Be a New Leader! Apply by June 1!
Do you have an amazing accomplishment in information science or in ASIS&T service that deserves to be celebrated? We’re sure you do!
ASIS&T offers many wonderful awards each year. Through the awards, members have a chance to be recognized for all of their outstanding accomplishments. Over the next couple of months, as submissions for this year’s awards become due, some of them will be highlighted here so you know which awards you should nominate yourself or your colleagues for.
We’ll start with the New Leaders Award. This award was created to “recruit, engage, and retain new members and to identify potential for new leadership in the Association.” Only members who are in their first three years of membership are eligible to apply.
If you win the New Leaders Award, what do you get?
- Free travel money! If you win this year, you’ll get $1000 in travel support. You can use it for the 2015 Annual Meeting in St. Louis and for the 2016 conference in Copenhagen! How awesome is that??
- Free conference registration for the 2015 and 2016 Annual Meetings!
- A mentor who is an established leader within ASIS&T. You will meet your mentor at the conference. Your mentor can introduce you to the conference and to people you’d like to meet.
- A service opportunity: during the first year of your award, you will get to do a service project for a SIG, Chapter, or Committee. If you would like to get involved in the Association, this is a great way to start!
- Amazing networking possibilities: as a New Leader, you’ll not only get noticed by longer-standing, more senior members of ASIS&T, but you will be a part of a cohort of New Leaders within which you can share your conference experience. See a list of previous New Leaders cohorts.
But don’t take my word for it! Here are some thoughts from past winners:
Alex Garnett, a 2010 winner: It was a great surprise and a confidence-booster to win the New Leaders Award so early in my career, which fortunately is just what it’s designed for. I had an excellent mentorship experience, and the opportunity to attend a conference for the first time and know that I wouldn’t have to stand around worrying about explaining what exactly it was that I was doing there really can’t be underestimated. I’m still very grateful.
Emily Vardell, a 2014 winner: The New Leaders Award is an excellent way to get to know ASIST members and to become more active in the association. With the award I was able to attend the annual meeting in Seattle as well as become integrated within the work of SIG-HLTH. I am so honored to have received the award and am so grateful it helped me connect with the profession and its members.
Jeremy L. McLaughlin, a 2014 winner: The New Leaders Award has become one of the most important components of my ASIS&T involvement and has influenced my career and my studies in numerous ways. Through the New Leaders Award, I have had the chance to meet and work with many people throughout the organization, including the current and former Presidents, and the members of the SIG with which I was paired (SIG AH). Because I am working with a medium-sized SIG, I was immediately brought into the fold and asked to be involved as the Chair for 2014-15. This position has allowed me to explore my interests within the larger organization, and work on multiple, highly-visible projects while increasing my engagement with professionals and students around the world. There is a ton of opportunity within ASIS&T for folks looking to get involved. Even though I was nervous about taking on new responsibilities, and was not sure I was fully qualified, the support structure has been fantastic, I was matched up with the perfect SIG for me, and having an ASIS&T mentor has been invaluable. Overall, this Award has helped me realize the importance of member involvement in SIGs, of reaching out and of speaking up and not being afraid to contribute in ways that are meaningful to me as an individual and as a member of ASIS&T.
So what are you waiting for? Apply to be a New Leader today (or at least by the June 1 deadline)! If you have any questions about the award or the application process, feel free to reply to this post or email me at diane@asist.org. If I can’t answer your question, I’ll make sure to send it to someone who can.
ASIS&T can’t wait to receive your application!