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through a website interface rather than emailing files. We are also working toward implementing an e-ballot process sometime in 2021.
Finally, an aspirational “stretch” goal is to reduce the debt ratio of the ASA Standards Program from 25% to 12.5% in 5-6 years. Increasing revenues to meet this goal will require active promotion and marketing. To be realistic, this may even require some reinvestment of the initial savings to sup- port these ongoing efforts.
Conclusion
The new ASA Standards business model enables growth, slashes the debt ratio, and enables us to provide sustain- able service on par with top tier SDOs. In keeping with the
ASA Strategic Plan, our focus is on sustainability and fiscal responsibility. Sales of ASA Standards and organizational memberships are our pathway to revenue growth. However, we exist only if we deliver quality products and services at the right price that continuously evolve to serve our cus- tomers. Having the resources to both keep our catalogue relevant and to effectively communicate our value are key to accomplishing this goal. Change is hard and the challenges ahead are many. But the benefits to the Society and to our
customers, both ASA members and nonmembers alike, far outweigh the effort and resources we are investing to make this happen. Moreover, this new focus is well aligned with the ASA Strategic Initiatives of industry engagement, global outreach, and fiscal responsibility.
References
American National Standards Institute (ANSI). (2009). ANSI/Acoustical Society of America (ASA)S12.60-2009/Part 2. Acoustical Performance Cri- teria, Design Requirements, and Guidelines for Schools, Part 2: Relocatable Classroom Factors. Acoustical Society of America, Melville, NY.
American National Standards Institute (ANSI). (2010). ANSI/Acoustical Society of America (ASA)S12.60-2010/Part 1. Acoustical Performance Cri- teria, Design Requirements, and Guidelines for Schools, Part 1: Permanent Schools. Acoustical Society of America, Melville, NY.
American National Standards Institute (ANSI). (2019). ANSI/Acoustical Society of America (ASA)S12.60-2019/Part 4. Acoustical Performance Criteria, Design Requirements, and Guidelines for Schools, Part 4: Acous- tic Standards for Physical Education Teaching Environments. Acoustical Society of America, Melville, NY.
Blaeser, S., and Struck, C. J. (2019). A history of ASA standards. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 145, 77-109. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5080329.
Struck, C. J. (2012). Modern tools for the development of acoustical standards. Acoustics Today 8(1), 32-33. Available at https://bit.ly/2NLmKCW.
Struck, C. J. (2017). Standards program of the Acoustical Society of America. Acoustics Today 13(3), 58-62. Available at https://bit.ly/33rwnwY.
News From The Acoustical Society Foundation Fund
With the generosity of our donors, the Acoustical Society Foundation Fund supports a number of awards for stu- dents. We recently heard from Megan Diekhoff, a recent BS graduate from Indiana University (Bloomington). Her mentor was Dr. Steven Lulich, and she worked in speech and hearing sciences. She was a winner of the Robert W. Young Award for Undergraduate Student Research in
Acoustics. She writes:
“The funds provided allowed me to expand on my proj- ect... I presented at the ASA in November 2018 (Diekhoff, M., and Lulich, S. M. [2018]. Speech-language pathol- ogy student-clinicians’ self-awareness of tongue position during rhotic sound production in American English. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 144, 1856). I really appreciate the opportunity I had to grow in my
understanding of the research process during this time... I have been admitted into the doctoral program at Indiana University in the Department of Speech and Hearing Sci- ences... where I hope to have many more opportunities to be involved in the ASA in the years to come.”
If you would like to make an impact on students like Megan, drop me a line at miller@uri.edu.
James H. Miller
Chair, Acoustical Society Foundation Board
Mission of the Acoustical Society Foundation Board:
To support the mission of the ASA by developing financial resources for strategic initiatives and special purposes.
ASFF For more information, contact James H. Miller at miller@uri.edu
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