TO: APSARE Board: Board Discussion Topic: Organized Sections This overview is designed to help initiate a small group Board discussion about the magazines and strategic issues facing the Association may wish to address. The note highlights the salient issues that the Association is or will soon face. The topics included here are certainly not complete and the goal is for a discussion that helps uncover or refine hitherto unarticulated issues as well as those we see now. Introduction APSA's Organized Sections have been a mainstay of the Association since its formation in the early 1980s. There has not been a comprehensive review of the Sections and the ways in which the importance of the Sections has shaped the Association since then, although the Sections have featured prominently in recent reviews of other activities, such as the Annual Meeting and Press. The attached memo examines a variety of topics on the organized sections. This discussion memo identifies several topics that may deserve particular attention.I. Featured Discussion IssuesA. What did we do? There are 38 organized sections, with several new ones formed in the last two years. Over half of APSA members belong to organized sections. Sections take the lead in structuring and organizing much of our annual meeting, and many now also maintain and distribute journals in their fields. Are we satisfied with what the Sections have brought to the Association? Are there ways we should plan to reorient or reshape their role?B. JournalsFifteen organized sections now have affiliations of some kind with journals. APSA has carefully managed the affiliations of these journals on a journal-by-journal basis. Now we are seeing both opportunities and I…half of the document…employee governance.B. Administration Although they are small membership organisations, sections are not obligated or encouraged to maintain standards. Many sections offer their members great value, while others do very little. How to reconcile these differences. Sections should be required to meet performance requirements of some kind.C. Annual MeetingThe Organized Section's role in the Annual Meeting was recently reviewed in the Association's General Meeting Overview. However, the balance between Sections, non-Section meeting Divisions, related groups, and working groups deserves continued attention, especially if the division structure leaves room for topics that are not well reflected in conventional Section topics .D. AwardsSimilarly, the relationship between the Section and the Association's Awards is currently being examined by the Awards Implementation Committee.