From the President – Winter 2011

NASJE President Judith Anderson

Since the last NASJE News a few exciting things have happened.

Thanks to the work of the Newsletter and Technology Committees, our newsletter website has a new look and feel. The site is easier to maintain and update, along with providing NASJE members with more resources. It is still, however, a work in progress. Please check it out and send in your thoughts.

In the future, we will be developing a member-only site where NASJE members can find or share resources.

Another exciting project is the curricula for judicial branch educators. Project lead, Christy Tull (OH), and consultant, Karen Thorson (MT), continue to work tirelessly with the Curriculum Committee on this project. Back in 2002, NASJE appointed a committee to develop core competencies for judicial branch educators. The Committee submitted those competencies to the Board in 2004, and 11 competencies for judicial branch educators were approved. In 2010 NASJE received a State Justice Institute (SJI) grant to begin working on curricula covering those competencies.

The Board recently reviewed and approved the curricula completed in three areas: Competency #2–Developing and Implementing Curriculum and Program Development; Competency #4–Faculty Development; and Competency #9–Leadership, Visioning, Organizational Planning, and Building and Maintaining Support for Judicial Branch Education. The next step is to showcase these three curricula at the next NASJE Conference this July.

The work isn’t finished. In the future, the Curriculum Committee is tentatively going to begin work on four more competencies. Competency #3–Instructional Design, Competency # 8–Human Resources Management, Competency #10–Needs Assessment, and Competency # 11–Evaluation.

As you can see, exciting things are happening. If you are interested in becoming involved, don’t hesitate to contact me at . If you know of individuals, who are not members of NASJE and think they should be, give them the link to our website where they can apply online.

Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe.