During the 2021 Virtual Textbook & Academic Authoring Conference, four TAA Council Awards were conferred to recipients during the daily networking sessions. TAA President, Laura Frost, and Executive Director, Michael Spinella, announced the awardees.
Comments from the award presentations are included below.
TAA members Dave Dillion and Rick Mullins have been elected to the TAA Council, the association’s governing board. This will be Dillon’s second term. They will serve three-year terms beginning July 1, 2020.
Dillon is counseling faculty and a professor at Grossmont College. He curated, co-authored and edited three College Success textbooks including Blueprint for Success in College and Career (Rebus Community, 2018), which won a Textbook Excellence Award from TAA and the Open Textbook award from Open Education Global.
Six candidates are running for two open positions on the TAA Council, the association’s governing board. Terms begin July 1, 2020. Council members serve three-year terms.
A link to the ballot was emailed to TAA members on March 16. To be eligible to vote, individuals must be members in good standing. If you are a TAA member and cannot vote electronically, contact Kim Pawlak at Kim.Pawlak@TAAonline.net or (507) 459-1363 to request a paper ballot. The deadline for voting is April 12.Â
As a member-driven organization, TAA relies on members’ willingness to get involved in governance and other activities of the association. The TAA Governance Committee announces a call for nominations for two open Council positions. Any member of TAA is eligible to serve on the Council. Nominations can be submitted online and must be received by March 1.
Council Awards are established by TAA’s governing body and administered by the Council of Fellows and Awards Committee (referred to as the ‘Awards Committee’ for short). Beginning in 2019, the Awards Committee undertook an effort to rethink most of the awards, to develop clearer distinctions among them, and to rewrite the criteria used for determining winners. Council Awards are intended to recognize individual achievements in writing or in service to TAA or fellow authors. Unlike the Textbook Award program, they do not aim to judge the quality of a single work, but rather to recognize the accomplishments of authors and industry professionals, in different stages and aspects of their careers.
During the 2019 TAA Awards Ceremony on June 14th in Philadelphia, PA, in addition to honoring our thirty-one Textbook Award winners, five individuals were honored with TAA Council awards recognizing exemplary contributions to the Association and the authoring community, and two individuals were inducted into the TAA Council of Fellows.
The awards were given by Mike Kennamer, TAA Council President during the ceremony. His remarks on each of the winners and inductees are included below.
