Dear Colleagues,
I continue to be blown away by the generosity, volunteerism, collegiality, and commitment of the NACUA community. NACUA received a record number of nominations for at-large director and officer roles on the Board--the most recent evidence of our extraordinary NACUA culture in action. Nominations closed on Friday, January 20, and we had more than 50 people nominated for the two officer and six at-large director vacancies for 2023-2024.
To those of you who nominated peers and colleagues to serve, thank you! To those of you who accepted the call to serve and graciously agreed to participate in the process, thank you! I’m confident that the NACUA Board, Committee on Nominations and Elections, and staff share my deep gratitude to you for taking the time and making the effort to help NACUA continue to be the very best it can be.
A personal highlight of mine was a small gathering of the Board at my first NACUA Annual Conference where the outgoing Chair, Laura Todd Johnson, thanked those Board Directors whose three-year terms had come to an end. She had kind, and sometimes humorous, words to say about each departing director. Each director was then afforded the opportunity to say a few words about what their Board service meant. The evening was moving and gratifying.
Serving on the NACUA Board is a major commitment of time and talent. However, based on the sentiments shared by the departing directors that evening in June, I can say with confidence that it is an extraordinary professional experience that yields as much for the directors as it does for our Association.
While serving on the NACUA Board is an honor and great service to the organization, the reality is that not everyone who has been nominated will become a nominee. (For those interested in the myriad of considerations that go into the development of a slate of nominees, our Director of Membership and Marketing, Ashley Hodak Sullivan, and I put together this video.)
Each year the Association’s needs are different. The Committee considers who’s continuing on the Board, the organization’s needs, and institutional representation -- with the goal of having a balanced and representative Board. A Board that reflects the organization’s diversity of institutions and its members. Many—perhaps most—individuals who are ultimately put on the slate of nominees have been put forward multiple times before being selected.
My fervent hope is that those of you who nominated people will continue to do so, and those of who have been nominated but are selected, will continue to actively engage with NACUA. We need your voices, so please continue to nominate stellar individuals to serve on the Board and continue to accept nominations.
I hope to see many of you in March at the Spring CLE Higher Education Discrimination Law Workshop and most of you at the Annual Conference in Chicago in June. In the meantime, please participate in the Strategic Planning Survey, which was sent out to members on February 2 and February 9!