Winter 2023 

Greetings! I am feeling energized and excited after our virtual mid-winter ACA Board meeting (convened February 11-12). One part of our meeting was devoted to reviewing our strategic directions over the past two years. It is amazing to see the progress we have made. Looking forward, we have some exciting plans underway.  

JOB ANALYSIS 

One major goal is to complete a job analysis to update the definition of what it means to be an archivist. The thinking behind this is that the profession has evolved in regards to skills, knowledge, practices, and standards since a thorough profile of an archivist has been completed. Updating our understanding of the professional archivist by way of a systematic study will help us ensure that our certification examination is accurately covering the breadth and depth of knowledge and skills needed by archivists. Creating the job analysis is beyond the ability of the ACA board to undertake, and so upon recommendation from our psychometrician, we will hire professionals to do this work. Members of the ACA board have put together an RFP, which will be posted to the website and listservs, to seek out a firm to undertake the work of compiling the job analysis. As members of the Academy, you will be sought out for feedback along the way.  

EXAM APPLICATION PERIOD OPENING SOON! 

Our exam application period is opening on March 1—encourage colleagues, whether new to the profession or not, to sit for the exam! On March 9 at 7 p.m. EST, Rosemary Pleva Flynn, Regent for Exam Administration, will host an online Q&A session to answer any questions from prospective test-takers.  

ACA BOARD ELECTION 

The election of new board members will be underway starting on April 10. Keep your eye out for the ballot. On April 5 at 5 p.m. EST, Gerrianne Schaad, Regent for Nominations, will host an online "meet the candidates" forum.  

IMPLEMENTATION OF CULTURAL COMPETENCY DOMAIN 

I am excited to announce that this year’s certification examination will be the first to include questions from our new domain: Cultural Competency. The ACA Cultural Competency Task Force, created on November 1, 2020, was charged with developing this domain. Thank you to the following members who put in many hours working on this: Helen Wong Smith, CA, Lead Co-Chair; Tomaro Taylor, CA, Co-Chair; Nicole Bubolo, CA; Sarah Calise, CA; Rebecca Hankins, CA; Sylvia Hernandez, CA; and Jill Tominosky, CA. On May 3 at 5 p.m. EST, Cheryl Oestreicher, Regent for Exam Development, will host an online Q&A session to talk about this newest domain. 

Thank you for your continued support and membership. If you have feedback, questions, concerns, or ideas, please feel free to reach out to me or any one of the other board members.  

Emily Hughes Dominick | President, 2022-2023 

Academy of Certified Archivists 

president@certifiedarchivists.org 

As we settle into fall, we are surrounded by transitions and it is no different with the Academy of Certified Archivists. I am honored to be serving this year as President of the Academy. I am grateful to be working with a dedicated and energetic group of archivists on this year’s board which includes Liz Scott, CA as Vice President/President Elect, Mary McRobinson, CA as Treasurer, Susan Irwin, CA as Secretary, Stephanie Bayless, CA as Regent for Certification Maintenance, Rosemary Pleva Flynn, CA as Regent for Exam Administration, Cheryl Oestreicher, CA as Regent for Exam Development, Ingi House, CA as Regent for Outreach, Gerrianne Schaad, CA as Past President/Regent for Nominations, and Michelle Ganz, CA as Regent for Membership. And, of course we wouldn’t be where we are today without the help of those board members whose terms ended in August: Laura Botts, CA, Anne Hodges, CA, Joshua Kitchens, CA, and Tomaro Taylor, CA. Thank you all for your service!

We are busy wrapping up some the final details from some of last year's projects. Namely, we can announce that the ACA Bylaws revisions put to a vote in August passed by a vote of 297 (in favor of revisions) to 22 (not in favor). This amounts to 34% of our members voting. Several in our membership pointed out some inconsistencies with spacing and how the strike-throughs were showing. All apologies for adding confusion to the process. The corrected and intended language for Section 2. Examination Development Committee is as follows:

The Examination Development Committee shall be composed of the Regent for Examination Development and six members, two of whom shall be appointed by the President each year to serve a term of three (3) years. Any member of the Corporation is eligible for appointment to the committee, and any member of the Examination Committee can serve two consecutive terms. The Regent for Examination Development shall serve as chair.

Thank you to everyone for voting and also for letting us know there were some problems. You can view the approved bylaws on the ACA website.

Looking for ways to connect with the Academy? Consider joining one of the upcoming virtual happy hours. For the coming year, these informal gatherings will be held on the second Wednesday of each month at 5 p.m. EST. Register now for the November 9 happy hour!

If you are seeking ways to become more involved with ACA keep in mind that we are often looking for volunteers.

Thank you for your continued support and membership. If you have feedback, questions, concerns, or ideas, please feel free to reach out to me or any one of the other board members.

Emily Hughes Dominick | President, 2022-2023
Academy of Certified Archivists
president@certifiedarchivists.org

The Academy of Certified Archivists' Nominations Committee is pleased to announce the results of this year's ACA election:  

• Liz Scott, CA as Vice President/President-Elect 
• Mary McRobinson, CA as Treasurer 
• Cheryl Oestreicher, CA as Regent for Examination Development  
• Ingi House, CA as Regent for Outreach 
• Yayoi Tsutsui, CA as Nominations Committee member 

For the first time in our history we had a tie for the Vice President/President elect position. We will be having a run-off election, so please watch your mail for news and directions on how to vote again.  We will hold off announcing the winners of the other positions until we can make one announcement.

August 9 at 3pm (EST) will be the general membership meeting. Please join us through zoom. Minutes will be available on the website if you cannot make it. An invitation, agenda, and information on zooming in will be coming shortly. Please watch your email.

We will also be hosting an evening reception at the SAA meeting in Boston. It will be a Friday evening dessert reception from 8 to 10 pm in the Commonwealth Room on the third floor of the Sheraton. This is a great opportunity to meet your fellow CA’s and welcome newly certified members. Please RSVP for the reception on the SAA registration form, or with the ACA office - not both please.

Also needed are volunteers to sit at the information table at the upcoming SAA meeting. Please contact Michelle Ganz, Regent for Member Services memberservices@certifiedarchivists.org to sign up. And yes, you do get recertification points, and the opportunity to tell attendees about the Academy.

We hope people will pay dues in July. If we have not heard from you by September our Regent for Member Services will be trying to contact you. If you are having trouble with finances, please reach out to me and we will work with you. President@certifiedArchivists.org. As an all-volunteer organization it takes time to track you down and ask you to pay. If you wish to give up your membership please send the office office@certifiedarchivists.org an email. If you have not paid by September 30 and we have not heard from you, we will remove you from our membership list.

The Certification exam is over. Thanks to the members who proctored for the test. Don’t forget to add your certification points into the membership software. Yes everyone is able now to put your points in. You do not need to wait to enter points until your year to recertify. Because of this new system, there is a fee to recertify, but trust me, I love the new system and it is easy to track your continuing education points throughout the year. Once you have reached 60, you are done and the system will tell you. If you need help getting into the system please contact the Regent for Recertification certificationmaintenance@certifiedarchivists.org, or Association Manager, Mike Breslin, at office@certifiedarchivists.org.

The next Certification Exam will be June 15–17, 2023.

July Member Happy Hour! On Friday, July 8th, we will hold the next ACA Member Happy Hour! To RSVP, please go to https://forms.office.com/r/XtEfcXP5hc.