By Joseph Curtin, RMAIR President and Assistant Commissioner – Institutional Research & Analysis, Utah System of Higher Education
We had a great turnout at the RMAIR SIG meeting that was held in New Orleans on June 1st. Thanks to all who were able to come and join us. With the national conference over and summer in full swing, I would like to remind all that there are several things that they should look for over the summer.
Nominations for RMAIR leadership: This year we will elect a new Vice-President and a Secretary. The Vice-President is a three year commitment with the first year as the Vice President, then a year as the President and the final year as the immediate past-president. The RMAIR Secretary is also elected to a three year term. The responsibilities of the Secretary include: taking minutes of the annual business meeting and at the RMAIR special interest group meeting at the AIR Forum. If the Secretary is unable to attend either of these meetings, s/he may arrange for another individual to record meeting proceedings. The Secretary will be responsible for maintaining a current list of membership, providing and maintaining permanent historical records of RMAIR activities, and overseeing elections and voting.
Please consider either running for one of these office yourself or nominating someone from a RMAIR state who will be committed to RMAIR. Nominations for either the Vice-President or the Secretary position may be sent to pastpresident@rmair.org.
Nominations for Emeritus Status: Each year at the annual meeting, RMAIRians have the opportunity to honor long-time members by granting them Emeritus status. Traditionally these are people who have recently retired. To date, we have three nominees; Hans L’Orange, Mark Chisholm, and Fred Lillibridge. If you know of other deserving people, please send your nominations to the RMAIR Past-President at pastpresident@rmair.org.
Conference Proposals: Sometime in the next few weeks, you should see the call-for-proposals for the RMAIR annual conference. The conference will be held in Bozeman, Montana on October 26-28th. The annual meeting will also host a pre-conference workshop made possible by our train-the-trainer grant. This workshop will be – IR & IE: Enhancing Personal and Professional Effectiveness provided by Mya Starling. More information will be available soon at the www.rmair.org website.
One goal identified in the RMAIR strategic plan is to expand the membership in RMAIR. Now is a great opportunity to do so. RMAIR is once again waiving the membership fee this year so it costs nothing to join RMAIR. Now would be a great time to reach out to interested faculty and students and invite them to join us in Bozeman and present their research. Full-time graduate and undergraduate students are only charged one-half the conference registration fee to attend, helping to make the RMAIR conference an affordable option to obtain valuable conference presentation experience.
I look forward to our next RMAIR meeting in Bozeman and hope to see you all there.