PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS

Abstract

IT IS Academy tradition that your outgoing President be afforded this opportunity to render to the Fellows his evaluation of present Academy activities and his recommendations as to the future. It is a healthy experience for any organization to pause for a moment to reflect on the path it has come and take fresh bearings on the course to be charted toward the Academy's goal of improving the total health and welfare of all children. The routine business of the Academy is being efficiently carried out by the central office staff at the Academy headquarters in Evanston under the able leadership of our Executive Secretary, E. H. Christopherson. We have been very fortunate in having the loyal services of our Business Manager, W. J. Becker, whose department is the increasingly complex business and financial affairs of the Academy as well as attention to many of the details of our Annual and Spring Meetings. The Executive Board is the authoritative group having control over all Academy activities. Every effort is made to keep their load of routine business as light as possible that full attention can be directed toward committee activities and to decision on Academy policy. Between Board meetings, the Executive Secretary represents the Board on matters of established Academy business. An Executive Committee has been created to act jointly for the Board in areas where no established policy exists and where prompt action is required. The productive activities of the Academy having to do with children originate in the Board and in the various special and standing committees. The standing committees are in general of two types—one is concerned with functions and conditions that may affect all age groups; the other is concerned with the broad problems that may occur in specific age groups. The problems encountered in any age group may involve the applied activities and thinking of many disease or function oriented committees.