Call for Applications: Truman Scholars Association Board of Directors

The nominating committee for the Truman Scholars Association is now accepting applications for open seats on its board of directors.  Truman Scholars from all classes and backgrounds are encouraged to apply by Friday, August 5, 2011.

About the Truman Scholars Association

The Truman Scholars Association (TSA) is comprised of all recipients of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship.  TSA’s mission is to empower Truman Scholars, promote public serve, and change the world.  TSA strives to cultivate fellowship among scholars and highlight the value of public service.  TSA activities include a biennialnationalconference, finalistdinners across the country, maintaining the TSAblog, presence in socialmedia, and fundraising and development via theTrumanScholarsAnnualFund.

About the TSA Board of Directors

The board of directors designs and implements TSA’s activities.  TSA is an all-volunteer organization, and directors commit time to helping TSA accomplish its goals.  Directors serve three-year terms on a voluntary basis.  Directors commit to attending two-plus conference calls per month (committee and full board meetings).  Other calls are held as needed to accomplish TSA’s work, and directors are expected to work between meetings on TSA activities.  The board also meets in person one weekend each fall.  While the board’s work fluctuates over the year, directors generally commit 4-8 hours per month on TSA business.

TSA’s Specific Needs

The nominating committee seeks applicants with a diversity of skills vital to TSA’s goals.  The nominating committee is specifically seeking candidates with the following:

1.     Experience, networks, and energy to contribute to TSA fundraising and development efforts

2.     Time to contribute to and manage TSA’s social media presence on at least a weekly basis

3.     Technical proficiency, such as experience with Google Forms, HTML, and e-newsletter platforms

If you have skills or experience in any of the above areas, please mention it in your statement of interest.

How to Apply

All interested scholars -- of any background, from any class, in public service or not -- are invited to apply via a simple two-part process:

●      Complete the short online form at http://bit.ly/tsa-app.

●      Email one attachment in PDF format containing a short statement of interest and a resume to tsa@trumanscholars.org.  The attachment’s file name should include your full name.

The statement of interest should be approximately 250-500 words and address the following questions:

●      What is your vision of TSA?

●      Why do you want to join the TSA board of directors?

●      How would you help TSA develop and reach its goals?

The nominating committee may conduct 20-minute phone interviews with finalist candidates as needed. 

Election Process

The nominating committee of current board members will propose nominees to the full board in late August.  New directors will be notified shortly thereafter.  TSA’s first board meeting for 2011-2012 will take place on September 13, 2011, at 9 PM ET.  Applicants are expected to reserve this date and attend this meeting if elected.

Please send any questions to tsa@trumanscholars.org or contact any currentdirectors.  We hope you will consider applying for this important role in our Truman Scholar community.

Those of you attending the conference in person and those who want to follow it from afar can join the conversation using the Truman Conference Twitter App, located at www.trumanconference.org/app. The App, which is accessible from your computer or mobile device, feeds in all tweets using hashtag #TrumanScholars, as well as official announcements from the Truman Scholars Association and what's next on the conference schedule. You don't have to be on Twitter to see what's going on, just go to www.trumanconference.org/app.  To participate, simply join Twitter and join the conversation using #TrumansScholars.  Attendees, starting tomorrow evening we'll be sending official announcements out on this app, not by email, so check it out!

Dear Scholars,

I am pleased to report that the President of the Truman Foundation, the Honorable Madeleine Albright, has accepted our invitation to speak at the conference on Saturday morning July 23!

Dr. Albright was the first woman named as Secretary of State in 1997--and at that time the highest ranking woman in US government. She will speak during the plenary session, and afterward she has offered a Q and A session with the audience.

Within the next few days I will be updating the conference agenda online to reflect this exciting news as well as some other, smaller changes.

I encourage you to visit www.trumanconference.org and register TODAY! Don't forget to book your room at the OmniShoreham Hotel.

Jessica Sotelo
Conference Director

By Jessica Sotelo (ID '00)

We are now less than three months away from our 2011 National Conference and I hope you are as excited as I am!

If you haven't heard, registration is now open. Please visit www.trumanconference.org and register now in order to get the "Early Bird" rate! The registration is a 2 step process so once you have input your information, you will need to click on the payment (Step 2) option and input your payment information.

I have a quick update about the White House Tour we are requesting for Friday, July 22. Our very own Kyle Gracey will be leading the tour! Kyle has experience with White House tours and its always nice to get "inside information" from someone who has worked there. As of right now we have over 35 people signed up for the tour!

Just a reminder that our confirmed keynote speakers include U.S. Senator Chris Coons (DE '83) and Ambassador Michelle Gavin (AZ '85), both Truman Scholars, as well as Clifton Truman Daniel, author and grandson of President Truman.

For more details about the agenda and speakers visit www.trumanconference.org and register now!

Jessica Sotelo (ID '00), executive director of Partners for Prosperity, is the 2011 National Conference Director.

The 2011 TSA national conference is fast approaching, and the TSA board has been working hard to put together an event that will be fun and inspiring.  We received great feedback to the survey that was sent out last fall, and thus would like to seek your input again by asking for proposals for breakout sessions for the 2011 conference.

Each "breakout session" will have multiple panels and workshops addressing a variety of topics, and scholars can choose which to attend based on their individual interests.  Panels will feature a moderator-led discussion among a number of expert panelists, and will seek to educate scholars and foster discussion on that panel's particular topic.  The workshops will also be led by experts from the field, but will be more interactive than the panels and will focus on developing a particular skill set. We are looking for proposals that highlight innovative research and public service representative of a broad field, and are particularly interested in seeing what scholars have accomplished in the years since being awarded the scholarship and graduating from school.

Proposals should be emailed to Michele Buckley (buckleymb@gmail.com) by April 15.  Please include as much of the following information as possible:

1. Name, scholar year and state, and title
2. Educational background
3. Title of breakout session
4. Brief summary of presentation
5. Who will be presenting? (We welcome both scholars and non-scholars to make presentations!)
6. What are the professional qualifications/education background of the presenters?
7. What are the key things you want to share in this presentation?
8. What are the "takeaways" from this presentation (new skills, information, methods, etc.)?
9. Any additional information 

Thank you for your help and we look forward to seeing you in July!

Hello from 2011 Conference Central!

The countdown to the conference has begun and we are less than four months away from the "don't miss" Truman event of the year. The TSA Board and particularly the events committee is moving into high planning mode as we finalize details for the July 22-24 event at the OMNI Hotel in Washington DC.

First, we have lined up two of your fellow scholars who have recently reached major milestones in their public careers. First, Senator Chris Coons (DE '83) will be our guest of honor on Friday, July 22 for a Gala Banquet. Second, Michelle Gavin (AZ '95), the newly appointed "Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Botswana" will be our guest on Saturday at lunch. We are very fortunate to have two public servants at such a high level agree to speak at our conference.

We are also working on bringing you informative and timely plenary sessions with speakers and topics that will appeal to the broad range of scholars. More information on the plenaries (general sessions) will be announced as it becomes finalized.

Recently the events committee formed a subcommittee to look at breakout sessions and develop a plan to have a good mix of both panels, speakers and workshops for the breakouts. We heard your feedback from the last conference and wanted to structure the breakouts a little differently this time. Thank you to everyone who submitted ideas and proposals. I'm sure the subcommittee will send out an announcement soon.

We have so many surprises and things we are working on. Recently Matt Garza (CA '09) created a map of "Truman Locations" for you to visit while you are in DC! Thank you Matt! We are also planning to request a White House Tour so very shortly we will announce registration is open and if you are interested please provide the security information requested.

If you or your organization is interested in being a sponsor, please email me or call me as soon as possible. Last conference we were able to keep registration costs down because of donors and a sponsor. Likewise, if you would like to make a donation to help offset costs and lower registration costs for everyone, please let me know.

Finally, I want to assure anyone with a dietary restriction such as: vegans, vegetarians, gluten free, kosher and others that the OMNI is prepared to have special meals during the conference! We appreciate everything the OMNI is doing to make the conference special. For those who do not have dietary restrictions, I can tell you that the dinner Friday night will be delicious. Recently Adair Boroughs (SC '01), Anthony Shop (MO '04), Kimberly Jones (CT '99) and I all had the opportunity to participate in a tasting at the OMNI. I don't think you will be disappointed with the food!

Watch your email and other Truman information sources for announcements in the coming weeks about registration and other details. As always, please contact me if you have questions.

A big thank you to the events committee for all their hard work: Chiraag Bains (MA '02), Michele Buckley (CO '06), Sarah Sattelmeyer (GA '04), Dara Purvis (CA '02), Katie Liberman (MA '06), Lyric Chen (WI '05), Matt and Adair. I takes many people to organize an event of this size--and in this case its being organized by Scholars volunteering their time to create an event that we will all remember.

Jessica Sotelo (ID' 00), Executive Director at Partners for Prosperity, is the 2011 Truman Scholars National Conference Director.

by Matthew Garza (CA '09)

There are countless maps and tourist guides for Washington, DC, a hodgepodge of monument circuits and invitations to ride a double decker bus. But as we prepare for the 2011 National Conference, we thought it fitting that the Scholar community have its own handbook for this historic city. Our namesake president had a remarkable tenure here, and so today we are excited to announce the Truman Scholars’ Guide to Washington, DC. After consulting with history books and the Truman Library staff in Missouri, we have compiled a series of locations in the city where you can visit landmarks relevant to the 33rd president.

Some sites include:

• Blair House - During the second term of the presidency of Harry Truman, the White House was found to have serious structural faults and was completely gutted and renovated. While the White House was undergoing renovation, the President resided at Blair House.
• The Mayflower Renaissance Hotel - President Truman stayed here for the first 90 days of his presidency, and this is the location where he announced he would run for a second term.
• The National Guard Armory Building - Truman's inaugural ball occurred here.
• The Omni-Shoreham Hotel (site of our conference) - To celebrate the inauguration of our 33rd President, The Democratic National Committee held a reception for Harry S. Truman here on January 21, 1949. 

If you get a chance to visit these sites, we would love to see some pictures we can share. So be sure to send those memories our way.

For the entire map, check out the Truman DC Sightseeing Map.

Matthew Garza (CA '09) is a research assistant at the Brookings Institution.

by Adam Lehman (OH '87) 

Networks are not only shaping the new ways in which we socialize and consume media - but also in how we join forces and collaborate to generate social, political and economic change. One need look no further than the current wave of global revolutions to understand the power of networks and the tools that support them. 

The Truman Scholars Association (TSA) represents a unique type of network. TSA members are current and emerging leaders across key public, private, academic and non-profit institutions; and leaders who share a commitment to public service and to solving the complex challenges we face in our public sphere. As members of the TSA, we hold enormous potential to find new ways to connect, collaborate and advance the mission of the Truman Scholars Association and public service worldwide. 

In that spirit, I was delighted to make a contribution to the TSA as it works to bring us together and nurture, engage and empower our community. Please join me by making a contribution to the TSA Annual Fund by visiting http://www.trumanscholars.org/giving.

Adam Lehman (OH '87) currently serves as Chief Operating Officer at Lotame Solutions Inc. in Washington, DC.

TSA continues to build the strategic plan it began to formulate during its inaugural in-person board meeting in October.  With the national conference date set, Robert Eisinger (NY '85) and I are devising ways for the Truman Scholar community to help support our initiatives to provide scholars opportunities to gather, network, share best practices and discover ways they can advance their public service aspirations.

I know Robert and I both believe the Truman Community has impacted our lives in monumental ways.  We have personally benefited from Truman Community's tendency to inspire, its network of information, and the friendships it engenders.  As this community continues to grow, the Truman Scholars Association will be working to maximize these benefits for all Scholars, and Robert and I will be asking for your help in this endeavor.

Adair Ford Boroughs (SC '01) is the President of the TSA Board of Directors.

Did you know that our Truman Scholars LinkedIn Group has almost ONE HUNDRED more members than our Truman Scholars Facebook page? Help us grow both!

LinkedIn: http://www.trumanscholars.org/linkedin (448 and counting!)

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/trumanscholars (354 and growing!)

The TSA Board is developing a 5-year Strategic Plan for the Truman Scholars Association.  The Board wants all Truman Scholars to have the opportunity to provide input before defining the path TSA will take over the next 5 years.  To give your thoughts on where TSA should go from here, please fill out the form below (or visit http://www.trumanscholars.org/blog/strategicplan). The TSA Board will present the full Strategic Plan to the Truman Scholar community at the 2011 National Conference.  We look forward to hearing your ideas!

The current mission of the Truman Scholars Association (TSA) is to build, maintain, and educate a community of Truman Scholars; to foster a lifelong commitment to public service in all its forms through intellectual, personal, and professional development; and to support and promote public service.

We have been working to accomplish these goals through a number of activities, including maintaining a TSA listserve, holding National Conferences, organizing smaller events like In the Running and a Reunion at the 20th Anniversary of TSLW, hosting pre-interview dinners for Truman finalists, etc.

Please answer the following questions to help us tailor TSA's mission and future activities, as part of TSA's current Strategic Plan initiative.

Help us find the "Lost Truman Scholars"! It probably comes as no surprise to you that many Scholars have moved and changed jobs and schools multiple times since winning the Scholarship, and unfortunately, we haven't always been able to keep up with them. Our goal is to have all Scholars log into the Truman Foundation's Truman Scholars Network at http://www.truman.gov to update their contact information and biographies.

This month, we'd like your help in identifying these Scholars from the Class of 2000. If you have current information for these Scholars, please direct them to this link or fill the information in yourself, and we'll follow up: http://www.trumanscholars.org/keep-in-touch/lostscholars

Sara Galvan Bronin (TX)
Sandra Chapin (CA)
Renae Griggs (FL)
David Haskell (CT)
Sarah Hirschman (DC)
Jatin Joshi (NC)
Shreya Kangovi (NJ)
Garrett Meyers (MI)
Kevin Schwartz (NY)
Robert Wittman (NV)

The TSA Mentorship Program for the 2010-2011 class of Truman-Albright Fellows is off to a great start, thanks in large part to the excellent response from Truman Scholar alumni in the DC area.  With more than double the number of volunteer mentors needed for the number of Fellows participating in the program this year, Fellows were able to be matched selectively with mentors who shared career goals, graduate paths, or interests.  The program held a kick-off event for all of the volunteers and Fellows at Akin Gump on Tuesday, October 19th, and will hold several other events throughout the year, in addition to encouraging one-on-one communication between mentors and mentees.  The Truman-Albright Fellows are a small group of recently-graduated Truman awardees who will spend a year in DC working and participating in educational and service programs.

You asked for a list of publications authored Truman Scholars - here’s your chance to help us create one to share with the entire Truman community!  Submit publications that you know of authored by Truman Scholars at http://www.trumanscholars.org/keep-in-touch/publications by November 15. (We'll post all the submissions online soon thereafter.) Questions? Email us at tsa@trumanscholars.org.

Want invitations to TSA events near where you live, like Truman Scholar Finalist Dinners, meet-and-greets with Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation Executive Secretary Fred Slabach, and regional get-togethers?  Want to receive the latest information on the 2011 National Conference?   Then make sure your contact information is up-to-date in the Truman Scholar Database.

1. Go to http://www.truman.gov/for-scholars.
2. Log in on the bottom left of the page where it says "candidates, scholars & faculty sign-in." 

Username: Your username is the email address on file with the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation.  If you don’t remember which email address they have, email us at tsa@trumanscholars.org, and we’ll look it up for you.

Password: If you don't know your password, click on "Forgot your Password" under the log-in, and it will be emailed to you.  If you no longer have access to the email address on file or you have any trouble logging in, you can email office@truman.gov for help. 

3. Click "Update my Profile" in the left-hand column to bring up your profile.  Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the "edit my profile" link at the bottom.  
4. Update the contact information in each of the fields, including email address, and then click “update profile” at the bottom of the page to save your changes.  If you change your email address, the new email address will be your username the next time you log-in.

This simple process will only take a couple minutes and will ensure you stay tied into the Truman community.  Thanks for staying connected!

The TSA Board of Directors met in person in Washington, D.C. from October 15^th-17^th, 2010.  This group of 11 volunteer TSA leaders dedicated almost 15 hours to working on a strategic plan for the TSA, but also took time to get to know each other, tour a possible venue for the 2011 National Conference, and establish priorities for the 2010-2011 year. 

The TSA Board will seek input from all Truman Scholars during the year and then present a full strategic plan to the Truman Scholar community at the 2011 National Conference.  (If you’d like to contribute ideas to TSA’s strategic plan, look for ways to do so in TSA’s November newsletter.)  In the meantime, here are a couple of highlights from the TSA Board’s strategic planning session. 

Over the next five years, the TSA Board’s priorities are to:

• Increase Scholar involvement in the TSA community
• Improve TSA Board governance and infrastructure
• Increase TSA funds, and
• Increase awareness and prominence of the Truman Scholarship.

For 2010-2011 specifically, the TSA Board set goals that include:

• Increase the number of Scholars for which we have accurate contact information
• Hold a successful 2011 National Conference, and
• Create a 5-year strategic plan for TSA.

Help us achieve our first goal by updating your contact info in the Scholar database.  For instructions on how to do this, see the related blog post, "Update Your Contact Info in the Truman Scholar Database." If you’d like to help us locate lost Scholars, please email us at tsa@trumanscholars.org. 

As always, we value your input and feedback as we work to improve TSA.  Feel free to email us at tsa@trumanscholars.org any time!

Adair Ford Boroughs (SC '01) is the President of the TSA Board of Directors.

This has been a whirlwind year for the Truman Scholars Association! We've hosted more than 20 events around the country (and world), we have launched a successful Annual Fund campaign that will support activities for all Scholars, we've greatly expanded our online presence via our blog, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and more, and we've worked hard to make the TSA Board of Directors even more successful and sustainable with a new committee structure, revamped bylaws, and a strengthened relationship with the Truman Foundation.

The time has come to pass the torch on to new leadership, and I am pleased to announce the 2010-2011 TSA Board of Directors:

Adair Boroughs (SC '01), President
Jessica Sotelo (ID '00), Vice President and National Conference Director
Robert Eisinger (NY '85), Chair of Development
Chiraag Bains (MA '02), Chair of Events
Jonathan Evans (PA '03), Social Media Director
Preston Lee (DC '81), Treasurer
Michele Buckley (CO '06), Secretary
Pooja Agarwal (MO '05), Immediate Past President
Elizabeth Hill (FL '96)
Dara Purvis (CA '02)
Sarah Sattelmeyer (GA '04)

For more information about each TSA Director, please visit http://www.trumanscholars.org/about/2010-2011.

It has been an honor and pleasure to serve as the 2009-2010 President of the TSA Board of Directors. As Truman Scholars, we have an immense capacity to make our community and our world a better place, and I look forward to even bigger and better things in TSA's future.

Pooja K. Agarwal (MO '05) is the Immediate Past President of the TSA Board of Directors.

The Truman Scholars Association has an exciting year ahead of it, and I hope you all find a way to connect, be inspired and grow through this year's events and projects.

TSA will hold its next National Conference in the summer of 2011. You remember the friendships rekindled and newly made, the engaging speakers and scholar panels, and the fun had by all at TSA’s 2009 National Conference.  So get excited!   The the 2011 National Conference promises to be as incredible as the first.  If you'd like to help plan and execute this year's National Conference, just have some ideas you'd like to the planning committee to know, or have questions along the way, shoot us an email.

TSA will also be working on developing a strategic plan this year.  We'll be reaching out to the community for input, so look for posts to the listserv and website on ways to give your thoughts and ideas.  And if you have experience with strategic planning or otherwise want to be more involved in the process, please contact us.  

Finally, TSA will continue to host smaller events that you've come to know and love, like the Truman Finalists Dinners, and continue to work on development so we can provide you with the caliber of activities that you've come to expect.  Please visit us at www.trumanscholars.org for the latest news and to find out how you can get involved. 

Thank you all for making this such a supportive and exciting community.  I look forward to the chance to meet you all at the 2011 National Conference, if not before!

Adair Ford Boroughs (SC '01) is the President of the TSA Board of Directors.

Great News!  The Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation (the Foundation) and the Truman Scholars Association (TSA) have recently adopted a joint Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to bring added structure to how the two organizations work collaboratively to engage the Truman Scholar community in a lifelong commitment to public service in all its forms.

This caps a tremendously productive couple of years of re-engagement that yielded the largest single gathering of Truman Scholars in June 2009 at the National Conference, the successful launch of a $100,000 Annual Fund campaign, and the recent election of the most generationally diverse TSA Board from classes 1981 through 2006.

We invite you to read the MoU as well as a Foundation Board resolution from December 2009, which was an important foreshadowing of the MoU to come.

So why execute a MoU now when cooperation is so well assured?  This is precisely the time to seal this collaboration with a legal embrace that makes the relationship all the more enduring.   We poured much thought into the eight numbered sections of the MoU.  They do not just enumerate the types of Scholar programming that we will continue to pursue in tandem, but they set some serious expectations of how we will annually plan, budget, and strategize together. 

This MoU should signal an important change to older classes of Scholars who remember a time when the two organizations seemed to keep their distance.  To newer classes, this MoU presents a challenge to take Scholar camaraderie beyond mere social networking to deeper expressions of collaborating, including coming to the financial aid of the Foundation and TSA in this current period of economic distress.

As a former Law School Dean, Foundation Executive Secretary Frederick Slabach (MS ‘77) encouraged us to look at the alumni development model in shaping this MoU.  Special thanks to Margaret Hu (KS ‘93) for her initial drafting assistance.  Applause goes to Pooja Agarwal (MO ‘05) and her co-signatories, Fred Slabach and Max Sherman (Chair of the Foundation’s Development Fund), for ushering in this era of higher accountability in the Foundation and TSA relationship that will hopefully stand the test of time. 

Mark Cannon (OH ‘84) is a founding organizer of TSA, a former Board member (2003-05), and co-chair of the Truman Scholars Annual Fund (2009-10).

See also a Chronology of the TSA and the Truman Foundation.