Presentation Academy 2015

I am currently one of the faculty members for the VLA Presentation Academy. The Presentation Academy is a hybrid experience that: matches prospective presenters together for panels and co-presentations, assists people in writing successful conference proposals (VLA or other), provides Webinars on effective presentation design, and gives feedback to participants on presentations.

We held our initial meeting at UVA on March 2. We had 35 attendees for the half day event. This day was focused on brainstorming activities, and activities focused on creating effective proposals.

After this workshop, participants could submit proposals to us that we would then offer feedback on. Many of these proposals were submitted to the VLA annual conference. Presentation Academy proposals had an acceptance rate of 92%. In June and July we offered webinars on Designing Effective Presentations and Engaging Audiences. Candice Benjes-Small and I presented the webinar on Designing Effective Presentations and Rebecca K. Miller and Nathan Flinchum presented the webinar on Engaging Audiences. The Designing Effective Presentations PPT can be seen below.

Designing Effective Presentations - Slides and Notes from Jennifer Resor-Whicker

Another cohort of the Presentation Academy began at the 2015 VLA annual conference. Our second meeting of that cohort is in March 2016 in Staunton, VA.

We also offered an ALA webinar on our experience planning and facilitating the Presentation Academy. The webinar can be seen here.

We are also scheduled to hold pre-conferences at the upcoming Tennessee Library Association Conference and the joint Maryland/Delaware Library Association Conference.

2015 VLA Annual Conference

The 2015 VLA Annual Conference was held in Richmond, VA on October 21-24. This year I had the honor to be a member of the VLA conference committee and the volunteer coordinator. This was a huge undertaking that I began working on in the spring. I had to manage volunteers for the entire conference. We could not have done it without the wonderful people who volunteered their time. There were 80 sessions and 80+ volunteers that helped everything run smoothly. Volunteers moderated sessions, pointed conference goers in the right direction and assisted with lunch distribution as well as luncheon and social gatherings. It was a great conference, and I got to meet a lot of wonderful librarians. Virginia libraries have created a community like no other.

I'm so proud to have been a member of this committee.

On top of being the volunteer coordinator I also co-presented a session with Candice Benjes-Small on Urban Legends and Practical Pedagogy, and co-presented a pre-conference that began the new cohort of the Presentation Academy with Candice Benjes-Small, Rebecca K. Miller and Nathan Flinchum. It was a busy 3 days for me.

I've agreed to be the volunteer coordinator at next year's VLA annual conference as well. The fun continues.