World Council for Gifted and Talented Children

The First Conference

The first conference was attended by more 500 people from 53 countries. Here, Harold C. Lyon, director of the Office of Gifted and Talented, from the United States, proposed that the participants join in a worldwide initiative to form a permanent organization to advocate for the gifted children of the world. In response, 150 educators in the field became members of the founding organization. This first conference was, subsequently, included in the numerical designation of the biennial world conferences of the WCGTC.

The First Executive

At the London conference, the first executive was elected. The first president was Dan Bitan, director of Gifted Education in Israel, and the first vice-president was Henry Collis. The remaining elected officers were from the United States: Alexis DuPont DeBie as executive vice-president, Dorothy Sisk as secretary, and Elizabeth Neuman and Marjorie Craig as co-treasurers.

The Incorporation

The World Council was officially incorporated and registered in the state of Delaware as a nonprofit organization on March 30, 1976. The officers at the time were representatives from three nations: from Israel, President Dan Bitan; from the United Kingdom, Vice-President Henry Collis; and from the United States, Executive Vice-President Alexis DuPont DeBie, joint Secretaries Dorothy Sisk and Elizabeth Neuman, and Treasurer Bob Swain.

The Second and Third Conferences

Bob Swain's proposal brought the second World Conference to San Francisco in 1977. Representation in the new seven-member executive expanded to seven nations: President Iraj Broomand of Iran, Vice-President Dorothy Sisk of the United States, Marie Schmidt of Venezuela, Levcho Zdravchev of Bulgaria, Warren Lett of Australia, Henry Collis of the United Kingdom, and Dan Bitan of Israel.

In 1978, with the Iranian conflict disrupting the ability of President Iraj Broomand to continue to serve as president of the World Council, Vice President Dorothy Sisk assumed the presidency until Henry Collis was elected as president at the third conference held in Jerusalem in 1979. He held the post until 1981.

A Developing Organization

As a requirement of incorporation, a constitution for the World Council was drafted by a subcommittee consisting of Sisk, representing the board, and two other founding members, DuPont DeBie and Neuman.

A major undertaking discussed at the San Francisco meeting was the creation of a journal. Levcho Zdravchev agreed to edit and publish the journal for the WCGTC, which was named GATE: Gifted and Talented Education. He published three issues of GATE, absorbing the cost of the journal at his Bulgarian office.

At the Jerusalem conference, Dorothy Sisk became the editor of the journal, now to be named Gifted International, and she held the post until 1993. During this time, Tom Kemnitz, owner of Trillium Press, published and distributed the journal at his expense. In the 1990s, under the editorship of John Feldhusen, the name was changed to Gifted and Talented International. Subsequent editors have been Joyce VanTassel-Baska and Maria McCann. The current editor is Taisir Subhi Yamin.

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