by Maria C. Gonzelez, NACCS Chair
Dear NACCS members:
Let me begin by welcoming our newly elected Chair-Elect, Dr. Deena Gonzalez, a long-time member of NACCS and internationally recognized historian, and our newly elected At Large Representative, Dr. Jennifer Gomez Menjivar from the University of North Texas in the field of Media Arts, to the NACCS Board of Directors. We welcome them both and are thrilled to have them as part of the leadership.
And now for some exciting news, if all goes well, we will finally get to meet again in person in Denver in early spring. Included in this newsletter is the call for papers for our annual conference. The title, “Work, Sustainability, and Resilience in the Post-Pandemic,” represents the concerns many of us have now that we have to navigate a historical moment we have never been a part of. Please review the call and submit. We have changed the deadline date for the NACCS proposal from our usual mid-October date to November 15 (this is an exception and only for this year). I encourage everyone to prepare their proposals and submit them. The proposal link is here: https://www.naccs.org/naccs/Submit.asp.
Directing your attention to our finance report in this newsletter, I thank our outgoing treasurer, Ernesto Colon, and our incoming treasurer, Francisco Villegas, for their work in getting this report done and ready for our membership. We begin our new fiscal year in fair shape but remain financially fragile. Please get your membership in for the 2022-23 year. As you may remember from our previous communications (Membership meeting, 4-23-22; Greetings, 7-19-22), we have moved our calendar year membership dates to reflect our actual fiscal year. All memberships run July 1 to June 30. So currently, most of us need to renew our memberships now.
Currently, the Board is working on planning and preparing for this coming year. As our organization is now 50 years-old and we need to periodically review our processes, I have recommended, and the Board has approved an ad-hoc committee to review our governance practices and our organizational structure. The chair will be our immediate Past-Chair, Roberto Hernandez, who will lead this self-study of NACCS. Over the next year, Roberto and his committee will review and prepare a written report with recommendations for the governance of our organization. Once that report is completed, we will be ready to commit to an external review of NACCS.
In reviewing our membership records and finances, I also recommended, and the Board has approved an ad-hoc committee on membership. Currently because of Covid and our inability to meet in person, our membership is at approximately 200 paid members. William Calvo-Quiros has kindly agreed to chair an ad-hoc membership committee to work on getting our numbers up. I hope to have recommendations from that committee in approximately six months.
Finally, I look forward to seeing everyone in Denver in early spring of 2023.
Fall 2022 – Vol. 48. No. 1