how to move the organization forward into the next 50 years in a way that fulfills all its promise and potential. Questions about membership, participation, governance, staffing and more will be before us. What should we change? What should we keep? What are the most important issues we need to be focusing on today? What are the areas where we most need to bring our influence in government and business? I’m going to make it my business to push for new ideas this year that will move us squarely onto that highway to our best future, and I am hoping you will join me in that effort. We’re moving our website design forward to ensure that our membership has the best tools available to participate in and take advantage of all that CETPA membership will have to offer.
Looking forward to a great year, and to seeing you in Monterey!
