I am a big NACAC fan. Within the organization I’ve found collaborators, causes, and brilliant people who unstintingly share their wisdom and experience. It’s where I have learned much about struggles for diversity, access, and inclusion in higher education and beyond. It’s also where I have felt seen and valued.
But that wasn’t always the case. At my first NACAC national conference in Boston in 2017, as I watched people joyfully reconnecting with colleagues, I felt like I was on the outside looking in. I was learning so much but did not have anyone to share it with. I felt invisible.
That changed when I went to a meeting of the Community-Based Organization SIG on the last day of the conference. I found a group of people committed to college access doing amazing things to address the kinds of challenges my little CBO faced. And they were interested in my work, too. My SIG connections have added great value to my NACAC membership ever since.
Many others feel the same.
Nadja Jepsen, from the Californiabased CBO College Track, remembers going to NACAC conferences as a nonprofit employee and feeling unsure of where she fit in. At a CBO SIG meetup she met a lot of peers, including folks she could later call upon for advice and ideas when College Track expanded into a new state.
Sherri Geller from Gann Academy in Waltham, Massachusetts, is active in the Jewish Schools and Jewish Students SIG, a group made up of counselors at Jewish high schools, plus school counselors and independent counselors who work with large Jewish populations as well as some admission officers at colleges with significant Jewish populations. In addition to meeting every year at NACAC, these groups provide opportunities to network and make connections at meetings in different cities and on Zoom.
Bob Bardwell’s first SIG experience was in 2002 in Salt Lake City when he showed up for the Public School Counselors SIG meeting. There was no one to facilitate the meeting, so he stepped up and volunteered to coordinate that group for several years. In 2005, he formed a new SIG, the College Admission Counseling Graduate Coursework SIG. Bob Bardwell says he also finds it “really cool” that any member can ask NACAC to create a SIG simply by completing an application, defining the group’s mission, and finding at least 10 members interested in joining.
Like Bob Bardwell, I helped form a SIG. At the 2018 National Conference in Salt Lake City, NACAC made it easy for Swarthmore’s Andrew Moe and I to host a meeting to discuss the possibility of forming a SIG focused on rural and small town issues. Several dozen folks came, enthusiastic about the SIG idea and ready to share the great work they were already doing to help rural kids. Four years later, our SIG has more than 1,500 members and a great new leadership team—Jason Mogen and Rachel Fried. We’ve got terrific new initiatives planned for fall—connect with us to learn more. Or even better, explore the NACAC SIG list to discover the one(s) where you can find community and create change.
Peggy Jenkins is the founder and director of Palouse Pathways in Idaho and is co-leader of NACAC’s Rural and Small Town SIG.