President’s Letter – August 2023

Great to see so many of you at the LAIR Conference in Lafayette in July!  Erica Hughes and her team hosted an amazing event.  More than 70 attendees shared experiences and best practices, presented research, and networked over two and a half days.  We welcomed 32 first-time attendees, many of whom took advantage of the Newcomers Workshop.

The Monday preconference sessions were very well attended, and your feedback tells us those are some of the most cost-effective trainings you can get for your team.

Congratulations to the new officers who were elected at the LAIR Business meeting!

• Vice President - Steven Brouillette (Louisiana State University)
• Treasurer – Andrea Simien (Southern University - New Orleans)
• Secretary – Melissa Rhodes (University of Louisiana – Monroe)

Since Erica Hughes announced that she was leaving for a new position out of state, she will not be moving up as President.  (Wishing you all the best, Erica!)  I will remain as President to provide continuity to the Executive team.

Dr. Charles Miller (South Louisiana Community College), was honored with LAIR’s first Leadership and Service Award in recognition of his contributions to the profession:  advancing the work of IR, generously guiding and mentoring others, and promoting the ethical principles of IR.  Bravo and thank you, Dr. Miller!

Hopefully you had the chance to complete the conference evaluation – we had a 52% response rate this year.  You loved the sense of community, the venue and organization of the conference, the variety of sessions, the panel discussion, and the hospitality.  You suggested some tweaks to the panel discussion, possibly even turning it into a moderated interactive session using polling technology.  Next year you want to see more technology-based sessions such as PowerBI, Tableau, AI, and data preparation. You asked for a BoR reporting guidelines session and more IE/Assessment participation in conference.  And you’d like to hear IR case studies where the data has been used to bring about change at institutions.

I am excited to work with Steven, Andrea, and Melissa this year as we plan for 2024!  Our next LAIR Conference will be in Baton Rouge hosted by LSU.  Steven is already working on sponsorships and programming ideas, so thank you for your feedback!

The Executive Committee has held a few meetings already and we are planning for some committees in the coming year.  Please consider how you might be able to serve the LAIR community.

Dawn Mitchell