CALL Mentorship and Leadership Development Committee 2017-2018 Annual Report

Co-Chairs:
Gretchen Van Dam
Deborah Rusin

Committee members:
Sarah Andeen
Ben Brighoff
Heidi Kuehl
Sally Holterhoff
Julie Melvin

For the CALL 2017-2018 year, the Committee had its kick-off meeting on September 12, 2017. On November 14, 2017, co-chairs Gretchen Van Dam and Deborah Rusin met with the CALL Board to discuss the initiatives of the Committee for the 2017-2018 CALL year.

For the 2017-2018 CALL year, the Committee tackled several initiatives in order to support the CALL membership and strengthen the relationships between more seasoned members of the Association and newer members of the Association. Many of the “newer” members were looking for guidance in their careers and a fellow librarian to speak to about all things law librarian. The Committee received multiple requests for mentorship matching and were able to meet those requests.

For each of the CALL Business Meetings, members of the Mentorship and Leadership Development Committee were given the names of those members who were new to the Association or at their first CALL Business Meeting by the Membership Committee in order that those members may be greeted by a member of the Mentorship Committee. Members of the Committee were encouraged to sit with those new members as a way of introducing them to other members of the Association and offering support.

Next, the Committee solicited members of the legal community and CALL to write an article(s) for the CALL Bulletin and in the FALL 2018 issue an article was published entitled “The Four S’s of Leadership.”

To round out the year, on June 6, 2018, the Committee held a luncheon event with a panel of speakers to speak on the value of conference attendance. The event was entitled “Deriving Value: Making the Most of Professional Conference Attendance” and was held prior to both the SLA as well as AALL conferences.