October 2020

In this issue:

President's Message
NACTA Awards Highlight - Call for Reviewers
NACTA Privacy Statement
New NACTA Members
#NACTAChat
Upcoming Events
Renew or Become a New NACTA Member

President's Message

Greetings, NACTA Colleagues!

I hope this message finds you well. Here at Purdue, we are in the midst of one the most interesting and challenging semesters on record, as I am sure you are at your home institution. Yet, despite the challenges, NACTA leadership, regional directors, committee chairs, members, and liaisons are diligently working toward exciting activities and innovation for the coming year.

You should have received notice regarding the planning of the 2021 Annual NACTA Conference, to be delivered virtually in June of next year. NACTA is committed to putting together an exceptional conference experience. As that process moves forward, I encourage you to make plans to submit abstracts for poster and oral presentations. We will begin accepting those in December.

Below you will learn a bit more about the NACTA Teacher Recognition Committee and the annual teaching awards they are charged with conferring. Remember to nominate your colleagues and graduate students for NACTA awards that annually recognize worthy achievements across various facets of education, teaching, and learning in agriculture and related disciplines. As well, you may be interested in supporting the cause of this committee by volunteering to review award submissions.

I’m excited about the new and continued engagement activities happening within NACTA! Wishing for each of you the very best, today, and always!

J. Marcos Fernandez
2020-21 NACTA President
Purdue University

 

NACTA Awards Highlight - Call for Reviewers

One of the central purposes of NACTA is to recognize those individuals whose efforts represent the very best in agricultural higher education. Thus, NACTA seeks to inspire all of us to achieve the highest levels of excellence. At the same time, NACTA seeks to encourage these colleagues to share with us their methods of achieving excellence. In November, NACTA members will have the opportunity to submit a nomination for one of the following awards:

As the committee prepares for the 20-21 award season they would like to encourage NACTA members to volunteer to help review submissions. The committee is seeking approximately fifteen reviewers who would be willing to consider 5-6 award packets in the coming months. If you would be interested in joining the Teacher Recognition Committee before the annual award season begins, please reach out to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

 

NACTA Privacy Statement

Recently, you may have been contacted by a graduate student researcher to complete a survey. While the student followed all appropriate steps to process the research survey, an error in judgment was made by an individual with the NACTA management firm (JulNet Solutions), releasing our membership list, which contains your contact information. Unfortunately, the NACTA membership list was shared without the knowledge of NACTA leadership, JulNet leadership, or the membership in early 2020.  You may know that this is the first year NACTA has worked with this management firm, which could explain some of what took place. While we work toward ensuring that your name, email address, university affiliations, and any other personal information remain private, we understand that we must do more.

NACTA will investigate this matter and seek your input and ideas on how best we should proceed; this includes requests of the membership for NACTA purposes and/or legitimate, approved educational research. NACTA will not share membership listings until the membership can reconsider and agree to a policy the organization can adhere to. I would like to call for an ad hoc committee of active NACTA Members to investigate our protocol and processes on how best to proceed with these types of requests. The committee would report their recommendations to the NACTA Leadership and I would like for the NACTA Membership to receive and consider the committee’s recommendation during the annual NACTA Business Meeting held during our 2021 Annual Conference.

Regarding the current situation, and for the sake of the graduate student’s continued advancement toward completion of his degree requirements, the UF research team will be afforded the opportunity to complete the study that they started. You may receive a follow up from that team soon. For the time being, NACTA leadership and our management team have adopted the following policies.

Protection of Private Information and External Communication Requests

NACTA is a community of educators and scholars that are stronger when they can communicate and work together. To facilitate that collegial work, NACTA leadership is not opposed to sharing requests to communicate with the membership at large; however, we must carefully consider and establish a process and protocol that would be agreeable to the membership. As an organization, we collect, retain, and use information about members-only where we reasonably believe it would be useful (and allowed by law) in providing you with products, services, and other opportunities. We strive to protect your information against unauthorized access or release. We will not sell or rent e-mail addresses to third parties without your consent. E-mail addresses, aggregate information about which pages visitors access, and information volunteered by site visitors (such as survey information and/or site registrations) are used to improve the content of the NACTA website, Journal, and promotional materials and are not shared with other organizations for commercial purposes. We do, however, reserve the right to use the information to selectively notify visitors about updates, products, services, activities, or upcoming events.

 

New NACTA Members

NACTA had 5 new members in the last month. We hope you will join us in welcoming them!  

Keonte Edmonds Latisha Judd Mickey Latour
Brittany Miles Oybek Turayev  

 

#NACTAChat

With Fall upon us, and pumpkins popping up everywhere (including the front porch!) you may know that these gourds come in a range of shapes, sizes and colors. But did you know that Morton, Illinois is the self-proclaimed pumpkin capital of the world? What interesting Ag superlatives can your town, university or state claim?

Join the conversation with photos, videos and stories on Facebook and Twitter by using #NACTAChat.

 

Upcoming Events

2020 AAAE North Central Region Virtual Conference
October 14 - 16, 2020

93rd National FFA Convention & Expo
Oct. 27-29, 2020 *Virtual

Creating Engaging Online Learning When Everyone Wants to Be Present: A NACTA Exclusive Webinar
Presented by Elise Lofgren, Daniel Poole, & Cheryl Wachenheim
November 5, 2020 *Virtual
The transition to online learning has provided the opportunity for many instructors to evaluate their teaching practices. While this provides time to reflect, it is also met with challenges. This 1-hour session will allow NACTA members to come together to discuss the opportunities and challenges related to the online learning environment. Interaction with our three invited panel members will encourage the sharing of ideas. This will be the first of a series of NACTA-sponsored teaching sessions for our membership.

 

Renew or Become a New NACTA Member

NACTA is the largest professional development organization that focuses specifically on the scholarship of teaching and learning in agriculture, food and natural resources.

Need to renew your membership? Want to invite a colleague to join? Want to change your membership status? Visit the membership page here.

We appreciate your NACTA membership!