Excerpts from the NABS 5-year Strategic Plan

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This NABS 5-year Strategic Plan was constructed by the 20082009 Long-Range Planning Committee (LRPC) of the North American Benthological Society, composed of Michael Barbour, Bryan Brown, Ann Hershey, Joseph Holomuzki (Chair), Paula Furey, Seth Reice, and Len Smock. The NABS 5-year Strategic Plan presents 4 overarching goals. The Society should: 1) better position itself so as to be viewed as a key source for science-based management decisions and to influence public policy and perceptions, 2) better interact with educators to improve aquatic science education, 3) grow and diversify, and 4) increase the number of individuals with taxonomic certification. Suggested actions are provided to implement these goals. These goals and actions should not be considered mandated resolutions but rather recommendations and ideas for the Society to consider and discuss; we embrace our future when we embrace new ideas.

Improve the image of the Society. The image we should project to other professional societies, scientists, policy makers, and the general public is one that conveys that NABS is the 'go-to' society for information on water issues. Given that image projection, we should consider resurrecting and debating a name change for the Society. Arguments for and against a name change were debated at the Athens, Georgia meeting in 2003. Two arguments driving a name change were: 1) "North American" conveys a regional or geographically narrowed (vs. international) perspective of the Society’s membership, and 2) "Benthological" is unfortunately meaningless to the vast majority of administrators, policy makers, and the general public.

A name-change discussion should start with the questions:

• How are we perceived by other organizations, policymakers, and various shareholders, and how will a name change impact that perception?
• Does our name truly reflect what we are and where we want to go?

The goal of a name-change discussion is not to re-open a divisive debate between 'young' and 'old members. A key issue that must be considered in such a debate is the potential negative effect a name change would have on our journal's impact factor. (Tempest [2005] shows that impact factor recovery after a name-change for environmental journals is ~1.5-2 years). The Long-Range Planning Committee, and an ad hoc name-change committee largely composed of Past-Presidents, along with J-NABS officers/mangers, should work in concert to carefully re-weigh the pros and cons of a name change. In addition, we recommend some fund expenditure for an external analysis of how NABS is perceived by different organizations/stakeholders, such as the ESA, AIBS, educational organizations, and policy makers (i.e., external non-biased groups).