ECPN December Meeting Minutes

ECPN MEETING MINUTES

Monday 17 December 2012  

 Attendees:
Molly Gleeson (Chair)
Eliza Spaulding (Vice Chair)
Angela Curmi (Communications)
Anisha Gupta (co-Outreach)
Genevieve Bieniosek (Student Liaison, ETC)
Megan Salazar-Walsh (co-Outreach Coordinator)
Carrie Roberts (co-Professional Education and Training)
Gwen Manthey (co-Professional Education and Training)
Mina Thompson (OSG Chair)
Emily Williams (ETC Chair)
Ryan Winfield (AIC Staff Liaison)
 
 1. November Meeting Minutes Approved
 2. Portfolio Seminar – updates and planning

  • Gwen and Carrie have invited the speakers and heard back from all but 2. They have commitments from a few and others have expressed interest. They will follow-up with those they have not yet heard back from. The schedule has been planned.
  • An email has also been sent out to the grad program liaisons and an invitation posted on the blog and facebook for portfolio presenters. So far, 1 student from Winterthur, 1 from Buffalo, and 1 from Northumbria have responded. Gwen and Carrie will re-visit this after the new year and maybe try a more grassroots approach. It will also depend on students’ academic schedules.
  • Molly asked if, for the more formal presentations, we have speakers for all topics. Carrie said that Suzanne Davis is interested in the “beyond the portfolio” topic. Gwen will be speaking about building the portfolio. Cher Schneider will be speaking about digital portfolios. They will now focus on finding someone for the networking/ interviews topic.
  • Molly asked Gwen if she had reached out to Richard McCoy, and Gwen said that he was interested but couldn’t commit at this time. She is now thinking of Kathleen Kiefer.Gwen thinks Kathleen would be good for this topic, but is less familiar with her work in outreach. While the topic should be defined, Gwen is also trying to keep the invitation a bit loose so the speakers can bring their own ideas to it. Speakers should be finalized by mid- to late January.

           Blog post on portfolios

  • Emily Williams asked if ECPN would be willing to recruit an employer and an educator to write a blog post on portfolios (the idea came up because they are re-doing the ETC education webpages). Molly suggested we ask 2 or more of the people involved in this session to write the post. Emily recommended Suzanne Davis. Carrie and Gwen will talk to her about this. And as soon as the speakers are finalized, they will ask about the blog post; however, we don’t have any educators among the speakers. Molly said we moved away from this because we didn’t want to invite someone from just one program. Gwen suggested that perhaps in the blogpost, it can be phrased as the viewpoint of an educator from a particular program. Emily recommended that rather than have just 1 educator for the blogpost, we approach all the programs (because there do seem to be differences) – Suzanne might be willing to help with this – and talk to several employers so that it’s not just 1 person’s opinion but a synthesis. Anisha suggested we create a survey to send out to the programs and streamline the information, then write a blogpost based on the results. Everyone agreed this was a good idea.
  • Molly will schedule a call in January to discuss the portfolio session and poster.

3. Webinar Q&A plans, feedback

  • Thank you to Eliza, Anisha, Ryan, and everyone who helped make the webinar possible. It was a huge success.
  • A follow-up Q&A is planned (using google hangout) for tomorrow morning at 11. There are 15 questions. Anisha will moderate the Q&A and Eliza will also be on the call. Each speaker has arbitrarily been given 5 questions. They will try to get through the questions as fast as possible (approx. 4 minutes each). The google hangout will be recorded and uploaded to youtube. Anisha said that the only issue is that it will be uploaded to her account if she records it. Molly asked if Ryan wanted the Q&A to be uploaded to AIC’s account. Ryan will discuss with Anisha later today.
  • Eliza asked Ryan if he was able to locate the recording of the program. Ryan responded that he had not, but he had emailed Eric about it and will ask him again today. It looked like it was saved on someone’s desktop or hard-drive, not within the account itself.
  • Eliza asked everyone about the audio quality. Carrie said it was great, but there was a bit of a lag between video and audio, though it didn’t disturb her at all. Not everyone saw the lag. Angela said it would be nice to go back and forth between powerpoint and live video. Eliza said we can try this in future and are gradually adding more technology to our toolkit.

4. Next webinar – topic, dates

  • Molly asked if we could have one more webinar before the annual meeting, sometime in the next 2-3 months. She will start a basecamp discussion on possible topics. Anisha thinks it is feasible. Though it was a lot of work, she never felt overwhelmed because the work was divided, and it resulted in a great discussion. Ryan agreed that it is more than worth the work and is great programming. Although it’s simpler with 1 speaker, the interaction between multiple speakers makes it worthwhile. Everyone agreed having 3 speakers was great, as opinions were varied, the speakers were able to feed off of each other, and the pressure is off each individual, which makes it less daunting to commit to.
  • Regarding topics, there is a lot of discussion lately on paid vs. unpaid internships (Rose Cull suggested this when she was chair). Molly asked how we can tackle this for a webinar in a constructive way. Everyone agreed this is a good idea and that it would be great to turn this into a constructive conversation. Molly will start a basecamp discussion – we will think about how to tackle this topic, what format it will take, and what kind of involvement everyone would like to have.

5. Mentoring program – updates, next steps

  • Over the past month Eliza has been able to make matches here and there and follow-up with people (for the 3-month follow-up on how mentorships are going). The latest group of mentee/mentor candidates included 9 mentee applications and 11 mentor applications (there are more mentors than mentees for the first time.) She would like to work on making those matches. Broader changes to the program have also been discussed and we can continue talking about this. Gwen and Carrie were not on the last call but can find the discussion in the minutes. Eliza asked Gwen how she felt about leading the match process with her assistance. Gwen feels comfortable taking it on with Eliza’s guidance. Carrie will take on the responsibility of the second officer (for the general resource).
  • Ryan explained that the new database/ website has a member-matching tool, so you can set up criteria for people to fill out and the system will automatically match them based on the criteria. So a lot of the arcane matching process using spreadsheets won’t be necessary anymore – it can be handled automatically through the website. This will launch when the new website is launched.
  • Eliza will follow-up with Gwen and Carrie about the changes to the program.

6. Wiki edit-a-thon in January and at annual meeting; Grad program liaisons – tie-in with Wiki event in January

  • The Wiki edit-a-thon is in January. They’re also organizing a live edit-a-thon at the annual meeting and we should try to get emerging conservators involved. Molly will be speaking to Rachael and Emily Williams about the PR Toolkit later today. We may want to work on the toolkit during the January edit-a-thon. Molly also asked for ideas for the live session and getting emerging conservators’ input for the wiki. One idea Rachael has is to contact grad programs (through the liaisons) and find out what they think they can contribute and if professors are willing to let them put coursework on the wiki.
  • Megan agreed it would be good to get students involved. Students will be on break in January, so they will have more time to contribute. But faculty members might be hesitant to put course material on there.
  • Molly suggested sending out a few questions to the liaisons – have they contributed to the wiki? What do they think they can contribute? Would their programs be interested?
  • Molly will get a list of topics from Rachael that she’s hoping to have fleshed out so that we don’t leave it too open – some are topics students may be working on in their courses. We should also be proactive in pairing up emerging conservators with more experienced conservators through the wiki (like a mentorship). Megan and Molly will work together on a letter to send the grad liaisons and will reach out to them in January.

7. Student representation
Letters have been sent to most SG chairs about student representation and supporting students at the annual meeting. Mina responded and is interested. Molly will reach out to the rest of the chairs within the week.
8. Next conference call:
2nd or 4th Monday in February, with a few project-specific calls in January (one about the annual meeting). Molly will follow-up.