Who would you like to see win a Distinguished Service Award or Nancy DeLaurier Award in 2022?
Has someone or something positively impacted your work in the field of visual resources and image management? We would love to celebrate their achievements!The VRA Awards Committee is scouting for potential nominators and nominees for the Distinguished Service (career achievement) and Nancy DeLaurier (project, publication, or other accomplishments) 2022 Awards to be given at the Annual Conference in Baltimore. To learn more about these awards, please see: httpS://vraweb.org/about/committees/awards-committee/This is not a nomination, but a simple Google form that can be completed quickly to offer your ideas about deserving people or impactful projects. The Awards Committee will follow-up with you about your suggestions and provide assistance with any potential full nomination later this summer. See: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSexCYTy1fM3Q1jjPkKWjILrNCWXX6E1X1Dwi4JrVxlNdv5Cww/viewformAlthough nominations need to be initiated by Visual Resources Association members, the nominees themselves do not need to be members of the organization.Please consider contacting us about any colleagues deserving of recognition and take a few minutes to complete this new Google form. We so welcome your ideas and suggestions.All the best wishes for a wonderful summer,Maureen BurnsVRA Awards Committee Chair
Announcing the VRA Distinguished Service Award and Nancy DeLaurier Recipients
PRESS RELEASEMarch 29, 2021Contact: Visual Resources Association info@vraweb.orgOnline Address: httpS://vraweb.org/about/committees/awards-committee/VISUAL RESOURCES ASSOCIATION PRESENTS 2021 DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD TO MARCIA MEEKER FOCHT AND NANCY DELAURIER AWARD TO ANNA BERNHARD AND HEATHER LOWE FOR THEIR WORK FOUNDING THE VISUAL RESOURCES EMERGING PROFESSIONALS AND STUDENTS GROUPVIRTUAL CHICAGO, Illinois—The Visual Resources Association (VRA), a multidisciplinary organization dedicated to furthering research and education in the field of image management, proudly presented the 2021 Distinguished Service Award (DSA) to Marcia Meeker Focht, Binghamton University’s Visual Resources Curator, at the Virtual Chicago conference on March 25th. The VRA annually honors an individual who has made an outstanding career contribution to the field of visual resources and image management. DSA recipients have achieved a level of distinction through leadership, research, service to the profession, outstanding innovation, participation, or project management.
In over 30 years of active participation in VRA, Focht has helped to shape the association through her empathetic leadership and extraordinary service record—two terms on the VRA Executive Board, participation in various committees, task forces, and other special interest groups, and currently, Chair of the VRA Foundation. This breadth of service is only surpassed by her considerable professional talents, sincere dedication, and engaging personality. For example, she is primarily responsible for the success of the VRA Mentor Program with 13 years of “cheerleading” and matching new members with nurturing veterans to contribute to positive conference experiences and to help with ongoing professional development. She has welcomed more people to VRA than any other member, mentored many a future leader, and contributed to member retention.A forward-looking embracer of new technologies, Focht successfully transitioned her image collection from analog to digital images, collaborated with other campuses in the SUNY system to find ways to share Binghamton’s growing collection, and she continues to experiment with new technologies through digital humanities initiatives. As Tom McDonough, a Binghamton professor, stated in his letter of support, “What I’d most like to emphasize here, however, is not so much her assistance to the Art History faculty—her role was never merely supplemental or supportive—but her groundbreaking role in introducing us to the research and pedagogical potentials of the new tools offered by digital technology. Marcia could never be mistaken for a complacent figure; she has consistently sought out new ideas, new opportunities, and brought them back to campus to share with students and faculty alike.” An “ambassador” of embedded metadata, she has presented and published on the innovative tools the VRA developed at regional, national, and international conferences.Focht’s career-long dedication has involved hard work, intellectual curiosity, and impressive productivity, all accomplished with boundless enthusiasm, genuine warmth, and an infectious sense of humor. VRA President, Jeannine Keefer, stated “Marcia exemplifies the numerous ways that members can participate and give back to VRA via committee and chapter participation, leadership roles, discussion contributions, and sharing our work with the world outside the association. Her mentorship and encouragement has meant the world to me over the years. I could not have asked for a better professional role model or a more dear friend.” Focht richly deserves the DSA award for her unparalleled spirit of volunteerism and career-long dedication to the visual resources profession. She has given “her head and her heart” to VRA and the membership has benefitted greatly from her generosity.
The Nancy DeLaurier Award (NDL), named for one of the pioneers of the Visual Resources profession, honors distinguished achievement in the field of image management. “Achievement" is measured by immediate impact and may take the form of published work, oral presentation, project management, software development, technology application, Web site creation, or other outstanding effort. The NDL was enthusiastically bestowed on Anna Bernhard and Heather Lowe for their foundational work with the Visual Resources Emerging Professionals and Students group (VREPS).Under the initial leadership of these two founding chairs, VREPS created a space where emerging VRA professionals can build kinship, network, exchange ideas, collaborate, and thrive. Anna, Heather, and the newfound VREPS group recognized that early professionals and students were entering a drastically different employment landscape than their more established VRA colleagues, and they sought to provide a variety of support for these association members. As the nominator, Jasmine Burns of Cornell University, shared, "Anna and Heather set a wonderful example of what emerging professionals could accomplish in and outside of the VRA. Their example gave me the confidence and eagerness to run for office, serve in chapter leadership, and continue building my job-related skills before I even hit the job market. The inclusive space that they created during my first-ever conference experience made me a long-lasting member and fostered my connections with other people in the same boat, many of whom remain my treasured, life-long colleagues."The group focuses on developing job searching skills, networking, and finding professional development opportunities, such as relevant webinars, workshops, and conferences. VREPS sponsors VRA conference sessions and workshops as well as the annual “Night Out,” an informal, open, social outing that provides emerging professionals an opportunity to get to know each other and form new relationships in an informal setting, both of which have become a formalized features of the VRA conference. They alert group members about calls for papers/proposals, fellowships, internships, scholarships/awards, employment openings, and other opportunities. The VREPS blog became the go-to source for job and internship opportunities in the field and inspired the creation of the VRA Job Digest. By the time Anna and Heather stepped down from their VREPS leadership roles, the group had firmly solidified its place within the VRA. Bernhard and Lowe have more than paid back any mentorship they received by developing this new mechanism to warmly welcome emerging professional and students to the field of visual resources.Visual Resources Association http://www.vraweb.org/
Call for 2015 Nominations: the Visual Resources Association Distinguished Service Award and the Nancy DeLaurier Award
Each year the Visual Resources Association’s Awards Committee encourages worthy nominations from the membership for the Distinguished Service Award (DSA) and the Nancy DeLaurier Award (NDL). The DSA honors an individual who has made an outstanding career contribution to the field of visual resources and image management. The NDL, named for one of the pioneers of the visual resources profession, honors either a single individual or a group of visual resources professionals for distinguished achievement in the field. “Achievement” is measured by immediate impact, and may take the form of published work, oral presentation, project management, software development, technology application, web site creation, or other outstanding effort or project.
Although nominations for the DSA and the NDL are initiated by Visual Resources Association members, the nominees need not be members of the organization.
A nomination dossier should consist of a cover letter from the nominator(s) describing the nature of the achievement, the candidates’ curriculum vitae, and supporting letters and documentation. Electronic nominations via e-mail or a file hosting service such as Dropbox™ are preferred; nomination dossiers are due November 3, 2015. Members of the VRA Awards Committee, upon reviewing submitted dossiers, may recommend one recipient for the Distinguished Service Award and up to two individual recipients or a single group recipient of the Nancy DeLaurier Award in any given cycle.
Recommendations are subject to approval by the VRA Executive Board. All nomination dossiers will be retained in the Association Archives.
We strongly encourage co-nominators, and the members of the Awards Committee are prepared to offer help and advice. For more information including a list of previous award recipients, please visit the Awards page on the VRA website.
We invite you to nominate a worthy colleague for one of these prestigious VRA awards. If you plan to prepare a nomination dossier, please let me know so that I can coordinate the process.
With best regards,
Margaret N. WebsterChair, VRA Awards Committee