The new MARS Professional Development Committee is off and running! The newly formed committee, consisting of both the Education, Support and Training (ETS) and Professional Development (PD) Committee members, has been meeting virtually on a monthly basis since last fall. The purpose in joining the two committees is to eliminate duplicative efforts, strengthen the potential for more activity, and launch new initiatives for MARS members. In addition, the work of the joint preconference planning committee (MARS/RSS) now belongs to a subcommittee of MARS PD. The chair of this new subcommittee is Stephanie Alexander. The focus of the committee’s work so far has been the deployment of webinars. Two webinars, “Introduction to Screencasting for Online Tutorials and Reference,” were organized and sponsored by MARS PD and presented in August and December 2011. Both webinars had approximately sixty attendees and received very positive feedback. In the upcoming months, the committee will again launch a repeat of “Introduction to Screencasting” and develop a robust FAQ list to help all MARS members present and deploy professional development webinars with the support and assistance of the committee. Look forward to new and exciting professional development and training webinars from MARS PD!
Nancy A. Cunningham, Chair