[NCUC-DISCUSS] NCUC ELECTIONS 2014: NOMINATIONS OPEN 3 - 16 November

[Dan Krimm]

Great, so even someone like myself who's been around for a while (though
admittedly with little time to participate substantively for several years)
didn't know (or, and I don't browse the NCUC web site with any regularity.)
Good to know these public archives exist!  ;-)

That suggests a hybrid idea:

 (1) We should suggest that any new member who wants to understand the
workings of the special committees make a habit of looking at these
archives regularly.

 (2) For those new members who want to discuss "orientation" matters
without cluttering up the main list, perhaps there is still room for
something similar to Stephanie's idea.  It could have a different name than
"mentees" since there may not be specific mentors formally assigned to
guide this group, perhaps more of a collective/crowd-sourced
self-instruction dynamic.  And, maybe it need not be republished on the web
-- this will not have policy discussions on it (those would happen on the
main list).

 (3) If that group finds it useful, perhaps even their group list could be
subscribed to the committee lists, so those committee communications could
be seen in context with and incorporated into the rest of their discussions.

 (4) I can see one actual functional responsibility for this group other
than simply self-education: create and update a FAQ section on the web
site.  There's nothing like being new to an organization when it comes to
knowing what questions new people have!  These people would be closest to
the beginning of the process, and thus are most "expert" on that end of the
user experience.  With new "super-experts" joining on an ongoing basis.

With so many new members joining us over the last several years, and
hopefully even more moving forward, we are reaching a scale where we need
some tools to help streamline the orientation process.  Having it be all
isolated individual bottom-up self-discovery is no longer the most
efficient and effective way to do this, especially with all the new
communication tools available in the digital world.

In colleges and universities these days students are sometimes encouraged
to form study groups and to participate in classroom discussion lists.
There could be a similar dynamic made available here as well.  The ad hoc
processes that worked well enough for a smaller group over the years do not
scale to larger group sizes.  With the explicit mission to scale up our
membership comes the collective responsibility to create an institutional
framework for incorporating new members systematically into that
large-scale organization, specifically because we don't have enough
volunteer mentors to go around.  (In my case, back in 2007, I had Robin and
Milton.  But we can't clone them a hundred times.)

I can think of no one better than Stephanie to move this forward, if this
idea finds an amenable consensus.

Dan




At 7:05 AM +0200 11/9/14, Tapani Tarvainen wrote:
>On Sat, Nov 08, 2014 at 12:45:19PM -0800, Dan Krimm (dan at musicunbound.com)
>wrote:
>
>> How about some sort of "official observers" included on the coordination
>> lists for these committees, where those with the interest get to look in on
>> communications by the EC or PC, etc.
>
>For the most part I see little need, as things can be observed
>unofficially just as well.
>
>> Just being a "fly on the wall" can be a very educational first step,
>> without placing any additional burden on anyone with decision-making
>> responsibilities. It points a new member toward the sorts of things
>> one needs to learn in order to become a more effective participant.
>
>Agreed.
>
>> Is there anything intrinsically confidential about the deliberations of
>> these committees, or are they kept separate simply to avoid clutter on the
>> main membership lists?
>
>Mainly the latter.
>
>> (Are they published on the web anywhere, at present?)
>
>Go to http://www.ncuc.org and click "Participate" and under it
>"Mailing Lists", or go directly to http://lists.ncuc.org/.
>
>Almost all lists have public archives. The exception is Events,
>which sometimes handles at least semi-confidential stuff.
>
>--
>Tapani Tarvainen
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