President’s Report

John K. Bernard, PhD, PAS, Dipl. ACAN

Spring has arrived, and everyone is preparing for another growing season. ARPAS is also examining how to maintain growth. Current membership in ARPAS is 1,418, which includes 63 graduate students. One change that your Executive Committee will recommend is the addition of a graduate student representative to the Governing Council. This is being recommended to bring another perspective and fresh ideas for the Governing Council to consider as we look at how we best serve the next generation of professional animal scientists. Details on how to nominate a graduate student will be available in the near future, so be thinking about someone you might nominate!

We recently conducted a survey to gather input on a potential name change for The Professional Animal Scientist (PAS) as well as other questions related to PAS. The name change is being considered to better reflect the changes that have occurred in the types of articles published and to better position PAS to represent ARPAS to a broader audience. With the move to Elsevier for publishing, PAS has an expanded potential readership, and we need to position PAS to not only attract additional authors to publish useful information that our members can use, but also promote ARPAS. Since the move to Elsevier, we have had additional inquiries from professionals in other countries about joining ARPAS or forming a similar organization in their country.  This reflects positively on ARPAS and the need for an independent organization that promotes ethics, minimum standards of education, and the need for continuing education. We appreciate your feedback during the survey. Dave Beede and the editorial team are currently reviewing the information so they can make recommendations on how to improve PAS to meet your needs in the future.

We are looking forward to the annual meeting, which will be held in conjunction with the American Dairy Science Association in Knoxville, Tennessee, June 25 to 26. Andy Cole has put together a very timely symposium that will be Monday morning, and the ARPAS business meeting will be that afternoon. The ACAS meeting will be Tuesday afternoon.  If you have not registered, please do so at https://www.adsa.org/2018. We look forward to seeing everyone there!

Sincerely,

John K. Bernard, PhD, PAS, Dipl. ACAN
President, ARPAS