Amidst the Exhaustion, our Association Carries On

Amidst the exhaustion we hear from many members from managing the pandemics that have plagued our world, nation, and communities, I thought it might be helpful to update the membership on some activities of our staff as we have worked to keep our association running, even from our home offices. I shared many of these items with the Board of Directors when they met on April 12.

One of my favorite poems by David Whyte is titled, “The Winter of Listening.” One line stands out to my Enneagram 7 soul: “Inside everyone/is a great shout of joy/waiting to be born.” Amidst the pandemics in which we dwell, the efforts at voter suppression nationwide, and the questions of the future, I am leaning into that great, collective shout joy waiting to be born within, among and between us. Here are some updates about our collective work and my role within it:

• Merger: Kudos to John Roch, Tiffany Kindred, and our partners at APC for the efforts in developing and rolling out a communication strategy for the merger. In particular, we are providing the following:
  • An ongoing Yammer channel for dialogue among members;
  • Weekly emails with videos of leaders responding to questions about the merger;
  • Live Q &A sessions beginning April 19, limited to 25 at a time to allow people to engage with leaders and each other;
  • Three town hall events, one at the end of April led by the team who has been negotiating with APC, one at the end of May with a panel TBD, and one at the end of June jointly with APC.

    We are also offering to meet with CoPs and will be speaking to merger matters in newsletter articles.
    
    

• Partners: I continue to meet every other week with the executive directors of APC, NACC, NAJC, and CASC to make sure we are keeping one another up to date on shared concerns, interests, and activities. The new Executive Director at CASC is working to build his team, NACC is preparing for David Lichter’s retirement, and NAJC is excited to be financially stable again after a couple of tough years.
  
  
• National conference: As of this writing, we are approaching 500 attendees at this year’s virtual event, a very positive indication of association commitment to the topic. The report from those attending the catalyst facilitator trainings is an awareness that this event will likely be a benchmark moment, and that we will need to work to continue to be diligent in our commitment to becoming an anti-racist organization. Depending on the result of the merger, the board may want to consider themes for the 2022 conference and how we can build on this year’s efforts. APC is also asking these questions, though they will not have experienced the Crossroads trainings.
  
  
• Certification of Educators: ACPE needs to think carefully about our certification process, the likely retirements of current educators (note: the median age is 60), the reduction in CEC positions, and the amount of time the revised process is taking people to complete. We are not in a crisis, but we are within five years of what could become a crisis, with an increasing reliance on retired contract educators to cover units for us.
  
  
• Office: ACPE is working closely with Emory University (through whom we manage HR) to determine when our staff should return to our office. I plan to return to a regular office schedule beginning April 19, but we are waiting for staff to get vaccinated before bringing everyone back. I also expect people to want to integrate some work from home days into their schedules, so I will be working with managers in coming weeks on how that can work to best support the association’s needs.
  
  
• Personnel: While we cannot require staff to be vaccinated, almost all of our team are actively seeking vaccinations. We are seeking guidance from Emory should a team member refuse to get their shot(s) in terms of reopening the office.
  

As I hope this list of activities makes clear, the ACPE staff is working hard to try and serve our members well, to build for the work that lies on the other side of the public health crisis, and to help our leadership discern our future with our partners. 

Trace Haythorn is the Executive Director of ACPE and can be reached at Trace.Haythorn@acpe.edu