Student Affairs Committee of the American Corrections Association Minutes
January 13, 2008 (Grapevine, Texas)


Meeting called to order at 10:03 by Chair Reddington.

Those in attendance: Robyn Blodgett, UCM; Jessica Nelson, UCM; Lisa 
Hutchinson UARL; Shonda New EKU; Abby Wright EKU; Liz Braise EKU; Tommy Norris 
EKU; Don Yeomans CANADA; John Wilson, MARYLAND.  Jennifer Bentchel ACA 
joined the meeting in progress.

I.	Introductions were made

II.	Motion to approve minutes by Don, seconded by Tommy. Vote unanimous.

III. OLD BUSINESS

Money Issues: Lisa updated the SAC on the vendor and money issues. ACA 
was very late in getting money to students. One solution is getting someone 
else to handle donations for SAC. the National Partnership for Juvenile 
Justice or NAWAS. NAWAS might be better suited as they are a stronger 
presence in ACA. Lisa will check on this. We want this in place by the New 
Orleans conference.  For this conference an anonymous donor gave list $350 
in cash so the winners will have some monetary award.

IV.  Jennifer Bentchel will be the ACA new go to person for SAC.

V.  Motion by Jim Thomas (via Fran) to have SAC set up an ACA-SAC webpage that 
Jim would fund, update and sponsor as long as we all shared labor. Don 
seconded. Vote unanimous.

VI.  Poster Sessions. Discussion for poster session only one time a year. SAC 
wants to keep it every time. To do so will require a dedication of the SAC 
members to make sure that we have judges, awards, etc.

VII.  Recruitment.  Jennifer stated that all schools with the state where 
the conference is being held and sometimes another close state receives a 
letter from ACA telling them of the student scholarship possibility. Lisa 
asked is we could include a Student Poster announcement with that. Fran asked 
if ACA could send out notices of the conference itself and the student poster 
competition across the US for each conference. Fran asked if ACA would 
forward to her and/or SAC the contact information of any students registered 
for the conferences so SAC could welcome them and invite them to student 
sponsored events. Jennifer mentioned that Belmont HS has an official chapter 
now. 

VIII.  Tours: Will continue to be first come first serve. But we can get 
people to sign up for students if we find someone who will be there early 
and get the names to them.

IX.  NEW BUSINESS

A.  Future of SAC. Discussion of issues between SAC and ACA. Sentiment of 
SAC reflected Jim Thomas's email. We need to remember what ACA HAS done for 
us and look on the bright side more. We will be less stressed as a committee 
and more productive if we are more positive. Ways we can achieve this are 
to set in stone things that need to happen at every conference. Fran 
suggested the creation of mater lists for SAC events. 

B. New Orleans Planning: SAC workshop on Student Empowerment submitted. 
(Fran told group that there were only 2 students and 14 participants in 
the audience earlier that morning in the workshop. But ACA had to change 
the time as it conflicted with the meeting and 8 am was early and the only 
place that was noted was in the formal program. Though lower that the 
previous 11/45 numbers of the last workshop, SAC is not discouraged. 
Conflict of workshops by SAC and involving SAC will be monitored by ACA to 
see that conflicts like these do not happen again.).   Student Poster Session 
will be a go.

C. Lisa suggested a highlighted sheet of SAC and student related activities, 
etc be made up for students. Fran mentioned that UCM students had done that 
once and would be happy to do it for New Orleans.  Discussion of Angola 
Tour for students.

X.	Announcements

A.  Meet and Greet for students at 6:30 pm, Jan 14, Appaloosa.
B.  Jim's Angola tour April 17.
c.  UCM Washington DC Tour May.

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