AAAP New Committee Structure
The AAAP Board of Directors proposes a new organization for all of the AAAP Committees.
The change comes from the guidance of a paid consultant during the Strategy Session at the 2023 Fall Board of Directors Meeting. The principal reasons for making these organizational changes are:
- Create major areas of focus to strengthen the partnership between committees and the Board of Directors.
- Realign all committee's goals to match AAAP's vision & mission statements.
- Increase existing member engagement within the committees.
- Encourage new member participation within the committees.
- Improve user experience when navigating to committee pages on the AAAP website.
- Reorganize the responsibilities asked of committee chairs to avoid overtaxing our volunteers
Summary of Changes
- Creation of 4 Overarching Governing Committees for AAAP Inc. The Board of Directors will appoint a chair to manage each division. Suggestions from committee chairs are welcome. The divisions are:
- Membership
- Educational Resources and Outreach
- Food Safety and Animal Welfare
- Infectious Diseases
- Renaming the Auditing Committee to the Financial Auditing Committee
- Renaming the Education Committee to Educational Resources Committee
- Moving the Small Flock Committee to the renamed Educational Resources Committee
- Creation of a Student Engagement Committee
- Moving the AAAP Mentorship, Student Chapters, and SAVMA under the new Student Engagement Committee
- Renaming Toxic, Infectious, Miscellaneous, Emerging (TIME) Committee to Emerging Diseases Committee
- Concluding the Diseases of Public Health Significance Committee due to significant overlap with other committees
Next Steps
Starting now and for the next 30 days, the AAAP Board of Directors would like to hear AAAP member's comments on the proposed changes. All comments will be visible to all members. Comments can be made by scrolling to the bottom of this post, typing your comment in the text box, and clicking the green "post" button.
After the comment period is up, the Board of Directors will view comments from membership and use member feedback to finalize the new AAAP Committee Structure. Upon final approval of the Board of Directors, restructuring will start on January 1st, 2025.
I agree with the re-structuring of the committees, and I think this is a good way to do so. Echoing Dr. Zedek's comment, I believe it is important to name "Member Engagement" under the Membership Committee. It could be lumped with wellness or with student engagement, but it should be mentioned in the name of one of the "subcommittees" under Membership Committee.
Where is AMR reduction as an important objective? Infectious diseases, especially of enteric pathogens, is a major component of dealing with food safety. I am not sure that animal welfare fits with Food Safety.
"Therapeutics, Biologics and Bio-Protection" committee seems to be a better fit under Infectious Diseases Committee. I'm unclear how the reorganization will increase membership engagement and participation.
I agree with other commenters that the Therapeutics, Biologics and Bioprotection Committee should be moved. I would prefer to see it with the Food Safety and Welfare Committees. I understand that these two committees were placed in their own group because they are named in the Mission of AAAP (perhaps I’m mistaken for the reason that they were put in their own group with the name Food Safety and Animal Welfare Committee), but I think the name for this overarching committee should be changed and then should include Food Safety, Animal Welfare, and Therapeutics subcommittees.
I definitely support these modifications. Should streamline the legislative procedures, facilitate better member involvement, and improve educational opportunities.