President Message - February 2023
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