Page 9 - Spring2019

From the President | Lily Wang
Recent Actions on Increasing Awareness of Acoustics
The Fall 2018 Acoustical Soci- ety of America (ASA) Meeting in Victoria, BC, Canada, held in conjunction with the 2018
Acoustics Week in Canada, was a resounding success! Many thanks to Stan Dosso (general chair), Roberto Racca (techni- cal program chair), the local organizing committee, the ASA staff, and the leadership of the Canadian Acoustical Associa- tion for their efforts in making it so.
As usual, the Executive Council of the ASA met several times to conduct the business of the Society. Among the items that were approved by the Executive Council were the selection of several recipients for assorted Society medals, awards, prizes, and special fellowships (see page 62 in this issue of Acoustics Today for the list); the election of new Fellows of the Soci- ety (acoustic.link/ASA-Fellows); a new five-year publishing partnership between the ASA and the American Institute of Physics Publishing; improvements to the budgeting process of the Society; and changes to the rules of the Society with regard to (1) the new elected treasurer position and (2) es- tablishing a new membership engagement committee. The latter three items, in particular, are outcomes of strategies from the 2015 ASA Strategic Leadership for the Future Plan (acoustic.link/SLFP).
In the past two From the President columns in Acoustics To- day, I’ve discussed recent actions related to two of the four primary goals from that strategic plan: membership engage- ment and diversity and financial stewardship. In this column, I’d like to summarize the progress we’ve made on one of the other main goals dealing with the awareness of acoustics: “ASA engages and informs consumers, members of industry, educational institutions, and government agencies to rec- ognize important scientific acoustics contributions.” A task force of ASA members has worked diligently with the ASA leadership and staff toward this goal, increasing the impact of the outreach activities of the Society. The efforts have suc- cessfully led to
1) expansion of the promotion of ASA activities and re- sources through emerging media and online content;
(2) advancing the web and social media presence of the ASA;
(3) improving the image of the ASA through a strategic branding initiative;
(4) fostering members’ ability to communicate about science; (5) considering how the Society should engage in advo- cating for public policy related to science and technology through government relations; and
(6) increasing awareness and dissemination of ASA stan-
dards.
I won’t be able to expound on all these initiatives in great detail here, but I will highlight some of the achievements to date.
One of the first items completed shortly after the Strategic Leadership for the Future Plan was released was the hiring of ASA Education and Outreach Coordinator Keeta Jones. Keeta has done an outstanding job championing and over- seeing many ASA outreach activities. Visit exploresound.org to find a current compilation of available resources, includ- ing the updated Acoustics Programs Directory. If you teach in an acoustics program that isn’t already represented in this directory, please be sure to submit an entry at acoustic.link/ SubmitAcsProgram. Keeta also reports regularly about ASA education and outreach activities and programs in Acous- tics Today (for examples, see acoustic.link/AT-ListenUp and acoustic.link/AT-INAD2018).
Another team member who has played a large role in improv- ing the impact of the outreach activities of the ASA is Web Office Manager Dan Farrell. Our updated ASA webpage is a wonderful modern face for the Society along with the new ASA logo that was rolled out in 2018. Both Dan and Keeta have worked together to increase the presence of the ASA on social media as well, summarized in a recent Acoustics Today article (acoustic.link/AT-ASA-SocialMedia). I admit that I personally was not an early adopter of social media, and even now I am reticent about posting personal items on social media. However, I participated in a workshop in 2011 that taught me how social media can be leveraged to communi- cate our science more effectively to the broader public. I now believe strongly that having an active presence online and on social media (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube) is a good tactic for the Society to spread the word about the remarkable work done by the Society and its many members. Please consider joining one or more of the ASA social media groups to help us increase dissemination further.
https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2019.15.1.9
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