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STC Education Committee
Goals and Objectives for 2004-2005
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Overarching Goals and Priorities |
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- Share programs developed by the committee with other STC chapters and SIGs.
- Conduct another successful high school technical writing competition (9th annual).
- Continue to nurture our partnership with UCF by carrying the formal mentoring program we established in 2003-2004
into an equally successful second year.
- Conduct another successful fund-raising campaign (Operation Rising Stars II) to preserve the financial foundation
of the Pellegrin Scholarship Fund while still providing the scholarship and high school competition awards (and also
meeting all other chapter needs).
- Support professional development of chapter members via networking, chapter meeting programs, sharing conference
information, and other initiatives.
- Nurture and promote the chapter-level Job Search SIG that was formed in 2003-2004.
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Specific Objectives |
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Scholarship Program
- Make budget adjustments if necessary to ensure long-term self-sustaining status of scholarship fund.
Grow the principal to a minimum long-term level of $12,500 and delay withdrawing for scholarships until it
reaches $13,500 (allowing us to withdraw $1,000 per year in perpetuity, given a conservative annual yield of 8%).
Clarification: The idea is to reach a sustaining level of $12,500 (i.e., 8% of $12,500 would yield $1,000 per
year for the scholarships, maintaining the minimal residual principal of $12,500).
- Continue long-term capital investment to rebuild and maintain the Melissa Pellegrin Memorial Scholarship Fund
as a self-sustaining endowment that will pay for scholarships in the future; have a professional financial advisor
review the Fund portfolio to ensure an optimum balance between growth and risk.
- Continue to provide undergraduate and graduate Pellegrin scholarships to outstanding technical communication
majors at UCF.
- Increase efforts to promote scholarships at UCF, particularly at the graduate level where we had no applications
in 2002 and 2004.
- Distribute informational flyer to honor Melissa's memory and to support fund-raising efforts for the endowment
fund that bears her name at UCF.
- Frame the letter Marge Flesche gave us at the 2004 scholarship presentation for permanent display at UCF and at
future scholarship presentations.
High School Competition |
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- Sustain and build the high school technical writing competition in Central Florida.
- Move the deadline for the 9th annual competition to January 15, 2004, giving high schools more time to prepare
entries (and adding opportunities to submit semester-long projects, possibly linked to winter science fairs).
Note: This takes advantage of a successful attempt to get the international high school writing competition to
move its deadline to March 15.
- Extend page limit on entries from 5 pages to 30 (to level the playing field for the international competition) but
impose additional guidelines to ensure that longer papers reflect substantive materials such as primary and secondary
research, additional graphics, etc., to justify the additional pages.
- Update and reprint tri-fold brochure (pro bono printing has been committed by the Lockheed Martin Print Shop,
as part of the company's Tech Angel corporate sponsorship.
- Continue progress on high school visits that was made in Fall 2003. Draw upon chapter members and UCF students
as well as Education Committee members to achieve this vital objective. Enlist the support of the FTC in visiting
high school classrooms, possibly by inviting some mentor/mentee pairs to conduct such visits.
- In the cover letter for the mail-out for the 9th Annual Florida High School Technical Writing Competition, offer
to make a classroom visit to explain the principles of technical communication and to encourage students to participate
in the competition. Also offer to provide a CD containing the turnkey multimedia presentations on technical communication
(informational) and the high school competition (promotional) developed under the grant project. Enlist the aid of
the Future Technical Communicators (FTC) club in preparing the mail-outs.
- De-emphasize expansion of the competition statewide unless unsolicited requests from other Florida STC Chapters—backed
by firm commitments and discernible activity—dictate that we move in that direction.
- Develop guidelines and judging criteria to prepare for possible addition of an online category to the competition in
2005-2006 or 2006-2007.
- Increase the level of publicity on the high school competition, especially within the chapter membership.
- Come up with another high-interest participatory program for the 2005 high school/college awards banquet which
integrates the diverse elements within the audience (high school students and their parents, faculty sponsors,
UCF students, professionals in chapter).
Fund-Raising |
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- Execute an Operation Rising Stars II fund-raiser designed to sustain our educational outreach initiatives
(particularly the Pellegrin scholarships and the high school writing competition) within the constraints of a chapter
budget tightened by reduced STC membership rebates.
- Seek renewals of 2003-2004 corporate and personal sponsorships.
- Solicit new corporate and personal sponsorships.
- Increase participation of Education Committee, Administrative Council, and core team in pursuit of additional
corporate sponsorships.
- Provide sponsor awards as established in 2003-2004 (thank-you letters, certificates of appreciation, plaques,
trophies, acknowledgments in newsletter and on web site, newsletter ads, web click-through ads, chapter pins,
meeting admissions, and shirts—depending on the type and level of sponsorship).
Instructional Outreach to Support Local Educational Community in Teaching Writing |
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Support to the Society's Educational Outreach Initiative |
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- Respond to requests from other STC chapters, the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW), and
other organizations for materials from the grant project.
- Work with the Society's Strategic Planning Committee to develop/refine specific objectives, strategies,
and tactics in support of educational outreach and to ensure that educational outreach is included in STC's
Transformation process.
Support to the Educational and Professional Development of Chapter Members |
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- Continue the Washlines tradition and begin its second decade by presenting material learned at the 51st annual
conference in an all-new mini-conference format at the August 2004 chapter meeting (Washlines X: Bringing
Baltimore to Orlando).
- Post notes from the 51st Conference on the Education Committee Web page.
- Publicize STC telephone seminars on the listserv and in the chapter newsletter.
- Strengthen and expand Blue Star Networking initiative that was initiated in April 2004 to provide
focused networking at chapter meetings and possibly also on the listserv.
- Post links to professional development materials periodically on the Orlando Chapter listserv.
- Support chapter officers in developing and, financial resources permitting, implementing a suitable professional
development activity to replace the annual Trends conference that was discontinued in 2000 (e.g., Saturday
"mini-conferences").
Resources Permitting*:
- Investigate the acquisition of reusable assets for the chapter (e.g., building a library of books, CD ROMs,
videotapes, shareware). Report results and make recommendations to the Administrative Council. If so directed, implement.
- Publicize the annual undergraduate and graduate scholarships from the Society for which Chapter members may apply.
* Pursuit of these objectives would require an increase in the number of active members
on the Education Committee.
Mentoring |
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- Formal Mentoring Program
- Evaluate first year of formal mentoring program via post-assessments and program evaluations by participants.
- Modify guidelines and procedures and administrative forms as appropriate to improve program for 2004-2005.
- Report on the success of the mentoring program, submitting a proposal for the 52nd annual conference in Seattle,
publish in the Proceedings (if accepted), and publish an article about the program in intercom and/or Tieline.
- Working with a nucleus of returning mentors from 2003-2004, solicit mentors and mentees for the 2004-2005 chapter year,
establish mentor-mentee pairs, and implement the program as in 2003-2004 (including a kickoff meeting, pre-/post
assessments, contact logs, etc.).
- Implement, govern, collect data from, and report on the program.
Resources Permitting*:
- Potential Future Expansion of Orlando Chapter Mentoring Program
- Begin research on other STC mentoring programs involving pairing senior practitioners within the chapter
with those who have entered the profession more recently (e.g., New York Metro, Carolina, and Silicon Valley chapters),
paving the way to a potential future expansion of the Orlando Chapter mentoring initiative to include such pairings.
* Pursuit of this objective would require an increase in the number of active members
on the Education Committee.
- Informal Mentoring (with UCF and with Secondary School Students)
- Continue to promote the academic growth of technical writing students (e.g., granting interviews for technical
writing projects, addressing technical writing classes, critiquing student resumes and portfolios).
Resources Permitting*:
- Work towards a career forum for a select audience of high school students with an aptitude and interest in
technical communication (use above items to leverage this objective).
* Pursuit of this objective would require an increase in the number of active members
on the Education Committee.
- Mentoring Within STC
- Continue to assist other STC chapters concerning the roles, objectives, and strategies of the Education Committee.
Make our Web page a benchmark for others to model.
- Provide our Web-based online judging tool as a template for other STC competitions.
- Continue to provide guidance and materials for other STC chapters, SIGs, and other professional associations,
using the turnkey packages of materials (hard copies and CDs) developed for Leadership Day and Session PD6U at the
51st annual conference. Package this initiative under a catchy name (e.g., Operation Outreach, From Us to You,
Stronger Together) and use it as a linchpin for our Chapter Awards application for 2005.
- Follow up on inquiries and requests for material and continue to assist sister organizations as they adopt our
programs and materials to implement.
- Maintain comprehensive records of all the exchanges with other chapters, SIGs, and professional organizations to
provide support documentation.
- Submit a proposal to describe Orlando Chapter programs at Leadership Day at the 52nd annual conference, offering
turnkey packages like the ones we developed for the 51st conference.
Communications and Publicity |
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- Work jointly with the publicity manager, the Administrative Council, the newsletter editor, the chapter web
site administrator, and the listserv to publicize and promote committee activities (e.g., awards and scholarship
presentations, the high school competition, fund-raising for the scholarship fund) within the Chapter and the Society.
Provide regular news updates and periodic in-depth articles on committee activities to the chapter newsletter and the
chapter listserv.
- Continue to maintain and administer the Education Committee portion of the chapter web site as part of overall
web site maintenance and upgrades
- Provide the publicity manager with information to prepare and send out press releases on the Pellegrin scholarships
and high school contest awards (local and international) to the Orlando Sentinel; to the UCF student newspaper, the
Central Florida Future; to high school newspapers, and to other media as appropriate.
Job Search |
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- Building on the base established in 2003-2004, increase the activity level and visibility of the chapter-level SIG.
- Activities could include:
- Increase activity on special SIG listserv to network and exchange ideas
- Coordinate professional reviews of resumes and portfolios
- Provide articles for Memo to Members
- Post to the general chapter listserv
- Establish a sub-page on the chapter Web site for the Job Search SIG
- Publish an online SIG newsletter
Community Outreach |
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- Initiate a "Webitat for Humanity" program pairing chapter members (including FTC student members as well as
professional practitioners) seeking to expand their skill set and their portfolios with charitable organizations
wishing to establish or improve a web site for their organization (but who lack the financial resources to do so).
- Work with FTC to continue our support to the STC AccessAbility SIG in its pursuit of improved accessibility,
both in assisting technical communicators with disabilities in the practice of our profession and ensuring the
accessibility of technical communication products to users with disabilities. Activities include:
- Update AccessAbility SIG tri-fold brochure.
- Conduct an Operation Butterfly II fund-raiser to sell off the remaining inventory of butterfly lapel pins to
support the A-SIG budget for 2004-2005.
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