With food aplenty and strawberry smoothies in hand, over 200 APPAM members convened yesterday morning for the association's annual APPAM membership meeting. The membership breakfast provided a summary of what has been going on at APPAM, including a demonstration of the state of candidates for the APPAM policy council and awards presentation. The breakfast celebrated all the APPAM members and their accomplishments, and discussed both finances and nominations for policy council for next year. Just as importantly, the breakfast celebrated recipients of the 40 for 40 Fellowship, the Raymond Vernon Memorial Award, and the Ph.D. Dissertation Award.
The policy council members were recognized for their dedicated efforts. APPAM’s financial report was presented and the budget projections were highlighted. The forecast for upcoming years showed a surplus. The leadership positions we announced for academic and non-academic settings by the immediate past president, Carolyn Heinrich.
APPAM’s President-elect Matthew Stagner thanked the APPAM staff and those who participated in the application review process for the various panels and papers presented at the conference. Matthew stated that APPAM is significantly growing both in quantity and quality. The current membership is over 3500, which includes over 2000 professionals and over 1500 students. This membership increased significantly over the last 5 years. The first APPAM conference was held in Chicago 40 years ago and there were a total of 85 attendees and 26 sessions. After 40 years of success, this is the largest fall conference; APPAM welcomed over 2,400 attendees, hosted over 300 sessions, and saw the presentation of around 1,000 papers.
The Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (JPAM) continues to perform successfully and has received 600 submissions this past year. It keeps on growing. The impact factor of the journal continues to grow as well. The number of student membership grew significantly and there is a growing number of programs and professional development activities for the student members. Student members were encouraged to take advantage of the different opportunities, including the public policy camps.
Finally, the program concluded with the presentation of Ph.D. Dissertation Award to Garima Siwach from the University at Albany, and the Raymond Vernon Memorial Award to Daniel Gubits, Marybeth Shinn, Michelle Wood, Scott Brown, Samuel Dastrup, and Stephen Bell. Daniel Gubits received the Raymond Vernon Memorial award.
APPAM members are excited for the next Fall Research Conference, scheduled for November 7-9, 2018, as further celebration-worthy seems highly likely.