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Updated: Monday, August 8, 2005
Published: Thursday, October 14, 2004 |
NABJ Board OK's New Regional Realignment Plan
The NABJ Board of Directors has adopted a realignment plan to reduce the number of regional directors serving on the board, effective with the 2005-2007 election.
At the Unity 2004 Convention in Washington in August, NABJ full members overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment to downsize the board from 19 members to 14, by eliminating four of 10 director positions as well as the immediate past presidents post. The changes would impact the 2005 election and take effect at next years convention in Atlanta.
Accepting an ad-hoc committees recommendations, the board on Oct. 9, 2004, formed new regional boundaries by merging Regions I and II, adding one state each to Regions III and IV, combining most of Region IX with Region X and then shifting much of Regions V, VI, VII and VIII into two new areas.
The boundaries were last changed in 1989 to account for dramatic population shifts in the South. At the time, the South had eight states, stretched about 1,200 miles and represented a third of the membership. The South was trimmed to six states and other regions absorbed new states.
The new boundaries maintain contiguous states, but are more equally representative population-wise. In the current structure, the three largest regions have 700 to 800 members each, while the two smallest regions have less than 150 and as few as 75. Under the new structure, four regions would likely have at least 725 members each, while the two others would have about 500 or nearly 350.
The NABJ Operating Procedures mandated that the current board determine the new boundaries. At its Aug. 10 meeting concluding UNITY, the board decided to set them at its fall meeting in Washington, to give ample notice to potential candidates before the next election.
In September, President Herbert Lowe appointed the committee to draft the realignment proposal for the board. The geographically and demographically diverse committee included six current and former regional directors, all of who understood the tasks complexities and ramifications. The committee also submitted 17 recommendations aimed at enhancing regional representation.
The board and committee also agreed that every new region should be newly cast and named so all members could begin to create new regional identities and legacies.
The new boundaries were set based on NABJ's membership as Aug. 30, 2004, and will be:
REGION I (944 members) Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont
REGION II (830 members) Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia
REGION III (797 members) Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee
REGION IV (725 members) Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin
REGION V (504 members) Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas
REGION VI (339 members) Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming
The committee included:
Melanie Burney (Chairwoman), NABJ Parliamentarian
Staff Writer, The Philadelphia Inquirer
James Campbell, Past NABJ Regional Director
Readers Representative/Editorial Board Member
The Houston Chronicle
Jackie Jones, Past NABJ Vice President-Print & Parliamentarian
Senior Lecturer, Penn State University
Ray Metoyer, President, Atlanta Association of Black Journalists
Past NABJ Regional Director, Executive Producer, MBC-TV
Dwight Lewis, Past NABJ Regional Director, Columnist
Editorial Board Member & Weekend Regional Editor, The Tennessean (Nashville)
Larry Olmstead, Past NABJ Regional Director
Vice President of Staff Development & Diversity, Knight Ridder (San Jose)
Neal Scarbrough, NABJ Region I Director
Vice President & Editor-in-Chief, ESPN.com (Bristol, Conn.)
Dorothy Tucker, Past NABJ Regional Director
Reporter, WBBM-TV (Chicago)
The committees recommendations were as follows:
1. Regional directors should be given a bigger travel allowance and when possible travel throughout the region to meet their members.
2. The board should establish goals and objectives for regional directors.
3. The board should provide more training to help directors administer and manage their regions.
4. In the event that travel is not possible, regional directors should develop a plan for representing their members and communicating with them, that is, regional Web site, listserve, online chats, newsletter and conference calls.
5. Where boundaries are close, regional directors should collaborate on programs with other directors or chapters. If a director or executive board member from another region is close to a particular chapter, that director could visit the chapter in the neighboring region.
6. Regional directors should appoint deputies or state directors to help serve the region.
7. Chapters in close proximity within a region should plan joint activities.
8. NABJ should sponsor programs and events in key cities to give the association greater regional presence across the country.
9. The membership committee should launch recruitment drives to boost regions.
10. NABJ should identify strategic cities and regions to establish new chapters to supplement the region.
11. Chapter presidents should be encouraged to do more outreach.
12. Regional directors must communicate regularly with chapter presidents and student representatives in their regions.
13. Scheduling priority should be given to regional caucuses at the annual convention to increase participation. It may be the only chance for some members to meet and interact with their regional director.
14. Measures should be implemented to ensure that students would be able to attend regional conferences, given the travel that will now be required.
15. The board should consider establishing eligibility requirements for serving on it.
16. NABJ should market the new regions so that members understand how the boundaries were determined.
17. If the membership numbers drastically change, the board should consider redrawing the boundaries.
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