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Volunteer Opportunities in the Adult
Learners Commission
The Adult Learners Commission needs people who want to
get involved and do specific tasks within the large organization. Have
we got some volunteer opportunities for you!
Each year at the National Conference, during our
Commission meeting we pass around sign-up sheets for volunteers to
help out with various activities that involve varying amounts of time and
a variety of skills or interests.
This year, we thought that it would be helpful to
provide you with a listing of some of these opportunities ahead of time so
that you can think about where you would like to become involved.
We also recognize that many of our members cannot always
come to the national conferences, but they could participate in the Adult
Learner Commission through these volunteer activities if they knew
about them. So, here are some of the Adult Learner Commission
activities where we could use your help!
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Writing articles for either the national NACADA
newsletter, ACADEMIC ADVISING NEWS, or the Commission's
newsletter. Our Commission newsletters are usually issued
once or twice a year. Articles could include reports of your
regional meetings or reactions to great sessions you attended at the
Conference. You could share research or information about
successful programs. You could critique a recent publication in the
field. There is a great deal of flexibility in this volunteer
opportunity. The Academic Advising News is published
quarterly and the lead article is always related to a critical issue
in advising. The Board sets up a rotating schedule so each
Commission commits to one lead article about every two years. In
addition, short Commission reports and news from each region are
included in each issue. If you enjoy writing, this might be a
good one for you. |
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Reading proposals for presentations at the
National Conference. This is a small committee (usually 5 or
6) who read all the proposals submitted for program presentations that
relate to adult learners. These readers evaluate the proposals
based upon pre-determined criteria and submits their reactions to the
Chair. This occurs once a year in February involving a fairly
intense commitment of time over a short period of time (one week to
ten days) to read 30 or so proposals. |
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Regional Liaisons. The
Commission needs volunteers to connect with other Commission members
in your region to encourage them to:
 | submit proposals for presentations at regional
meetings; |
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set up informal meetings or dinners for
Commission members during the regional meetings; |
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connect with other Commission members to
encourage them to attend both the regional and the national
conferences. |
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Regional Conference Helpers. We need
volunteers to participate with regional planning committees to help
plan the regional conferences, to make sure the adult learner issues
are included, and even to schedule an Adult Learner Commission
meeting during the regional meeting. |
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Submit proposals for Conferences. You
have attended good sessions and know what you liked and you may have
seen a few where you thought you could do better. We always want
to have good quality presentations both at regionals and national
conferences so that the issues of adult learners are brought forward
for discussion. We would love to have a great presentation about
adult learners at each time slot on the conference schedule. The
only way to have that is if you and your colleagues submit well
thought out proposals. If you are a rookie, you might consider
doing a regional presentation first to get some experience. If
you get good feedback, polish it up, and submit the idea for the
national conference. If you have a great successful program,
share it. If you have done some research on retention, tell us
about it. |
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Special Projects. From time to time, the
Commission needs help for special projects that might be either short
or long term, but that do not occur on a regular basis. For
example, Commissions publish a monograph or a handbook (such as we are
doing now). There are also special projects beyond the
Commission, such as NACADA's advising video, with which you might want
to become involved. Watch for information in this and other
NACADA publications. |
You will be able to sign up to volunteer during the
Adult Learners Commission meeting in Ottawa, so think about which of these
exciting opportunities are for you!
If you are not coming to the conference and would
like to volunteer for any of these activities, contact me:
Dr. Carol Ann Baily
Director, Adult Services Center
Middle Tennessee State University
Murfreesboro, TN 37132
615-898-5989 (P) 615-898-5112 (Fax)
cabaily@mtsu.edu
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