New Process for Considering Motions Slated for Québec Meeting

Walter Eisenhauer, MEd, MMSc, PA-C
Chair, PAEA Governance Committee

In response to a charge from the membership at last year’s Education Forum, the PAEA Governance Committee has reviewed the Association’s process for reviewing motions and will implement some changes for this year’s Annual Business Meeting in Quebec.

The governance process that has been followed over the past couple of years was designed to provide PAEA members with the opportunity to discuss and refine motions during regional consortium meetings. While this process was viewed favorably by much of the membership and served to invigorate many consortia, some members felt that it decreased the time available to work on other important regional issues traditionally discussed during the consortium meetings. The format was also cumbersome to administer, requiring the board and staff to quickly collect, collate, and make available feedback from all of the consortium meetings prior to the annual Business Meeting. Often there were not enough staff members to go around. Furthermore, since motions that were to be brought to the floor of the business meeting were only discussed by the consortium of origin, a majority of members were not able to participate in the discussions occurring for motions originating in other regions.

The mechanism in place to vet motions in Québec will seem very familiar to many who have attended PAEA meetings over the years. The traditional “open forum” session, formerly called Hot Topics, has been extended to two hours to include time for discussion of all motions by all conference attendees. The PA Educators Open Forum on Thursday, October 26, 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., will provide members with an update on PAEA activities, devote time to the discussion of motions that have been proposed, and also allow for discussion of other issues deemed important by the membership. This format will enable all PAEA members to participate in discussions and bring issues to the floor, and it will also allow the authors of motions to receive feedback and consider proposing amendments to their motions at the business meeting, should amendments be required.

The changes to the process were recommended by the PAEA Governance Committee and approved by the board in September. All members, especially voting representatives of programs, are strongly encouraged to attend this open forum discussion. Regional consortium meetings will be held after the open forum, following lunch, and will once again be devoted to discussion of regional concerns.