Latest LPA Today/Statistics/Voting

[Guest guest]

Morning everyone!

I just wanted to give Kudos to Jody for the latest LPA Today. I

didn't realize it was coming out again so soon so it was a pleasant

surprise yesterday! I am biased though because I know the cute lil

boy on the cover, he is from the Badger Chapter in SE Wisconsin. It

is also great to see Saylor who wrote the parents article.

She is a wonderful person and very proactive in LPA.

I do hope that all of you paid members will place your vote for the

2010 conference location, even if you are unsure you can attend in

2010. It is sad to read that for elections only 200 or 300 people

out of thousands only vote. I still do not understand that one.

I wanted to lastly give Kudos to the article Clint wrote. I thought

he brought up very valid points. Being a female in LPA who is very

active, I have spoken to my female friends in my age group and we

have brought up a few times how it seems women in LPA appear to be

more educated and have direction/goals than men in LPA. Now before I

get the oh so popular bash e-mail, I am not saying ALL, Clint is one

example right there as well as a handful of other men I know.

Second, it is not JUST my observation.

I would love to have those type of statistics done within our

community to see what the education level is as well as economic

level. I believe I have seen posts from others that have mentioned

disability statistics when it came to economic level, so I was

wondering if we match those stats. As far as education, it may also

appear that way to my friends and I because last I heard women out

number men at conferences and possibly LPA.

[Guest guest]

> I do hope that all of you paid members will place your vote for the

> 2010 conference location, even if you are unsure you can attend in

> 2010. It is sad to read that for elections only 200 or 300 people

> out of thousands only vote. I still do not understand that one.

Unfortunately that is a problem with a lot of organizations. And

although the LPA database appears to be in the thousands, from what I

remember a large percentage aren't active. I admit that I am guilty of

not sending back the renewal form updating my information; I guess as

a lifetime member there isn't a commitment to doing such unless my

information changes. Maybe if it could be done online

> I wanted to lastly give Kudos to the article Clint wrote. I thought

> he brought up very valid points. Being a female in LPA who is very

> active, I have spoken to my female friends in my age group and we

> have brought up a few times how it seems women in LPA appear to be

> more educated and have direction/goals than men in LPA. Now before I

> get the oh so popular bash e-mail, I am not saying ALL, Clint is one

> example right there as well as a handful of other men I know.

Generally this is true on a national level also. See this article

from 2005

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2005-10-19-male-college-cover_x.htm

" Last year for the first time, women earned more than half the degrees

granted statewide in every category, be it associate, bachelor,

master, doctoral or professional. "

Factor into that the fact that after a certain point so many (male and

female) seem to drop out. When in conversation we address the issues

of difficulty related dating only 'within the community' it is

exacerbated by the wide difference in ratio.

But, getting back to education; to boot in lower income brackets the

divide widens. I suspect that if we had some socio-economic

information about the dwarfism community we'd see how we fit into

situations such as

" Before you answer, consider the perspective of Jim McCorkell, founder

of Admission Possible, a St. program to help low-income high

school kids prepare for college. Last year, 30% of the students were

boys. This fall, that has inched up to 34%, but only because " we

actually did a little affirmative action, " McCorkell says. " If we had

a tie (between a male and a female applicant), we gave it to a boy. " "

while attention was focused on women, maybe the men fell behind. And

how does our 'disability' play into this

" There has been no outcry, for example, on the scale of a highly

publicized 1992 report by the American Association of University

Women, How Schools Short-Change Girls, which compiled reams of

research on gender inequities.

That study " really ... got people to focus on girls ... (but) there is

no big network that protects the needs of boys, " says family therapist

Gurian, author of the just-published The Minds of Boys: Saving

Our Sons from Falling Behind in School and Life, which argues that

elementary and secondary schools aren't meeting the developmental

needs of boys. "

What I do find most interesting is the following:

" There's still a pay gap. According to the Census Bureau, women on

average earned 77 cents to each dollar paid to male counterparts in

2004. "

Recently while looks for stats for an internal situation I was shocked

to learn that at our University the women outnumber the men 2 to 1 at

our undergraduate level and the gap widens tremendously at the

graduate level. It does make one wonder. It isn't visually evident as

one participates in the campus life and now I'll have to go back and

look at the 30 students in the section of Freshman Seminar that I

taught, but keeping in mind that they are admitted under different

circumstances (special program geared towards innovative degree

programs focus on high school science and mathematics teaching, and

developing researchers for New Jersey business and industry) and

perhaps it is a more equal ratio.

> I would love to have those type of statistics done within our

> community to see what the education level is as well as economic

> level.

It would be interesting to do, but I suspect the same 300 out of

thousands would respond.

BTW, seems these stores which are much more recent are saying the same:

More women than men seeking higher education

http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2006/04/30/news/top_story/news01.txt

At Colleges, Women Are Leaving Men in the Dust

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/education/09college.html?ex=1310097600 & en=cd9e\

fba2e9595dec & ei=5088 & partner=rssnyt & emc=rss

Although it does have a different spin

" It is not that men are in a downward spiral: they are going to

college in greater numbers and are more likely to graduate than two

decades ago.

Still, men now make up only 42 percent of the nation's college

students. And with sex discrimination fading and their job

opportunities widening, women are coming on much stronger, often

leapfrogging the men to the academic finish. "

and it's telling of a trend that this is happening:

" At Harvard, 55 percent of the women graduated with honors this

spring, compared with barely half the men. And at Florida Atlantic

University in Boca Raton, a public university, women made up 64

percent of this year's graduates, and they got 75 percent of the

honors degrees and 79 percent of the highest honors, summa cum laude. "

Again, the socio-economic situation:

" lower the family income, the greater the disparity between men and

women attending college, said Ms. King of the American Council on

Education's Center for Policy Analysis. "

Last, but not least how do we play into this? Are we as 'disabled or

perhaps differently-abled' even a blimp on the map of concern? Will

the re-focus on 'missing males' issue help or harm us?:

" " I hate to be cynical, but when it was a problem of black or poor

kids, nobody cared, but now that it's a problem of white sons of

college-educated parents, it's moving very rapidly to the forefront, "

Dr. Kleinfeld said. " At most colleges, there is a sense that a lot of

boys are missing in action. " "

For those who haven't fallen asleep, this is interesting:

A british study " Double Discrimination? Gender and Disability in

Access to the Labour Market "

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:FJCHUSCxYPwJ:www.nottingham.ac.uk/sociology\

/files/Double%2520Discrimination%2520web%2520report.DOC+disabled+men+women+highe\

r+education & hl=en & ct=clnk & cd=2 & gl=us & client=firefox-a

And there are 3 reports here that can be of interest before beginning

any research into our community. One question that did pop into my

head as I read it is " How does our acceptance of 'disabled' factor

into any statistics presently available? " . In other words; if some

don't see themselves as possibly fitting the category, how does that

skew the statistics "

Education: Facts & Statistics

Disability and education related statistics from the N.O.D./

Surveys and other relevant sources.

http://www.nod.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.viewPage & pageID=1430 & nodeID=1 & Featu\

reID=1350 & redirected=1 & CFID=21106374 & CFTOKEN=95436935

[Guest guest]

>It is sad to read that for elections only 200 or 300 people

> out of thousands only vote. I still do not understand that one.

>

>

Not to beat a dead horse, but

The stats for this list:

Group Information

* Members: 3434

I would bet that maybe 10% of that number actively read it and maybe

10% of that actively participates in postings.

Whole lotta lurking going on

[Guest guest]

(moderator's note -- this message was stuck in the potential spam folder and

just noticed.)

I am I'm goin with Nashville!

Hartford seems good, But Nashville is a really cool destination.

Home to ny Cash not a bunch of Insurance companies. Living somewhat close to

(2

hours) Hartford I can tell you all there's not much nearby. I don't want to

offend the

committee but if you want Brooklyn/NYC in 09 why fly all the way back east to go

to

Hartford?

It would make a great regional conference, but for national I say BORING.

Let's go to Nashville!

Tony Soares

[Guest guest]

--- wrote:

> Not to beat a dead horse, but

>

> The stats for this list:

>

> Group Information

>

> * Members: 3434

>

> I would bet that maybe 10% of that number actively read it and maybe

> 10% of that actively participates in postings.

>

> Whole lotta lurking going on

To add a saddle to your dead horse, the last poll here was regarding

a rule change about signing posts. The rules would not change unless

I got 116 responses. I arrived at that number as it was 1/3 of 1/10

of the list population at that time. (3467/10 = 346.7/3 = 115.6) We

only received 45 votes.

But this isn't only in our community: Look at state & national

elections. In a presidential year the total number of people voting

is less than half & I'm being generous. In an off-year vote it's only

a portion of that. Does anyone know the percentage of voters from

last November?

Rose

[Guest guest]

Without turning this into politics, at all, only 20% of the people in this

county voted in the primary last week (and the sad part is it was a really

nice day that day).

[Guest guest]

I disagree. I think both cities are equally compelling. I have been to

Nashville a few times, and it was great, but the history of Hartford also

fascinates me. I would be nice if one of them could slip back to 2011.

One thing we have to keep in mind is that it is not necessarily the city,

but rather the commitment of the conference committee and the hotel that

makes or breaks a conference. Portland, of which I was conference co-chair,

historically is not the most interesting city, nor culturally perhaps the

most relevant (a hip town, but not like SF or Seattle), but what made it

great was the hotel location and the hard work of the conference committee

(not patting my back here; I had great people on the committee). Seriously,

who would want to go to Omaha, except for the fact they had a great crew?

(No offense to the state of Iowa.)

In 2009, we do not yet have a conference site. NYC is tentative at the

moment (but looking promising). Nashville and Hartford have both put

together great bids, and great presentations, and the membership will get a

chance to vote on it now. I would urge everyone to vote soley on the merits

of the presentation, and not the location of the 2009 conference.

If we have two back-to-back East Coast conferences, so be it. In 1998 and

1999 we had back-to-back West Coast conferences (LA and Portland), and both

were well attended. Which makes Tony's comments somewhat puzzling. As I

recall, Tony was somewhat stressed about two back-to-back WC conferences

then, it seems like he'd be happy to have two conferences in his own

backyard now. (We should come back west at least by 2012...San Diego,

anyone?)

Bill

On 5/16/07, tonysoares@... <tonysoares@...> wrote:

>

> (moderator's note -- this message was stuck in the potential spam folder

> and just noticed.)

>

> I am I'm goin with Nashville!

>

> Hartford seems good, But Nashville is a really cool destination.

> Home to ny Cash not a bunch of Insurance companies. Living somewhat

> close to (2

> hours) Hartford I can tell you all there's not much nearby. I don't want

> to offend the

> committee but if you want Brooklyn/NYC in 09 why fly all the way back east

> to go to

> Hartford?

>

> It would make a great regional conference, but for national I say BORING.

>

> Let's go to Nashville!

>

> Tony Soares

>

>

[Guest guest]

I want Nashville just solely on wanting to go there AND I say " YES " to San

Diego !!!

Anything else I can contribute to, let me know

Eileen

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