Finally, convention plans for Chicago 1997 were disseminated. Convention planners are expecting over 10,000 people. Commission IX sponsored activities for the convention are coming along nicely given the leadership of Judy Michael-Lawson as Program Chair. Judy reports a strong selection of program submissions for commission sponsored programs. Bill DiBrito has organized what looks to be a fine preconvention program about the use of bench marking as a management tool.
Bench marking is the next level of sophistication in assessment.
Not only do you assess where your institution is, you compare it to a selected set of peers. Special thanks to David Shinn for giving us a better looking WWW site on the ACPA Home page. Roger Harold is organizing intercampus research through his sorority and fraternity survey. Several commission members have taken advantage of Roger's instrument and are sharing data the interactive way. Finally, new directorate member Emily Perl and I will be hosting a round table discussion at the upcoming convention on using qualitative and quantitative research findings for the improvement of practice.