By Laurie Braden
Each year, as we move through the last paces of summer, welcoming back returning students and greeting new ones, I am renewed with excitement and reminded of the awesome opportunity we have to influence change, inspire learning, and be a part of forming others’ foundations for success.
Just a few short years ago, NIRSA made a bold move by imagining and then articulating how we want to move forward in the world of higher education.
That new foundation, mixed with our rich history, is enabling us to move forward—to live the NIRSA values not only as campus departments but also as individual members making a difference.
It’s exciting!
Taking up these newly articulated values parallels with what our students experience each year as they embark upon the beginning of a school year.
Our staff experience this as well, over and over, year after year, and each year it is still exciting (read one personal example from the NIRSA Student Leader, Kimmi Sterner).
At LSU Recreation, our campaign to engage students to be active with #NEAUXLIMITS is set as a cornerstone element of our student training. Like many of you, we have shared with student staff what NIRSA is to us and what it can become for each of them: an opportunity to explore #neauxlimits and new beginnings as they imagine, envision, and achieve all they want to learn and become. I challenge you to embrace this perspective and to engage your community in the dialog of new beginnings and unlimited excellence.
To that end, NIRSA knows no limits and we are making progress within our Strategic Plan to move the association forward. Most recently, the Board of Directors Competency Task Force—charged with articulating the skills and competencies that future Board members will need to best serve the Association’s diverse and entrepreneurial membership—completed its work and for that I’d like to thank Mick Deluca, chair and members Alex Acetta, Mirum Washington-White, Tom Lovins, and Executive Director Pam Watts.
Additionally, as the Association reflects on how it can best help foster that competency development within the profession, an Executive Education Task Force has been appointed and they are readying to dive into their work. Eric Nicke, Mila Padgett, Jacque Hamilton, Maureen McGonagle, and JT Timmons are prepared to explore the options and alternatives around NIRSA’s development of an executive education portfolio for the profession’s varied educational domains.
The Nominations and Appointments Committee is actively recruiting and reviewing initial applications and will be implementing the newly articulated Board of Directors’ Competencies in their search for outstanding Association members who will stand for office and serve the profession. Most recently the Committee completed the process of seating a very talented group of thoughtful leaders on the Assembly, who will continue to think about and discuss trends and influences on our profession.
And as we anticipate the cooler weather of fall, whistles blowing on the courts and on the fields, and our active campus communities come together in pursuit of health and wellbeing, most of us also have the opportunity to gather at one of the many regional conferences and state workshops. I encourage you to look for these opportunities, for new beginnings, and leave you with the reminder that your potential has #neauxlimits.
Geaux Be Awesome!
