november

AMERICAN SOCIETY
OF EXERCISE PHYSIOLOGISTS
Founded, 1997
President's Report
November 1998

Hello once again. It seems that the month of November rushed by, as all months seem to near the end of an academic semester. I hope that you all had a relaxing and personally rewarding Thanksgiving. As with all monthly reports, the following content will be structured according to the main duties of my office for the 1998-'99 year.
First Meeting of the ASEP Board of Directors For the dates of November 6-8, Tommy Boone and I met at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, MN for the first meeting of the ASEP Board Of Directors (from now on referred to as "Board"). For clarification, the first members of the Board consist of the founding members of ASEP, which are Tommy Boone, Robert Robergs, and Steven Figoni. Additional members of the Board can be appointed based on proven professional support and contributions to ASEP. There were several purposes of the meeting, however, the main objectives were to:
1. Clarify the legal conditions of the founding of ASEP, as stipulated by the By-laws.
2. Modify the contents of many pages of the website to be more aligned with the legal characteristics of the By-Laws.
3. Improve the information about the structure and functions of ASEP within the website, so that members and non-members are better informed of what ASEP is and how it is structured to function.
4. Explain the development of ASEP and current administrative structure of the main office to the new President.
5. Clarify the scope of Presidential responsibility, and how this scope relates to the structure of ASEP - Board of Directors, President, Executive Committee, President directed committees, members, etc.
All these items were addressed, and the changes to the website contents should be obvious to those of you who regularly use the site. Many of these changes were completed during the course of the 2 day meeting. In addition, Tommy kept a thorough summary of all items discussed and enacted on. This list exceeded 30 different topics, some of which were:
1. The creation of a President's Page to improve communication between members and the President.
2. The incorporation of the professionalization journal (Professionalization of Exercise Physioslogy, PEP) developed by Tommy into ASEP. All members are encouraged to contribute to PEP. In particular, many of the items raised in the President's report after the 1st annual meeting, directed to specific committees, are suited to eventual manuscript preparation and publication in PEP.
3. The criteria for attainment of the title of an ASEP Fellow (FASEP) were discussed, clarified, and added to the website. Members and non-members should note that the Board agreed that to be consistent with the mission of ASEP, Fellow status should be available to members no matter what their terminal degree. Fellow status is to be earned through consistent contributions to ASEP and the professional needs of exercise physiologists. The award of Fellow status is an honor that should and will be given based entirely on exemplary merit. As such, it will not be easy to earn. Based on the By-Laws, the founding members are the first ASEP Fellows, and these Fellows are responsible for the selection of new Fellows. The process for applying to be an ASEP Fellow still needs to be developed.
4. An exciting concept raised by Tommy was to go "global". Going "global" refers to establishing connections with organizations from other countries and to all meet (presumably within the USA) for the first International Exercise Physiology Meeting. As the President is also the chair of the International Committee, it was decided that the President should pursue connections with foreign organizations immediately. A tentative schedule for international meetings was every 5 years, with the first meeting to be in 2001.
5. Members and non-members should note that the ASEP calendar was changed to an October to October schedule. This calendar coincides with the national meeting and is more conducive to combining meeting registration fees with yearly dues.
6. A new ASEP brochure, and an ASEP 1999 Annual Meeting brochure need to be developed. If anybody has any creative ideas, or feedback from the previous brochures, please contact the main office or the president with your ideas.
7. The President needs to clarify whether the current committee chairs and their committee members are still valid. In addition, all members need to know that we are currently in need of a new chair for the ASEP Regional Societies Committee. Any interested members should contact the main office or the President.
8. The President is to make arrangements for a booth at the 1999 national meeting of ACSM, in Seattle.
9. Student chapters of ASEP are now a reality. As indicated in several sites within the website, material is now available for students from any institution to commence the ground work to formalize their own ASEP student chapter. On November 6, the ASEP Student Chapter of the University of New Mexico (UNM) had its first meeting. This meeting stimulated tremendous interest within the university community, as well as the Albuquerque community. A student chapter is currently being developed at the College of St. Scholastica, and web pages for the UNM chapter and Western Region are being developed. The detailed events of the meeting at UNM is being written for inclusion in the December Newsletter.
10. Considerable discussion was focussed on the progress towards certification and accreditation. We are eager to have practice attempts of the certification exam as early as February 1999 at the College of St. Scholastica (CSS), and then again in April 1999 at UNM. If adequate progress is made, and the practice sessions are successful, a nation-wide certification exam will be made available at UNM and coincide with dates immediately prior to the 1999 National Meeting. Thus, after October 1999, there may be ASEP certified exercise physiologists in the job market.
11. Letters to national ACSM and ACSM regional chapters need to be written to start the process of professional interaction between ASEP and related organizations.
Since the meeting, work has commenced on many of the issues raised. As we speak, Tommy is working on the certification exam, letters have been sent to ACSM, and continued progress is being made towards a successful 2nd Annual Meeting.
1999 Annual Meeting Unfortunately, I was not able to live up to my prediction that the meeting dates and location would be final and announced in this report. However, I will finalize a contract with a hotel by 12/4/98, and will post a webpage about the meeting prior to January 1. Remember to check the October report for interesting links to information on Albuquerque and the surrounding communities. A Keynote Address speaker is still being sought, but should be acquired after the meeting date is final.
Journal of Exercise Physiologyonline
A steady stream of submissions continues, and there is a guarantee of a quarterly publication rate throughout most of next year based on current manuscripts alone.
Attention is being given to the presentation of the journal. However, there are concerns of how a more traditional format decreases the user-friendly nature of the manuscripts. The immediate priority is to develop a procedure for incorporating tables and figures into the html manuscripts, and the editor-in-chief, managing editor and ASEP webmaster, and CSS webmaster are currently working on this.
Letters to Other Organizations
As previously mentioned, a letter was sent to the national ACSM President, with additional copies sent to the past-president, interim-president, and vice presidents. In addition, a similar letter was sent to each Regional Chapter President. Letters now need to be mailed to the presidents of other organizations, especially the American Physiological Society who have begun to develop an exercise physiology interest group.
Committee Functions
There is still a need to complete and mail letters to the current chairs of all committees. This need, together with the need to write letters to all state founders of clinical exercise physiology organizations (see the ASEP Forum) is a major priority.
I encourage all committee chairs to continue to act based on the directives from the President's Report that followed the 1st national meeting. Refined directives will be provided in letters to each committee, and posted to the President's Page. As indicated in the President's Page, these letters will be posted to the website so that all members will be aware of what is happening, and perhaps stimulate additional volunteers.
ASEP Student Representative Organizations
As previously mentioned, there are now documents within the website that students can follow/use in the development of ASEP student chapters. The meeting at UNM was a great success, with an anticipated 40 new members (still to be seen) as one of the positive results. Each ASEP member who is on faculty at a university, or functions within a professional based exercise organization are encouraged to assist in the development of a chapter organization, or at least participate in the chapter organization formed within their local academic institution. No longer can any member say that they need direction to do this. One chapter is in existence, and the ground-work has been done to help everyone else.
The student chapters are extremely important for the continued growth and development of ASEP. Based on the UNM example, if 40 new members result from meetings at another 20 institutions, then that is another 800 members. Furthermore, remember that the largest collection of academically trained exercise physiologists resides not at your university but in the community. Thus, community outreach is vital to assist in membership recruitment.
Membership and A Realistic Goal for October 1999
Based on the previous membership example, and the current ASEP membership of just over 200, there is every reason to expect that by October 1999 that ASEP membership should exceed 1,000.
You will have noticed that the ASEP Membership web page has been modified to include a table of current membership statistics. Tommy will update this table every time he adds, or removes, members. This table provides a clear tally of the membership "health" of ASEP, and all members need to be challenged to see this tally grow each week. If it does not grow each week, then we are not d>

Transfer interrupted!
to be made on spreading the messages of ASEP to students and peers. Talk to you in January.
Robert Robergs, PhD, FASEP
President - ASEP

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