Advocating for mathematics education is important at both the state and national levels. Affiliates have the potential to be influential and impact the future of mathematics education. One idea for affiliates to strengthen their advocacy is to conduct a short survey of the affiliate membership on an issue such as the Common Core State Standards. The affiliate president writes a letter to state representatives that embodies the position of the membership on the issue of concern.

The Affiliate Connections Committee is here to support the important work being done at the state and regional level. The Affiliates Connection Committee is convening a webinar for Affiliate Leaders on October 23, 2015 from 12:00pm – 1:00pm Eastern time. AMTE President Christine Thomas will address and take questions from affiliate leaders at the opening of the meeting. The meeting will be centered around issues affiliate leaders identified in the annual survey. Please contact Megan Burton, Affiliate Director, for more information, mebb0042@auburn.edu.

If you haven’t checked out the new map of affiliates on AMTE’s website be sure and take the time to do so.  Each affiliate has been encouraged to add links to their website, information about their affiliates, membership forms, etc… If your affiliate information is missing or incorrect contact your affiliate president. They have access to update and make corrections. This is a great way for new mathematics teacher educators in your region to find out about your organization.

AMTEA

The Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators of Alabama (AMTEA) will hold a Business meeting of Friday October 23 at the close of ACTM’s Fall Forum. This year’s conference is being held at the McWane Science Center in Birmingham on Thursday afternoon, Oct. 22rd, through Friday the 23th. You can find out more at the ACTM conference page.

AMTE-TX

The Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators in Texas (AMTE-TX) held another successful strand of sessions at the Conference for the Advancement of Mathematics Teaching, the largest conference for mathematics teachers in Texas. This strand concluded with an annual business meeting, where the following newly-elected officers were announced:

• Sarah Quebec Fuentes, Texas Christian University, President-Elect (2015-2016)
• Beth Bos, Texas State University, Secretary (2015-2018)
• Kristina Gill, West Texas A&M University, Board Member-at-Large (2015-2018).

The third annual AMTE-TX Fall Conference will be held on the campus of Tarleton State University in Stepheville, Texas, during the last weekend of September. We are excited to hear from AMTE President Christine Thomas, a virtual panel of authors of NCTM's Principles to Actions (DeAnn Huinker, Robert Q. Berry III, and W. Gary Martin), and a keynote address from Paula Moeller.

MI-AMTE

The Michigan affiliate of AMTE (MI-AMTE) will hold its first annual meeting, Conversations Among Colleagues (CAC), at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, February 27, 2016. Further information will be forthcoming in the next issue of Connections. Contact Christine Browning (christine.browning@wmich.edu) or Laura Van Zoest (laura.vanzoest@wmich.edu), conference co-chairs, for any immediate questions.

TOTOM

The 2015 Teachers of Teachers of Mathematics (TOTOM), the Oregon AMTE affiliate Conference will be held September 10-12 in Corvallis, Oregon on the campus of Oregon State University. For registration or other information about the TOTOM conference, contact Tom Dick (tpdick@math.oregonstate.edu).