From December 4th through the 6th, 60 members of AACRAO’s leadership corps – including the AACRAO Board of Directors, the Annual Meeting Program Committee, and the chairs of all the professional activity committees – joined 30 state and regional association officers for the 2015 Leadership Meeting on an unseasonably warm weekend in Washington D.C. Their collective goal was to position themselves, their associations, and AACRAO over the coming year to address areas of concern in both higher education and within the profession.
Armed for the first time with AACRAO’s published Core Competencies, committee chairs in a variety of professional areas discussed what needed to be focused on, and how each session, webinar, or article would help guide professionals in their arena. Leaders discussed how sessions could be structured to better convey information on credential evaluation given the increasing frequency of international student applicants. The group also discussed the impending wave of registrar retirement likely coming in the next few years, and how AACRAO might help to position associate registrars to fill those roles by producing resources in relevant competency areas.
The state and regional officers had a slightly different focus. Each association has a slightly different structure, and its members might have varying professional needs based on state laws and institution-specific constraints. So AACRAO brought in experts to address legal and financial issues to consider for volunteer associations, in addition to event planning and effective state advocacy. When they weren’t interacting with experts, the officers were engaged in networking and round-table discussions with each other to identify best practices in association leadership.
While most of the weekend was devoted to volunteer work and development, there were a few spare moments where attendees could unwind and get to know each other in less formal environs. On Friday evening, AACRAO organized a tour of the International Spy Museum, where registrars and admissions officers discovered that the world of intelligence and espionage is not nearly as exciting as navigating a student information system. And since the hotel was located right by the scaffold-covered Capitol Building, many attendees saw the classic sights of Washington before and after the meeting.
The staff at AACRAO would like to extend a special thanks to everyone who attended the meeting. The work done at Leadership helps set the tone for the coming year and is vital to the health of the association. If you want to find out how to participate get involved with AACRAO or your state or regional association, you can start by joining a committee, writing an article for Connect or the equivalent member newsletter for your state, or presenting or facilitating a meeting session. One day, maybe sooner than you think, you too could find yourself cooped up in a hotel with other like-minded individuals on a nice day in D.C.
Fair warning – it does occasionally snow.