Meet AASL: Sara Kelly Johns, AASL President March 10, 2008
Posted by admin in : AASL Officers, Community , 2 commentsWhat does the President of AASL do?
I have a finger in every organizational pie: serve as an ex-officio member of all AASL Committees except Nominating, preside over all AASL Meetings (including Executive Committee, Board and All-Committee), attend Annual and Midwinter Conference and prepare and preside over the President’s Program and AASL Awards Program. Then there are the “Big ALA” duties: attending the ALA President’s Luncheon and the Division President’s Breakfast, any joint committee meetings, lobby in Washington on ALA Washington Legislative Day attend state conferences, etc. etc. To do this, I travel a lot and spend hours on e-mail and preparing for the meetings. An exciting piece is deciding on the President’s Program for ALA Annual. With the reorganization of Intellectual Freedom committee, it seemed a natural to invite Susan Patron, author of The Higher Power of Lucky, and three school librarians to focus on the profession’s core value of intellectual freedom on Saturday at 10:30am in Anaheim. The most exciting part of the travel is meeting such terrific people. Working with committees and task forces is awesome, seeing the advances for our profession through work done by dedicated school librarians…we are smart, savvy–and fun–people.
One thing that I’ve enjoyed is making progress on my presidency’s theme, AASL and You: A Partnership for Power. I’ve said before that each president has to continue ongoing initiatives and organizational work and then there’s always something new that emerges. There’s been the ongoing work with ALA and AASL Advocacy and Legislative Committees and task forces for the SKILLs Act, the Instructional Classification Initiative and the Spokane Moms’ Fund Our Future Washington initiative, revitalization of School Library Media Month, the new Standards —their debut in Reno–working with the standards Implementation and Learning Indicators and Assessment task forces. With these and so many on-going issues, it will be interesting to see Ann Martin’s (incoming President) choice of a theme!
How does the President of AASL interact with the other division presidents?
In this electronic age, communication is easier between the division presidents and presidents-elect thanks to an e-list for discussion of common issues, support for initiatives and potential appointments to task forces. To share information and work together, we also form a cohort with regularly scheduled dinners and lunches at ALA and Midwinter conferences; there are Division Presidents’ Breakfast at Midwinter and ALA conferences, joint youth executive committee meetings at ALA and Midwinter with rotating convening responsibilities and a jointly developed agenda, attended first as president-elects and then as presidents. More fun are the joint youth reception and, of course, our Inauguration at Annual.
How can I become AASL President?
- Accept leadership roles.
- Get involved in AASL committees, doing the work well with enthusiasm and interest, and
- Be involved with your state affiliate as an officer and with Affiliate Assembly.
What is your goal/vision for AASL in the next five years?
Five years from now, we will have reached our current BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal—Jim Collin’s Good to Great), which is “To achieve universal recognition of school library media specialists as indispensable educational leaders.” This will be achieved when decision-makers in our schools recognize the crucial role of school library programs in student literacy, legislators consult us whenever educational decisions are made and education organizations and administrators recognize us as the “highly qualified” teachers we are. And we achieve this through partnerships with parents and educational agencies and organizations as well as with other ALA divisions.