I would like to begin by thanking Judy Arter, who with the close of the AERA Annual Meeting in New York finished her 2-year term as Division Secretary. She did a yeoman’s job of helping us work through the updating our bylaws and division handbook. At the 2008 AERA Annual Meeting in New York, Division H adopted “Research, Evaluation, and Assessment in Schools“ as its new name. The nearly unanimous vote at our Breakfast Meeting was the culmination of 2 years of dialogue and reflection ably led by Paul Favaro. Many members had expressed concern that the former division name, “School Evaluation and Program Development“, fell short in effectively communicating the focus of the division. Early indications are that we were onto something, as the division membership has jumped from 1,525 to 1,745 in the 6-month period following the name change.

 Bonnie Strykowski chaired the Affirmative Action Committee. She participated in the AERA Coordinated Committee Meeting in Washington, D.C., in fall 2007; attended the AERA Annual Brown Lecture in Education Research, also in Washington, D.C.; and attended the Affirmative Action Council meetings at the Annual Meeting in New York.

 Gail Flanagan chaired the Breakfast Business Meeting Committee, which secured sponsorship for the 2008 breakfast, reserved a room and coordinated tickets with AERA staff, organized door prizes, ensured that the breakfast was included in the program, and sold 200 tickets online through preregistration.

 Jim Wohlleb chaired the Exhibits Booth Committee. He coordinated the shipment and display of materials for our exhibit booth operations during the Annual Meeting in New York, promoted professional practice through display of last year’s and this year’s winners of the division Outstanding Publications Competitions, and promoted Division H by distributing materials and networking at the exhibit booth.

 The Division H Senior Graduate Student Representative this year was Vernita Morgan. She attended the 2007 Coordinated Committee Meeting in Washington, D.C., and planned the Graduate Students Fireside Chat and Reception with help from our Junior Graduate Student Representative, Saad Chahine. The division experimented with a new format for our Graduate Student Seminar, holding it on Monday morning of the conference and just prior to a session on our Mentoring for Early Career and Graduating Students program. Both sessions were well attended.

 Zsuzanna Szabo served as International Relations Committee Chair. Her committee identified AERA’s overall international relations activities and structures, established linkages with international relations committees for AERA and other divisions, and coordinated the creation of an international symposium exploring research on teacher induction.

 Scott Dantley chaired the Membership Committee. He made renewal contacts with Division H members whose division memberships were about to expire or had expired. At this writing, the division membership is higher than it has been for a decade.

 The Mentoring for Early Career and Graduate Students Committee was chaired by Steve Baranski. The committee updated the Division H mentorship announcement, included articles for 2007 mentorships in the newsletter, reviewed applications, selected four mentees for 2008, and brokered mentor/mentee partnerships. The committee also held a well-attended session at the 2008 Annual Meeting on the Monday morning after the Graduate Student Seminar. Mentorships were brokered and approved for Liza Kasmara, Hilary Loeb, Antionette Stroter, and Bo Yan. Winona Burt served as the Reality Test Newsletter Editor. The division produced Fall, Winter, and Summer newsletters, which were published on our division website and announced on our listserv.

 The Nominations Committee was chaired by Mary Yakimowski, the Division H immediate past vice president. The committee placed a call for nominations for division vice president on the listserv, received many nominations, held discussions with committee members regarding nominees, determined the slate of potential candidates, verified their interest in the position, and coordinated the collection of biographical sketches for the final slate.  Faith Connolly was elected. She will serve for 2 years rather than for the standard 3-year term; the change is part of an AERA Council plan to temporarily shorten the term lengths for several divisions so that, in the future, three vice presidents will be replaced each year. I have worked with Faith in selecting our division committee assistant chairs, who will move up to the chair position during her term, which begins at the close of the 2009 Annual Meeting.

 The Outstanding Publications Competition Committee was chaired Judi Vanderhaar. Her committee processed more than 100 electronic submissions and, for the third year, produced a CD of the submissions that was distributed to members at the Annual Breakfast/Business Meeting. The publications were also on display at the Division H booth in the AERA Annual Meeting Exhibit Hall.

 The Outstanding Presentations/Discussants Committee was chaired by Gunapala Edirisooriya. That committee determined the winners of the 2007 competition and presented awards at the 2008 Breakfast Meeting.

 The division’s 2008 Program Committee was chaired by Faith Connolly and processed 328 submissions, a 17% increase over last year. The division used four sections again this year, with acceptance rates ranging from a low of 46.5% for Section 3 to a high of 76.2% for Section 2. The overall acceptance rate was 56.7%.

 The Social Reception Committee was chaired by Peter Hendrickson. He reserved the restaurant “etcetera etcetera,” hired musicians, advertised the 2008 Social Reception, and coordinated linking of the Graduate Student Reception with the Division H Reception.

 The Web Site Committee was chaired by Joe McCrary. He provided basic website updates and new postings, analyzed the site structure, and identified priorities for revision.

 Division H formed an Awards Committee to study options for complying with a new AERA requirement limiting each division to six awards. Division H has been giving as many as 15 awards annually. The division began discussion of available options at its leadership meeting held at the 2008 Annual Meeting and gathered input from the membership on how to restructure the division awards program. A decision was made to retire the Outstanding Presentation and Discussant Awards and to cut the number of Outstanding Publication Competition Awards to six. The division’s formal proposal will be considered by the AERA Executive Committee at its October 2008 meeting.