Communication

As the Chair of the Communications Committee, my team and I are responsible for making sure that we have robust and easy-to-use tools that enhance the ability of our members to collect and disseminate information and to engage in a meaningful discourse.

Upon assuming the Chair of this committee in June of 2017, I was very fortunate that the previous Chair, Kathleen Randerson, had done a phenomenal job of building an outstanding committee and of documenting key procedures. We were especially fortunate that key team members agreed to continue serving on the committee during this leadership change and playing important roles as we transitioned from the listserv to CONNECT@AOM. Three members of our division who agreed to either continue in their leadership roles on the committee or who agreed to assume a leadership role are Jeff Pollack, our Discussion Moderator, Ulrich Möller, our Webmaster and Josh Wei-Jun Hsueh, our NewsBlast Editor In Chief. Each of them facilitated a smooth transition to CONNECT and their service to the division, much of which were never noticed by our members because they do their job so well, is much appreciated. We also added several new members including Maritza Espina and Anna Kravchenko, who are our new editors for NewsBlast and are awesome additions to the team.

In the past year, the single most significant change we have experienced, as alluded to earlier, was our transition to CONNECT@AOM. The transition team from Academy, led by Kerry Ignatz, had greatly helped us in the process to adopt the new tools. Our division was part of the initial rollout and Kerry and her team were very responsive to our suggestions and feedback, when our division strongly voiced their opinion about who should be able to participate in the discussion forum.

We are excited about the capabilities of CONNECT. It is a feature-rich tool that allows us to archive and present a diverse range of material. For example, we recently added a Widget at the bottom of the Community Page that contains a YouTube Channel featuring videos that were filmed during the Doctoral and Early Career Consortia. If you have not seen them yet, they are definitely worth the time. These videos cover topics ranging from career management, developing a research agenda, to being an outstanding teacher. The information is invaluable. We also added a file repository at CONNECT where we can share articles, calls for submissions, as well as setting up a common calendar to share important dates such as the elections and our famous Social. Moreover, the contents of NewsBlast are now all available at CONNECT.

To keep providing these quality service, we need YOU. We need your feedback and suggestions regarding how we can better serve our members. We also need new volunteers to help with the NewsBlasts, to take leadership roles in managing the file repository, and to manage the shared calendar. Please feel free to reach out to me at any time via CONNECT or by emailing me at lmarino@cba.ua.edu. We look forward to having you in the committee.