The Christmas holiday season is upon us and 2017 is rapidly coming to a close. As usual, it seems this last year has just flown by. The holidays are always a time of good cheer that helps us to revive our spirits, reflect on the past year, and prepare for the year to come. I would like to wish all of you a wonderful holiday season, and may the joys of this season help to uplift you toward a fabulous New Year.
Since our last newsletter, we have two new American College of Animal Sciences (ACAS) members (Glen Duff in Animal Nutrition and Josh Davy in Animal Welfare) to welcome aboard. This brings the total ACAS membership to 247 members. Our trend for the past few years has been to add three to six new ACAS members each year. As you might guess, this leaves a lot of current ARPAS members that are likely ACAS eligible that are not board certified. Our goal would be to encourage as many of these members as possible to seek board certification through either the exam route or the highly qualified individual route. The requirements for board certification can be found on the ARPAS website (http://www.arpas.org/For-Members/Board-Certification/Information).
If you meet these requirements and are not yet board certified, I would encourage you to maximize the value of your ARPAS membership by joining ACAS. For those of you that have recently completed your graduate program, the ideal time to apply for ACAS membership is as soon as you meet the time/experience requirement as an ARPAS member. There is benefit to applying while you still remember the joy of taking exams and before the fear of taking them sets in. If you are an ACAS member, please encourage your friends and colleagues that are ACAS eligible to join you in becoming a member of an elite group of animal scientists who have achieved the highest level of ARPAS certification.
Don’t forget that ARPAS/ACAS members are encouraged to gain the most impact and benefit from their membership by displaying their ARPAS credentials on their business cards, letterhead, electronic signature, and other forms of communication. Also, as a reminder, our 2018 ACAS business meeting will be held in June at the American Dairy Science Association (ADSA) meeting in Knoxville, Tennessee. ARPAS members who are not ADSA members will be allowed to pay the ADSA member registration fee for this meeting. I look forward to seeing you in Knoxville.