Engaging in the AER KC Leadership

As you may know, it’s time to nominate and elect a new chair/co-chairs to lead the Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Knowledge Community (https://www.naspa.org/constituent-groups/kcs/assessment-evaluation-and-research). This important position represents the needs of people interested in assessment to the NASPA organization, supports the professional development efforts, and coordinates engagement opportunities for KC members to get involved. Stacy Ackerlind and Andy Mauk, the current co-chairs, are building on the AERKC strategic plan created under the past co-chairs of Jeanna Mastrodicasa and Michael Christakis. Interested in reading more about the current strategic plan you can find it here - http://apps.naspa.org/files/NASPA_AERKC_StrategicPlan2017.pdf 

Along with Nathan Lindsay, I served as the AERKC co-chair from 2013 to 2015 after spending a year in the co-chair elect position. I wanted to highlight some of the experiences I had:

• I learned more about NASPA as an organization. It’s a complex organization, but I was able to see more of the connections of different areas, as well as understand the direction and philosophy of NASPA as a whole.
• I met some great people that I would not have without this experience. The AERKC leadership team is composed of regional representatives and at large members, with liaisons from the NASPA national office.
• I am more committed to NASPA as my professional development home. I know more about the offerings from NASPA, such as the Assessment and Persistence Conference, and can impact the quality of the programming.
• I learned more about leading a group that is not in the same location and engaging individuals from coast to coast. I also learned to be realistic with the leadership team; everyone has a different level of commitment and time availability to move the KC forward.

The co-chair time commitment was a few hours a month, which included monthly leadership team phone calls, check-ins with regional representatives and subcommittee chairs, national KC phone calls and reports, and prep time with my co-chair.

Let me wrap it up this way: I hope that you will consider becoming more involved in the KC leadership. You may be at the point of running for co-chair, you might be interested in being a regional representative on the leadership team, or you might be interested in being on a subcommittee to get your feet wet without too much of a commitment.  Whatever your interest level, being more involved provides you with opportunities and maintains the health of NASPA.

If you have questions about running for chair/co-chair, please contact me (darby@tamu.edu), Jeanna Mastrodicasa (jmastro@ufl.edu), or Michael Christakis (mchristakis@albany.edu ). Nomination packets are due October 16.

If you are interested in other involvement opportunities, check out NASPA’s Volunteer Central to find the experience right for you.