You are looking at the new Communications Officer for RIT Staff Council! Woo!
So in case it wasn't obvious already, Staff Council leadership elections were today. I'll admit, I had three outcomes I was expecting - and this wasn't one of them. But I couldn't be happier that this was how things ultimately worked out!
So since I never hold anything back on here, I'll go ahead and share what went down: leading up to the elections, I knew I wanted to be on RSC-EC again, but I wasn't sure in what capacity. I wanted to at least be an At-Large again, but I wasn't ready to take on Chair (with work + EYP + classes again in the fall + life... I am overwhelmed enough as it is!). So I suggested to fit me in wherever. Once the rest of the slate of candidates was worked out, things got tricky and I needed to exercise a little strategy... See, the EC must consist of an equal number of exempt and non-exempt employees. The candidates for Chair, Vice Chair, and Communications were ALL exempt (as am I) - and since the elections go top-down, that left only one open spot for an exempt At-Large. Uhoh. Not a big fan of those odds. So it was time to up my game.
Communications and Events already had more than 1 candidate each (all of whom I thought were great and I didn't want to run against), and I wasn't interested in Chair (for reasons stated previously). So that left Vice Chair.... There was only one candidate, and I wasn't keen on running against him either, but it wouldn't be proper governance to have both the chair and vice chair run unopposed. So, I figured: Hey, if I get Vice Chair, bonus; if not, hopefully people would take pity on me when it came down to At-Large. So I went ahead and volunteered to run for Vice, and that's how I came to my three expected outcomes: Vice, At-Large, or nada. Now, of course I couldn't tell anyone that Vice wasn't my original intent - I took my candidacy very seriously, and besides, the more I looked into Vice the more I started to like it and see myself doing it! But I knew I had a strong opponent, so I didn't want to get my hopes up too much even though I started to really want the position.
Enter: Elections! So the chair ran unopposed and was successful; next came Vice. We each gave a little spiel, and then everyone voted. It came out to a TIE - but then it was discovered that one too many people voted! Unfortunately that person's vote was for me (thank you, person!)... so I lost, waaah waaaaaaaaah. Yeah, I was disappointed (but very happy for the winner, yes really!). Next came Communications... and on top of the two nominees, I was nominated by someone on the floor! What! This caught me by surprise, and I was afraid that my reaction might have made people think I wasn't totally interested, but it must not have mattered - I guess the pity factor totally worked (and sooner than I expected,) because obviously we know how that race turned out! I'm so psyched!!!
The rest of the election went more smoothly, though there actually was one more tie - this time with the legitimate number of votes, so it resulted in one of the candidates opting to step back and serve as an alternate instead. All of the runner-up candidates for the various positions were successfully elected into other positions (pity FTW!), so all in all I think we all ended up with results we are pleased with! (Or at least I hope so...)
I am really looking forward to stepping into my new role as Communications Chair! As the Ad-Hoc Outreach Committee was really only established as a one year deal, it works out perfectly for me to carry the torch of the few things we had remaining that we wanted to do but hadn't completed over to Communications (as it was a bit redundant to have the two committees separate anyways - lesson learned). I am also looking forward to working with the new Executive Committee and new Chair - though I am definitely going to miss our outgoing chair :*(!!!!!! A bunch of us from EC stood up and said some parting words to her as part of the "passing of the gavel" - it was very heartfelt and emotional and touching. It was hard not to well up a little. Our outgoing chair did such a wonderful job and worked so hard, and I can say for me personally, had a huge impact on my experience with Staff Council and decision to stay on as part of it - MOLLY, I WILL MISS YOU!!!!!!! (Good thing you're still on RSC... and now you don't have to sit at the head of the room :-) You can come sit with me and be the Statler to my Waldorf.)
I am definitely excited to see what we'll accomplish in the year ahead, and to see how my second year on Staff Council compares to the first. Onwards and upwards, let's do this!
