NMRT SASCO Update

By John Siegel, MLS Student, University of Maryland
SASCO Committee Member on behalf of the SASCO Committee

Are you an MLS student? If so, are you familiar with the Student and Student Chapter Outreach Committee (SASCO)? As one of the standing committees of the New Members Round Table (NMRT), SASCO serves as a liaison between NMRT and students enrolled in ALA-accredited MLS programs, as well as ALA student chapters. SASCO strives to represent the interests of MLS students and ALA student chapters and keep them informed about programs and activities within ALA and NMRT that may be useful.

SASCO Committee Members have worked with the Footnotes editor to establish a regular column, beginning with this issue. We plan to use this column as a means of discussing issues that are relevant to both MLS students and ALA student chapters. If you have suggestions for issues that you would like to see covered in future columns, please e-mail Larissa Gordon or Amy Harris, this year's SASCO Committee Co-Chairs. For your convenience, Larissa and Amy's e-mail addresses are provided at the end of this column.

Since this is the first column, the SASCO Committee Members wanted to take this opportunity to tell you what they have been working on since September. Each ALA student chapter has been assigned a committee member liaison. Committee members have been busy contacting their respective student chapters to introduce themselves and their roles. If you are an ALA student chapter officer and have not yet heard from your liaison, please contact Larissa Gordon or Amy Harris as soon as possible. Since SASCO uses the student chapter contact information maintained by ALA, we suggest that all student chapters contact Erika Johnson, ejohnson@ala.org, to ensure that ALA has the correct contact information for your individual chapters.

In addition to contacting student chapters, SASCO Committee Members have also been researching other professional associations, such as the American Bar Association (ABA), the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), and the American Medical Association (AMA), to determine what services and programs they offer their student members. SASCO hopes that this research will possibly serve as a catalyst to new or improved services and programs for MLS students and ALA student chapters.

The SASCO Committee Members hope that you will find this column useful. Again, we invite your comments and feedback. For column ideas, other questions, and suggestions, please e-mail Larissa Gordon, larissa.a.gordon@wilmcoll.edu, or Amy Harris, Amy_Harris@uncg.edu. Larissa and Amy, along with the other SASCO Committee Members, look forward to hearing from and working with you!