T- I don’t even know and after today, does it even matter?
One thing I was not prepared for was the Call to Present. After accidentally deleting the entire thing and having to start over, I thought, “This couldn’t get worse.” I was wrong.
The e-mails of whose proposals were accepted and were not went out yesterday (Sunday). I was unprepared for the vitriol that would be directed towards me from people whose proposals were not accepted. I did explain in the e-mails that the proposals were evaluated and scored using a rubric by several people. We took the averages of those scores and arranged the proposals in order of that. We have fewer than 90 available session slots and had 160 proposals. I would have loved to accept everyone’s proposal. But it just couldn’t happen. The committee never saw any presenter’s name. The evaluations were done blind, with just the session title and description. I did that so the merit of the session would be how it was evaluated. Not by name recognition. Was that wrong? Obviously so. I have never received so many e-mails where people are mad at *me* and ready to drop NCSLMA and not have anything to do with us.
I understand being disappointed. I truly get it. I have applied for tons of awards, grants, sessions, etc. that I didn’t get. Did I think I deserved them? Abso-freaking-lutely. Did I lash out to the committees who made the decision? Abso-freaking-lutely not. Did I send a polite e-mail asking for feedback so I could do better next time? Yes. I did receive one of those and I am grateful for it. I will e-mail you back after I have had time to recover from the other e-mails I read today. I probably wouldn’t have been so upset about this whole thing if it had only been one or two e-mails. Y’all. So far, it’s been almost a dozen. That many people angry at *me* because their session wasn’t chosen.
The committee that read the proposals and helped score them gave so much of their time to go through 160 sessions. Should I have gone through every one of them and said, “Well, that person is this person so they deserve for me to cancel out what the committee believes.” Maybe I should have. But then I would have had to eliminate sessions who scored higher to make room for sessions who scored lower. That doesn’t sit right with me. I value EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. Who took the time to submit a proposal and those who helped score the proposals AND those who are planning this conference. This is not a thin-skinned person’s position. And I don’t usually have thin skin, but after what I received today, I’m reconsidering everything about being President-Elect and planning this whole conference.
But I committed to this and I’m going to see it through. Obviously with several people who now hate me, but the friends I have made while being involved with NCSLMA make it worth every tear I have cried today and every e-mail draft I didn’t send because I am not that person.
Anyway, there’s other conference stuff going on, but I’ll write more about that next week. I’m done with this week.
Still here,
Kristy
