Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections March 2020 - 10

Society Reports
ready done so, please renew your membership for 2020, and
contact membership@spnhc.org if you have any technical
problems or questions. Finally, if you are interested in joining
the Membership Committee, please contact me or come along
to our committee meeting at the annual meeting.
Respectfully submitted,
Tiffany Adrain, Chair

Professional Development
Committee News

The PDC has begun work to implement
some of the ideas discussed at the 2019
SPNHC meeting. This includes launching the Travel Grant Mentorship programs for the 2020 SPNHC conference,
looking at the PDC's role in SPNHC's
education mission, and updating the
wiki page.
The PDC participated in a conversation around SPNHC's role in education
through the Educational Sessional Committee. Participants included members
of the PDC, the EPC (Emerging Professionals Committee), and interested parties. The call was moderated by Anna
Monfils. The call made it clear that several of the initiatives
for the PDC and the EPC do overlap with different intended
audiences being the focus of each group. It is the view of the
PDC that more work needs to be done regarding education
and development initiatives. This will be a topic at the PDC
meeting this June during the 2020 conference.

Travel Grants Mentorship Programs

Elise LeCompte chairs the subcommittee on Travel Grant
Mentorship Programs.
Elise and her team launched the 2020 Travel Grant Program
to provide opportunities for upcoming grant recipients for
travel to Edinburgh. The subcommittee is moving forward
with providing ribbons or stickers, including Emerging Professional, First-time Attendee, and other traditional ribbons.
Ideas for ribbons and stickers are always welcome for future
meetings. Pronouns will be an option to have printed on the
name tags for the Edinburgh meeting.

General Mentorship

Mentorship continues to be a high priority of the PDC given
the continued support from many members in SPNHC for a
broadened approach to mentoring opportunities. As a result
of the Educational Sessional Committee phone call, it is clear
10 * SPNHC Connection

that more work needs to be done in establishing a true mentorship program.

Demo Camps

Demo Camps used to be organized by the PDC; these now
have been taken over by the LOCs for each conference.
Interested participants are encouraged to submit Demo Camp
abstracts through the normal abstract process and clearly indicate their submission as being a Demo Camp program.

Workshops

The PDC's role in workshops is to maintain a list of popular
(and necessary) workshop subjects and note if a subject may
be due. We will be sending out a survey for SPNHC members
on workshop topics to make sure the list is up-to-date and
remains relevant.

Course Announcements

The PDC provides a compendium of online courses in
Museum Studies and Collections Management. This list is
provided by the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections Professional Development Committee as a
monthly service for NHCOLL-L subscribers. Please contact
the course providers or instructors for more information or
questions.
As a reminder, NHCOLL-L is not open for advertising by
individuals; however, if you would like to have your courses
appear in this compendium, please feel free to submit your
offerings to jeff.stephenson@dmns.org, and we'll see that you
get listed.

Wiki

The committee has begun updating the Professional Development wiki site. The site has been updated to reflect the current
committee chairs, new information on the 2020 travel grants,
and useful links to professional development resources. The
PDC plans to continue adding to this site as the 2020 conference approaches. The wiki is designed to be a living site
and will be regularly updated to best serve the community's
needs.
As always, if any member of SPNHC would like to work on
any of these projects, please contact Jeff Stephenson or Nick
Drew. We value and appreciate your volunteer efforts on
behalf of SPNHC and your colleagues.
Respectfully submitted,
Nicholas Drew and Jeff Stephenson, Co-chairs

Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections March 2020

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