AMERICAN SOCIETY
OF EXERCISE PHYSIOLOGISTS
Founded, 1997
President’s
Report
September,
1999
As anticipated, September has been busy with preparation for the annual meeting on October 14-16. Nevertheless, for those who work in university settings, I hope that you have had a good start to the new academic year. For those who work the more traditional calendar schedule, I also hope that you are receiving heightened respect for your knowledge and skills, and greater employment security.
1999 Annual Conference
To date I am anticipating between 150 to
200 people at the conference. This number sounds large, but is inflated
by our 135 students in exercise science at the University of New Mexico.
Nevertheless, I am impressed by the number of individuals travelling to
Albuquerque for the conference. There are new names in this “out
of state” group, and such support speaks well for the impact ASEP is having
in the exercise physiology/science community within the USA.
Once again, I need to encourage all members and non-members who intend to register for the conference to do so as soon as possible. We will be having on site registration. However, prior notice regarding rooms and food requirements may save ASEP money by preventing over-catering, and allowing contract based decreases in hotel conference billing.
There are now 12 exhibitors who will be in attendance at the meeting. I encourage all attendees to make efforts to visit these exhibits throughout the duration of the meeting. The exhibitors invest money in ASEP to provide them with the opportunity to have access to exercise physiologists, and the potential added sales we might provide them. It is to your and ASEP’s benefit that they feel that our meeting is a worth while expense, ensuring continued support of the ASEP national meeting.
JEPonline
I encourage all authors of manuscripts
to have a little patience with me over the month of October. In the
last two weeks there have been three additional submissions, and I am still
hard at work supervising the review of eight manuscripts for the January
issue. Given the work needed to run the annual meeting, I am obviously
a little behind in editing for JEPonline.
I have made arrangements to have editorial assistance with my duties for JEPonline. I will start to train a volunteer editorial assistant once the conference is over, and this person will work with myself and our lab administrative assistant (Sue-Ellen Peralta) to ensure speedy manuscript reviews, and decrease my time involvement in the editing of manuscripts accepted for publication. This editorial support is needed more now than before, as there are continued increases in submissions. In addition, my time for pursuing presidential duties is also increasing given the content that follows.
Other Organizations
I have not responded to ACSM about their
reply to my letter. I have asked for and received advice from numerous
exercise physiologists on the extent of effort we should provide to encourage
ACSM to support ASEP. The consensus is that ASEP is doing everything
in a professional manner, the mission of ASEP is desperately needed, and
no other organization is performing and functioning like ASEP. Consequently,
is there really a need to put effort into receiving support from ACSM when
it is clear that they do not want to officially recognize and support ASEP?
The accomplishments of ASEP will speak for themselves over time, and perhaps this is what is needed for an organization like ACSM to finally realize that they have everything to gain by supporting us, and a lot to lose by avoiding us. Although ASEP would grow faster with support from ACSM (ACSM advocating that exercise physiologists be members of ASEP, plus ACSM backing many ASEP initiatives), ASEP does not need ACSM to exist, function, and grow. This last two years have made this obvious.
Despite these comments, I feel that ASEP needs to repetitiously ask for support from ACSM, as ACSM is professionally obligated to provide this support. The longer ACSM refuses to support ASEP, the greater the burden that their stance places upon them. As the saying goes, "the squeaky wheel gets the grease".
Accreditation
Dale Wagner and the remainder of the accreditation
committee completed their final draft of the accreditation proposal, and
I will be including it in the conference packet at the annual meeting.
Attendees will be invited to provide feedback on the proposal, and the
ASEP Board of Directors will consider all opinions in their decision to
approve the proposal or request continued revisions. In either event,
ASEP should have an approved nationwide accreditation scheme in place by
January, 2000. This section of the conference will be very exciting,
and should be an exhilarating experience to realize that attendees will
be a part of history in the making – the first ever nationwide program
accreditation scheme for exercise physiology, and for that matter for any
of the classic exercise sciences.
Committee Involvement
The requirements of the national meeting
have detracted from my ability to communicate with committee chairs and
all committee personnel. However, I plan to revitalize committee
efforts at the national meeting.
That is it for September. For those of you who are located in a suitable climate, I hope the Fall colors are inspiring to you. Speaking as an Australian who grew up with summer (beach weather) and not summer (football season) as the only real seasons, I find the seasonal transitions in the USA to be a constant reminder of the forces of nature, and our delicate, less important place within that rhelm.
I hope to see you in a few weeks. Make sure you introduce yourself if you attend the conference.
Robert
Robergs, Ph.D., FASEP
President - ASEP
