Skip to main content

Nominations

One of the joys of lasting for a while in my career is that I often get asked (formally or informally) to suggest names of folk for potentially filling positions. Nobody ever goes entirely on my say-so but I like to think that I contribute names of qualified folk to the process that might otherwise not be said.

I think of this as I sit this morning putting together notes for a meeting of a Nominating Committee that I sit on for later this week. We will provide names for a slate presented to a professional organization for an election. It is the nature of this organization (for good or for bad, it cuts both ways) that there are never any nominations from the floor; they defer to our judgment and our prior confirmation that the nominees are willing to be nominated.

The bylaws list the positions, responsibilities, and terms of the these officers. Each year we take the positions that are renewable, confirm whether the current officeholders wish to continue, and as appropriate shorten the list.

Of the open positions, some of the positions require greater knowledge of the organization and experience working in it, so we consider folk whose names have come up either in official or unofficial roles for the work of the organization. The Nominating Committee is large enough that this is usually sufficient. 

For more junior or entry-level positions we have to reach further to find folk with potential and interest to serve.

I am happy to report that the Nominating Committee has a diverse membership and we are sensitive to making sure that our nominees are diverse. As someone who is a white male and who has worked with two official histories of the organization representing the different perspectives of segregation I am particularly sensitive to this. We do not seek to clone ourselves. Of course it is for others to judge if we are successful as we cannot judge ourselves objectively by definition.

It is the nature of the organization that if we name someone who is incompetent, we feel it immediately. This has happened over the years with some of the entry-level positions. So far I think our track-record with the higher offices has been good.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Holiday Break

I have been teaching for 37 years now, and I go through many of the same things at the end of the Fall semester each year. There is relief at the completion of a significant task (teaching each of my classes) but there is a good deal of physical and mental weariness and aches. I could sleep for several days straight if not for my sleep disorder. By and large my mind is not very sharp and as an introvert I try to be pleasant with loved ones but am not outgoing at all. With age the feeling of being drained deepens in more and more ways. Of course this is when we have, almost every year, taken a road trip to visit birth families in the Northeast, a full day of driving each way, often involving winter weather far worse than what we are accustomed to in NC. I love my birth family members as well but as with my created family I am weary and not very outgoing. The conversation is rarely about me and my day-to-day life but rather about younger family members and family friends that I do not kn...
Post a Comment
Read more

Accountability

Mathematics as a discipline teaches accountability. Every claim, whether it be a computation result or a statement (theorem) about how things work is accountable. We teach this accountability developmentally, with lower expectations at the beginning, and sometimes folk who study mathematics casually don't understand this. In my multivariable calculus classes, which I teach most frequently, I usually phrase my expectations as "give me a reason to believe your answer", citing my time working at an investment bank where my recommendations had financial repercussions and my supervisor never took my word for anything. In higher-level mathematics classes such as Abstract Algebra or Analysis I can be more explicit: these are the things we all agree to assume, these are the proof techniques which we understand; can you make an argument that convinces the community who have accepted those axioms and rules of inference that what you claim is true? We work hard to remove the ego fro...
Post a Comment
Read more

Contents of Most Recent Email to NC Senators

 Sent to Senators Tillis and Budd of NC this morning: My uncle was a police detective in Philadelphia before he retired. He showed his face and his badge to all he talked to on the job; he gave his name and business card to the public he served. This is what law enforcement officials have done in this country as policy until now; what if anything has changed?   The violent thugs serving in ICE are not law enforcement. They do not protect and serve; they attack and refuse to identify themselves. They are a paramilitary force responsible only to President Trump and his minions, who reflexively desecrate the memory of their victims. All dishonor themselves daily, all lack integrity. Immigration is a serious issue. Using brutal thugs to deal with it is like using a chainsaw to remove an appendix. The appendix may need to come out but using a chainsaw is a silly solution that kills people. It is painful to think of all the children incarcerated by ICE. It is unthinkable to all...
Post a Comment
Read more