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LASIG Business Meeting

3/12/2014
In attendance: Pablo Fraser (C0-Chair), Erwin Epstein (Advisor), Ana Solano-Campos
(Secretary), Erica Mallett, Hector Gertel, Francisco Romo, Esteban Villalobos, Joe
Levitan, Tania Grinberg, Diana Rodriquez, Cristian Cabalin, Juan Pablo Queupil,
Martina Arnal, Felipe Godoy, Xiasran Yun, Norma Urena, Giorgia Magni, Jorge
Delgado, and Vania Salgado. 19 total attendees.
Co-Chair Maria Teresa Tatto is not present due to scheduling conflict.
The meeting is started at 2:36 pm
Pablo Fraser introduces himself as the co-chair and presents the agenda for the meeting:
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What is LASIG
LASIG Finances
Merit Travel Award
Research Proposals
Communications
Meeting with McMillan-Palgrave Representative

Pablo describes the SIG and requirements for membership, including payment of fee.
Pablo introduces the LASIG Board 2013-2014, and the proposed LASIG Board for the
2014-2015: Pablo Fraser and Ana Solano-Campos (Co-Chairs). Pablo makes a call for a
new LASIG secretary. Ana asks the audience if they have received the newsletter or
Facebook page and requests them to sign for attendance in order to be added to the
mailing list and invited to the Facebook page.
Next, Pablo describes the break-down of the demographics for the LASIG membership.
Then he explains LASIGs current interest in being relevant to Latin American societies
of comparative education and shares LASIG goals to address communication and
collaboration with these societies.
Pablo moves onto describing the SIGs finances and explains that the SIG current
balance is $1,460, which places us in the mid-range, and that the SIG will use $600 for
merit awards which will leave $860 available. The awards were given to two presenters
(both graduate students) based on the merit of their proposal, $300 to each. Both
awardees are present in the meeting. Erica Mallet shares about the research that she
presented on Latin American EFA and English teaching policies. Diana Rodriguez
discusses her research (visual anthropology) in Colombia and obstacles to the education
of refugees. Both presenters will be acknowledged during the CIES Awards Ceremony.

Pablo shares information about the CIES SIGs meeting that was held the day before.
One of the issues brought in that meeting was the confusion of presenters when
submitting proposals to CIES but not knowing which SIG to submit to, since some SIGs
are regional and some issue-driven. At the meeting there was the suggestion to
strengthen the communication among the SIGs (e.g. to do a collaborative or joint SIG
session). The concern is that there are so many different topics in Latin America that
presenters might go to other SIGs. He gave an example of a conversation with the chair
of the Teacher Education SIG who said there could even be a SIG of Teacher Education
by region.
Pablo discusses the proposals that LASIG received. There were 21 paper proposals and 3
session proposals, for a total of 24 proposals. Of those, 20 proposals were accepted, 4
were rejected, and 2 of the presenters with accepted proposals did not attend the
conference.
Helaine Labowitz joins the meeting to offer assistance and shares that members can
now go to the Chicago Journal Website and become members of SIGs.
Pablo continues to present about his meeting with the representative of Palgrave
MacMillan about possibly publishing an edited issue with the LASIG. Pablo asks Helaine
how this usually works.
Helaine points out that this is probably something that needs to go to the board. She
reminded members to work with other SIGs and she shares about a new SIG newsletter
and encourages SIG members to submit a proposal for Regional CIES Conferences.
Pablo mentions that he was talking about the need to improve communication among
SIGs. Helaine mentions that research collaborations among SIGs are beneficial to
members. Pablo goes back to the possibility of an edited text and suggests we start
thinking about the opportunity for people in the SIG to be published and get the SIG out
there. The process however needs thought. He asks for recommendations on how to
approach that initiative.
Erwin says, when we look at the organization of the SIG We need to involve more
people. Why not set up a committee that would explore these questions, to come up and
study the question thoroughly and study all sides of the issues They might consider a
series not only a book. And you want to involve the membership more
Helaine suggests, you want to involve the entire CIES membership
Pablo mentions that a number of SIGs are interested in publishing as their next step as
academic organizations. He suggests that LASIG should be more ambitious and start
aiming at producing academic work as well and points out that this goes hand in hand in
our capacity to communicate with people.

Pablo introduces our current online presence. We have a newsletter, Facebook page, and
e-mail. Pablo points out that almost none of the people present know about these. We
have very few Facebook friends We need to update contact information and improve
communications. Not all of our 70 LASIG members are here, and not all came to CIES,
but there should be more people at this meeting.
Helaine mentions that we will now receive a list of all members every month.
Jorge Delgado from the University of Pittsburg and Teacher Education SIG, shares
insights on how his SIG works: We try to keep our SIG focus broad, but with SIG
specific issues such as elections, we only reach out to the SIG membership. The
secretary should do that. For the publication, word of mouth, call for proposals, the
authors could be from within or beyond the SIG.
Helaine leaves.
Diana commented that her husband could create a website. Pablo and Ana told her that
we have an official CIES website, but Pablo mentioned that someone at one of the
meetings brought up interests of SIGs of having a SIG only website that does not require
approval from CIES for postings. Diana said that she would be happy to be in charge of
the website. Erwin suggested that Diana could be the new secretary. Pablo and Ana
explain secretarial tasks to Diana and she says she would be happy to help with that
(except not so excited about taking minutes). Its crazy to be part of an organization
where you cannot represent your own members. Pablo explained that some people are
not aware that there is a Latin American SIG.
Norma shared she submitted a proposal on Ecuador to the general pool, and she said
she did not know about the SIG and she was wondering if LASIG could be open to all of
them [researchers residing in Latin America] too.
Erwin said that he was the editor of the CER and that people submitted articles to CER
who were not membership of CIES and that in those cases when the article was
accepted, he would recommend that they would join the society, but still accept their
papers. [The same could be applied to the CIES].
Someone else suggested that we should try to develop more online presentations (online
panels) for people in Latin America who might not be able to travel. Pablo said that this
is an issue to discuss with the CIES board, because some times that is not allowed.
Erwin advised that the discussion should also be with the SIG Oversight Committee.
Jorge Delgado commented that online presenting poses additional changes. He said that
in his SIG he tries to get other members involved and sponsored by the SIG. Other
things are very specific to the SIG like voting. Do you have a program

manager/coordinator for the conference? That can be another position for the SIG.
Erwin commented that this was a good idea.
Erica said that other online resources like Facebook are good informal online platforms
to share our work. Pablo added that it helps to attract more people and let them know
who we are.
Diana asked about doing a Survey Monkey to ask preferences for sharing online and she
can start planning a product to fulfill some of those needs.
Pablo shared concern about low number of proposals that we got compared to other
SIGs who got double that number. He also highlights the themes that people submitted:
education reform analysis (7), school efficacy (5), higher education performance and
access (4), education under contested scenarios (4), teacher education and development
(2), factors affecting student achievement (2). I agree with Jorge that it is important to
be broad, but I am also concerned in terms of the book. For example, this particular
book I read has a critical theory scope that involves several areas using a general broad
theme but different chapters dealing with an issue. We could do something like that.
Erwin suggested that we need a committee for that, and that the committee can then
share their recommendations with the members of the SIG.
Pablo agreed that one of our tasks for 2014-2015 is to create this committee to move
forward this kind of agenda.
Finally, these are concerns for the upcoming year:
How to recruit new membersRecruit more people from Latin America.
Communication is key. In general we are not very well-known in Latin America. We all
have contacts, so that is our first venue to do that, but creating new ways to do that is
important.
A member (Diana?) added that we need to create a new communication strategy.
Another member pointed that a non-profit organization they are familiar with used
Twitter and twitted 6 times per day. Maybe we can use that platform. If we get bigger
we are going to have a core level of people, a second level of members that will, maybe,
send papers, and another level of members that will be keeping an eye on us.
Investment of LASIG Funds. We are thinking about having an award for best article
published in research in Latin America and have an Award for Best Thesis, like the Gail
P. Kelly Award. Ana adds that we could reach out to them to find out who the go about
it.
Another idea is to reach out to honorary members who have done research in Latin
America for decades to serve as advisers.

For next year, LASIG goals are to:

1) improve communications
2) to get started on the book with Palgrave-McMillan. Not sure how much we can do by
next year, but at least having the opportunity to introduce that into the system of the
SIG.
A member (Norma?) mentioned that the book might not be valuable for scholars in
Latin America.
Gonzalo(?) says that one of the ways to attract people is to work in collaborations.
People want to get something from the SIG, but the SIG also wants something from the
members. The realities are different in Latin America, in the US, in Europe. McMillan
has also changed. You can also publish the book in English with them, hold the rights
and publish a Spanish version in Latin America, in Fondo de Cultura Economica, for
example. The good thing is collaboration and for people in certain parts of the world this
[publishing] is very important.
Erwin, going back to the investment of LASIG funds. Far more important than the funds
are the recognition (for the awards), even if it is a Token it is going to be important. He
advises, do not make funding an obstacle in regards to the awards.
Martina stated that even a nomination for the award is important.
Pablo does his closing remarks: to work on communications, the book, and
organizational redesign of the SIG.
Hector points out that we can reach out to the people who submitted to the general pool
to invite them to be members.
Carlos Ornelas, who was present briefly, announces the Mexican party from 8 pm until
11 pm. The room is 3629. Everyone is invited.
Erica Mallet and Martina Arnal volunteer to work with the SIGs social media presence.

Meeting is adjourned at 3:42 pm.

See attached emails of all members present.

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Member
Erica Mallett
Hector Gertel
Francisco Romo
Esteban Villalobos
Joe Levitan
Tania Grinberg
Diana Rodriguez
Cristian Cabalin
Juan Pablo Queupil
Martina Arnal
Felipe Godoy
Xiasran Yu
Norma Urena

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Giorgia Magni
Jorge Delgado
Vania Salgado

Email
Ericaem2007@yahoo.com
hgertel@gmail.com
Francisco.romo@cpce.cl
evillalobosaraya@gmail.com
jal563@psu.edu
Taniagrinberg@gmail.com
Dmr2164@tc.columbia.edu
ccabalin@uchile.cl
Jug114@psu.edu
Arna0026@umn.edu
Felipe.godoy@cpce.cl
Xiy313@leigh.edu
normau@gse.upenn.edu
nurena5@gmail.com
Gm2535@tc.columbia.edu
Jed41@pitt.edu
Vjs2117@columbia.edu