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.