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RMAIR Elections: Call for Nominations

Please consider running or nominating someone for one of two executive officer positions in RMAIR that will elected this year. RMAIR will be electing a Vice-President and a Treasurer. Each office is a three year term.

Vice-President will serve a three year term, one-year as Vice-President, one-year as President, and the final year as the Immediate Past President. The duties over the three years are:

  • Vice-President Duties of the Vice-President shall be determined in consultation with the President.
  • President shall be in charge of the overall operation of RMAIR, as well as having responsibility for the supervision of all assigned and delegated duties.
  • Immediate Past President shall chair and appoint a nominating committee to prepare a slate of candidates for Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer. He/she will also serve in an advisory capacity to the President and will oversee the nominations for emeritus status

Treasurer shall be responsible for keeping proper financial accounts including:

  • Proposing an annual budget, recording expenses, maintaining the RMAIR bank account, and
  • Providing financial reports to the RMAIR membership. The Treasurer is responsible for
  • Maintaining and filing proper paperwork with the IRS to maintain 501(c)(3) status, including filing taxes and submitting the W-9 form.

Emeritus Member. You may also nominate someone for RMAIR Emeritus Status. Emeritus Status recognizes longstanding membership and contributions to RMAIR.

Emeritus Members –Members with five years of RMAIR membership throughout their career, who are either retired or have worked at least 20 years in Institutional Research (broadly defined) may be considered for Emeritus status. Emeritus members do not pay membership dues and pay only the direct cost of conferences (food/hotel). Last October in Bozeman we recognized Hans L’Orange; Mark Chisholm; and Robert Loveridge as new emeritus members to RMAIR.

State RMAIR Membership: At the RMAIR business meeting held at the AIR conference in Washington D.C. it was proposed that Washington State be admitted as a participating member of RMAIR. Current individual membership (bylaws section 3) is open to anyone having professional interest in activities related to institutional research. The primary focus for RMAIR is for those individuals from the Rocky Mountain region of the United States and Canada, including Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, Wyoming, Alberta, and Saskatchewan.

Potential impact of adding Washington: bylaws section 3 & 5 will need to be amended: “Winners of the election for officers shall require a majority of those voting, providing the vote includes at least 20 RMAIR members from five of the eleven Rocky Mountain States or provinces.”

To nominate someone for RMAIR executive officer or for emeritus status please send the following by July 28th, 2017 to pastpresident@rmair.org. You may nominate yourself.

  • Name
  • Position they are being nominated for (Vice-President, Treasurer, Emeritus)
  • Institution where they are currently/last employed
  • Contact information (email, phone number)
  • Brief BIO – or statement of interest and goals as an officer or reason the individual is deserving of emeritus status

If you have any comments pro or con regarding admitting Washington State as a member state to RMAIR you may forward those as well and they will be summarized into the voting ballot.

Thank you to all who will consider serving in the RMAIR organization. The quality of the membership in RMAIR is what makes it one of the best affiliates in the Association for Institutional Research.

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Something New On the Horizon

Welcome to the first-ever Panorama blog post! I am Sarah Smith, your Panorama editor. I am a data analyst at Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne, WY and have been in this position since November 2013. I became Panorama editor at the Denver AIR Forum in May 2015. RMAIR recently decided to shift Panorama into the blogosphere since the officially published newsletters had become difficult to maintain. A big shout-out to all those folks who worked diligently to publish the Panorama newsletters for so many years!

The overarching goal of the Panorama blog is to act as a communication hub that promotes a friendly spirit of unity and cooperation among RMAIR members. Panorama differs from the RMAIR listserv in that the listserv contains posts on job vacancies, meeting minutes, and specific questions posed by RMAIR members to the RMAIR community. The Panorama blog, however, aims to present an idea, a bit of research, a state of affairs in IR offices, IR-related jokes and ironies – anything that can come across as thought-provoking or stress-relieving in no more than 300-500 words (for your reference, this particular post is under 250 words). Let’s keep these posts short and sweet so everyone can fit reading and writing them into their busy days! The goal is one post a month with the potential to post more often in the future.

What would you like to see in the Panorama blog? What do you expect to get out of it? Let’s see what you think!