This meeting was facilitated by Mary Ann Suppes. There were 38 individuals in attendance.

The following announcements were made by Mary Ann Suppes:

The BPD Membership meeting will be held from 9:15-10:45 a.m. Saturday morning in the Columbus room following the BPD Presidents Address.
Mary Ann Suppes will rotate off the BPD Board. Adel Sanders from Governors State in Normal, IL is on the board from the Midwest Region.
There are opportunities available to members to serve on BPD committees. As part of the new strategic plan for BPD, focus of committees will be more outcomes based. If interested in serving on any committee, contact the committee chair.
A sign up sheet was circulated for those interested in being nominated to serve on the BPD Board.
The BPD Annual meeting in fall 2005 will be in Austin, TX; fall 2006 in Los Angeles, CA. There will be no meeting in fall 2007, rather the annual BPD conference will be held in spring 2008 in Destin, FL. BPD is moving their annual meeting to spring from this point out as CSWE has moved APM to fall beginning in 2007. BPD has elected not to combine conferences with CSWE based on membership feedback of general opposition to combined conferences and also few members would be able to be absent from their programs for an extended period of time. A request was made the Minneapolis be considered as a site for the annual BPD meeting.

Individuals present introduced themselves.

General Discussion:

Program enrollment: Contrary to national trends, a hand poll indicates that enrollment is increasing in roughly 50% of programs at this meeting. It was noted that U.S. Department of Labor predicts social work to be one of the 10 fastest growing professions with 30% increase in positions projected by 2010.
A request was forwarded that BPD put marketing ideas on its web site. Also it was suggested that a Midwest Regional BPD newsletter be produced.
Discussions regarding relationships with Community Colleges revolved around the following issues: policies regarding duplication of content in courses for transfer students; discontinuation of prescription in EPA’s restricting nonmajors from practice classes and the need instead for individual programs to develop rationale/policies or prerequisite requirements to restrict enrollment in practice classes.
Certification/licensing issues in various states were discussed and how they worked for and against BSW education.
A question was raised regarding the role of the BSW level professional in the NASW campaign promoting social work. Those who had viewed NASW campaign materials felt that they reflected the profession generically -both MSW and BSW professionals. Concern was raised about low membership in NASW by BSW’s and also a perception that NASW has a clinical focus. This concern was countered by comments that NASW is making concerted efforts to be more inclusive of BSW professionals and low NASW membership by BSW faculty contributes to apathy amongst BSW’s towards NASW membership. Programs were encouraged to promote NASW membership by their faculty and it was suggested that NASW can have very responsive and positive relations with BSW programs. It was suggested that there appears to be some discrepancy between what we teach about the struggle for and importance of professionalism and our “ownership” of our professional identity. A final comment suggested that the political stands of NASW do not reflect the diversity of political views of the profession thus potentially alienating some social workers from the organization.

Meeting was adjourned at 1:15 p.m.