The 2025 Annual Business Meeting of the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) took place on Wednesday afternoon during the AIR Forum, bringing members together to reflect on the organization’s progress, recognize leadership transitions, and vote on key governance matters. Vice Chair Debbie Phelps called the meeting to order and, with verification of quorum by Secretary Wen Qi, officially opened the proceedings.

Leadership Recognition and Transitions

Debbie introduced the 2024–25 AIR Board of Directors, thanking each member for their dedicated service. Special recognition was given to four outgoing Board members—Karen Egypt, Jonathan Gagliardi, Wen Qi, and Karen Vance—who were honored with commemorative plaques for their contributions over the past three years. Eric Atchison, Chair of the 2023–24 Nominations and Elections Committee (NEC), also received recognition for his leadership.

Eric then introduced the 2024–25 NEC and acknowledged the service of outgoing members Paige Borden and Jonathan Gagliardi. He reported on NEC accomplishments, including process improvements based on feedback from past candidates, intentional outreach to ensure diverse representation, and continued use of blind reviews. The 2025 election saw participation from 15% of individual members and 27% of organizational members.

Newly elected Board members were installed: Vincent Castano, Ivana Fredotovic, Liile Lekena-Bayaga, and Jillian Morn. Likewise, new NEC members were installed: Mel Jenkins-Simpson and Linli Zhou. Shari Ellertson was elected as NEC Chair for 2025–26, and Adrea Hernandez was introduced as the new Board Vice Chair. It was announced that Brent Drake was re-elected to serve a second term as Board Chair.

Organizational Updates and Financial Report

AIR Executive Office representative Christine provided an overview of accomplishments from the past year and welcomed new volunteer leaders. Treasurer Karen Vance followed with a financial update, announcing a clean audit from Thomas Howell Ferguson, P.A., with no reportable deficiencies or compliance issues. AIR ended 2024 with net assets of $3.58 million—up $436,667 from the prior year. Karen noted that AIR had fully recovered from pandemic-era losses but is closely monitoring financial impacts from the nonrenewal of the IPEDS training contract.

Bylaws Amendment and Member Vote

Members were asked to vote on a proposed amendment to the AIR Bylaws to strike Section 3, which required annual Board approval of membership fees. This change would align membership fees with how other fees are managed—delegated to the Executive Director under existing financial policy oversight. Following a motion and discussion, the amendment passed.

Looking Ahead: Strategic Foresight and Future Readiness

In Brent Drake’s absence, Debbie Phelps read a message from the Chair highlighting AIR’s efforts to build leadership pathways, update governance policies, and incorporate strategic foresight into Board practice. Brent described how futures thinking has helped the Board better anticipate changes in higher education and position AIR to support a broader data community, including over 5,500 organizational members.

Q&A, New Business, and Adjournment

The meeting concluded with an open Q&A session and time for new business from the floor. Debbie Phelps thanked members for their participation and reaffirmed AIR’s commitment to supporting the IR and IE community. The meeting was adjourned promptly at 2:30 p.m.