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A Message from AGU's President
(Published in Eos, Vol. 90, No. 19, 12 May 2009)
Looking to the Future
A year ago, AGU established the Future Focus Task Force (FFTF), a 15–member committee to advise the AGU Council on three areas to strengthen AGU's ability to execute its strategic plan. The FFTF has been taking a broad look at the Union’s structure and governance, the alignment of resources and the activities supported by these resources, and the capacities we need to develop to achieve our mission and long-term goals while maintaining ourselves as a preeminent scientific society.
The FFTF also is taking important steps in preparing for the succession in headquarters leadership (see Eos, 90(5), 40, 2009, and 90(18), 159, 2009). This planning should help us in selecting the best candidate for AGU's next executive director. It also will give the search committee a clear understanding of where the Union intends to go and what leadership characteristics are needed to get us there.
An article in Eos last November reported on FFTF activities up to that point (see Eos, 89(46), 460–461, 2008), but a lot has happened since then. At the December 2008 AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco, the consultants we hired to assist with this transition carried out several data-gathering activities, including guided group discussions with students, early-career scientists, non-U. S. members, and past presidents. The consultants also conducted a dialogue with members of the AGU Council and with focus group and AGU committee chairs at the Fall Meeting leadership forum.
These discussions were designed to explore the attitudes of students, early-career scientists, and non-U. S. members about what might increase membership relevance and also about their expectations of AGU in the area of outreach. The discussions revealed many unique perspectives and needs that differentiate each stakeholder group as well as many areas of common interest.
In discussion sessions with past presidents and at the leadership forum, our consultants focused on governance and outreach, and they gained key insights into activities related to these areas, including the need for stepped-up outreach activities and the importance of the greater use of technology.
In February 2009, the FFTF met to consider a report on the data-gathering activities and to form recommendations to the AGU Council. That report will be distributed to the Council shortly.
Among the topics the FFTF discussed at that February meeting were governance recommendations and strategic principles. The FFTF embraced the ideas presented by the Statutes and Bylaws Committee and will recommend to the AGU Council that AGU governance be restructured by adding a separate, smaller board of directors to focus on governance and fiduciary responsibilities and by expanding the Council to include a larger group of stakeholders to focus on the science and related activities of the Union.
Strategic principles provide a way to ensure AGU's future strategic capacity and adaptability by focusing on our core values, and they also provide a guide to help AGU achieve clarity of focus and nimbleness in our activities.
In April, two additional meetings focused on FFTF's charge. At a 2-day meeting, the Statutes and Bylaws Committee mapped the changes in governance structure that the FFTF will recommend the Council adopt as a set of changes in the Union's statutes and bylaws. The committee helped the FFTF think through nominating and elections recommendations and a timeline for considering the changes. The FFTF then held a 2–day program assessment meeting with 10 volunteer members and 10 AGU staff leaders. We discussed a rank-ordered subset of the 24 Union programs identified in February. These include programs in education, public affairs, meetings, and publishing. We gained some great insights into how to plan strategically for the Union’s continued success, and we expect that all Union programs eventually will be submitted to this evaluation process.
So the FFTF has been busy! We are excited to share the results of these deliberations with you. We believe we have enough data to allow us to point the Union in the right direction. Our next activity will occur at the Joint Assembly in Toronto at the end of May, where we will present our findings to the AGU Council and propose changes in the governance structure of the Union. Stay tuned for more.
—Tim Grove, President, AGU
E-mail: tlgrove@MIT.edu