1. Commission and interest chairs should seek ways to involve its members in programming and publication within NACADA. Because interests and issues are often shared by more than one group or region, chairs of commissions and interest groups should look for ways to communicate and collaborate.
2. Creating a steering committee and having volunteers to carry out defined activities will give members opportunities to be involved without taking a lot of their time. For instance, having a Web master for a site and an updates editor will delegate those activities and give those members ownership in the group.  The committee members can work within their regions to solicit program submissions for regional and national conferences. They can be the link to members at the regional level and represent the group at regional meetings.
3. Chairs should have regular contact with group members through list serves and Web sites.  Semiannual or quarterly electronic mail updates are also possible through the Executive Office.
4. Chairs should encourage members of commissions to seek ways to cosponsor programs or to write publications with members of other commissions. For instance, the commissions on technology and advisor training and development have jointly sponsored sessions at national conferences that involve training of advisors to use technology and the use of technology in publications. In addition, a regional meeting had technology as its subtheme.
5. Commission and Interest Group chairs may choose to utilize regional liaisons to their respective units to help promote commission and interest group programs and activities. This liaison could represent the unit in regional matters and participate by soliciting regional conference presentations, program selection, and networking with commission and interest group chairs to apprise them of regional activities. Such liaisons would be appointed by the chair of the commission or interest group.

B. Creating a list serve or web pages for your commission—

The NACADA Executive Office has set up an electronic mail distribution list that can be used to communicate with commission members. Commission chairs can work with the NACADA Executive Office to send periodic e-mail messages out to commission members. Most commission lists are low volume and do not take enormous amounts of time. The Executive Office will also assist commission chairs in creating and updating web pages on which to post important information and deadlines for individual commissions.

A small percentage of a commission's members are subscribed to its list serve. Therefore, to be sure that all commission members are reached, bulk e-mails should be sent out by the Executive Office using a special list serve used solely for announcements rather than the interactive commission list serve.
 

1. Duties for the Incoming Commission Chair-Elect
   The Chair should assign activities to the incoming Chair-elect, such as writing communications, reading proposals, etc., and include in network of steering committee for commission. Such assignments should be described in report to the Division.  The Chair-elect should read the NACADA information on the web site and in the Commission Chair Expectations and Handbook.
2. The Chair-elect attends the CIG Division meeting in the fall, which includes training and orientation for new Chairs.  Orientation topics will include:

   • NACADA governance and term of office
   • Purpose of commissions and interest groups
   • Duties of commission leadership:
     • Attend leadership meetings
     • Coordinate steering committee
     • Leadership development within commission
     • Encourage presentations and publications
     • Communicate with commission members virtually
     • Conduct business meeting at national conference
     • Set commission goals
     • Submit appropriate reports
     • Keep commission records
3. Working with the Executive Office

D. Communication with Volunteers—

Chairs should write to members of their committees, thanking them for their time and efforts on behalf of NACADA. Copies of these letters should be sent to supervisors to alert them of the person's contribution and involvement.  See link to sample letter below.

• Sample thank you letter (in Microsoft Word)

• Commission chairs determine if there are specific issues that they would like to have addressed at the conference and invite specific people to submit a proposal on that topic.  Since these proposals would be guaranteed acceptance if they are one of the commission's sponsored sessions, the commission chair must have a commitment from all invited presenters and co-presenters to actually present the session.  One risk in inviting a lot of people to submit and telling each of them they will be guaranteed acceptance is that there may be several more proposals from the general pool that chairs later may want to award "sponsored" status.  Chairs may want to encourage individuals to submit a proposal, but not guarantee its acceptance.  Even though invited proposals can be guaranteed acceptance if sponsored, the lead presenter must still submit an actual application form before the Call for Proposals deadline, in order for the data to be included in the master proposal database and accepted through the regular evaluation process.  Invited presenter(s) must register for the conference, as must all other presenters.  Commissions may not offer compensation or waiver of registration fees for these sessions.
• In addition, commissions will read all proposals individually submitted and identified by the presenter as related to their proposal's topical area (called program tracks on the Call for Proposals form) and may choose additional sponsored sessions to select if they have not already invited all their sponsored sessions. All other commission-related proposals recommended for acceptance by chairs in the regular review/evaluation process (as opposed to guaranteed acceptance via the sponsored status) will be forwarded by the chairs to the program committee, who will make the final determination on their acceptance.
• All commission-sponsored sessions will be noted in the conference program as "Sponsored by XYZ Commission."  Since proposers might have listed two commissions as being relevant to the presentation (e.g., transfer students and two-year colleges), a session might carry 2 different sponsored commission designations.
• Chairs must send by e-mail the first and last names and e-mail addresses of all reviewers for the commission to the NACADA Executive Office. Access to the proposal database will be established for these individuals. Proposals will be available for reading on-line usually in late December.  Chairs and their designated readers read proposals on-line as they are submitted until the submission deadline-typically early February.  Readers submit their individual evaluations to each Commission Chair by the 3rd week of February.  Chairs must summarize all their readers' evaluations and submit a recommendation on each proposal to the current year Annual Conference Chair by the end of February. Specific deadline dates for the activities outlined above are communicated to reviewers at the beginning of the review process.

Reimbursement procedures for attending the Leadership meetings are outlined at this link. A special reimbursement form is usually provided at the meetings for chairs to complete and submit.

The General Expense Reimbursement Form  can be used to request reimbursement for incidental costs incurred while conducting appropriate NACADA business other than attending the Leadership meetings.  This form should not be used for major projects. A budget report should be submitted for any major projects planned by commission chairs who are encouraged to consult with the Division Representatives prior to doing so.

Award Guidelines

The criteria, eligibility requirements, nomination procedures and a nomination form can be found at www.nacada.ksu.edu/Awards/CService.htm.

Soliciting Nominations
Information about the Service To Commission Awards may be announced through appropriate list serves, in Academic Advising News and other publications, on the NACADA web site and commission web sites, and by commission steering committee members and/or commission liaisons to regions at state and regional conferences in their respective geographic regions.

Service to Commission Award Selection Committee
For each commission planning to give a Service to Commission Award, the commission chair will appoint a Service to Commission Award Selection Committee (SCASC) no later than January 31 each year. The SCASC will consist of five members, including the commission chair. Additional members of the SCASC may include members of the commission’s steering committee, former award winners, and commission members at large. The commission chair or his/her designate will serve as the chair of the SCASC.

Selection and Notification of Award Winners

Nominations for the Service to Commission Award are due to the Executive Office by April 1. (See above web page for submission procedures.) For each commission planning to give a Service to Commission Award, the SCASC will select a single winner by May 1. In the case of a tie or inconclusive vote among the committee members, the committee chair will have final discretion on the recommended award recipient. The SCASC will reserve the right not to recommend an award winner for a particular year if none of the nominees meet the committee’s expectations for this recognition. Members of the SCASC will be asked to recuse themselves from any votes concerning nominees from their own institutions.