Each month, NewsNotes features a former or current CRLA leader. This month we are highlighting Tina Kondopoulos, CRLA Membership Chair and founding CRLA Northeast Treasurer. We hope you enjoy reading Tina’s thoughts on being a CRLA leader.
I have been a member of CRLA since 2002. CRLA has been a guiding force in my professional growth and development. My association with CRLA started when my peer tutoring program earned CRLA ITTPC Level 1 certification through the guidance and mentorship of Carmen Springer-Davis, the CRLA ITTPC Coordinator at the time. I attended my first CRLA conference in 2003 in Albuquerque where I got the chance to meet Carmen and congratulate her for receiving the Robert Griffin Award for Long and Outstanding Service. It never crossed my mind then that CRLA would bestow this honor upon me in 2016. During my sixteen years as a member of CRLA I have met great colleagues who I collaborated and presented with at the annual conference. However the most pivotal year for me was 2011 at the CRLA annual Conference in San Diego where I met the late Rick Sheets to discuss the renewal of my program’s ITTPC application and in the process he asked me to become an ITTPC Program Reviewer. I have been a CRLA ITTPC Program Reviewer since 2012. It was also there during my presentation on Tutor Training Activities where I asked the attendees whether they were familiar with the THINKTANK tutor training videos when Dorothy Briggs shared with all of us that this was the work of her tutoring team. This marked the beginning of our collaboration and friendship. It was there sitting around the fire pit that Roberta Schotka got inspired and asked our Northeast colleagues to help her bring the CRLA to Boston in 2013. The CRLA 2011 conference was also Marissa Loon’s first CRLA conference as a rookie Director of a Learning Center in the Northeast. It was also there when Pat Mulcahy-Ernt shared her vision of forming the CRLA Northeast Chapter and asked me to join her. I served as the founding treasurer of the CRLA Northeast Chapter from 2012-2015. It was also there in the penthouse hospitality suite where I met the incomparable Ross Hodges. There were many great years that followed, especially 2013 when we hosted the CRLA conference in Boston and where I met Lori Saxby, who as president-elect worked the conference with a walky-talky on hand. I am also very proud of my affiliation with the LACM SIG and the number of pre-conferences we have presented under the leadership of Jon Mladic. I am grateful to all the colleagues, and there are many, I have met at CRLA who have been my teachers, mentors, collaborators, and friends for all these years. I am currently serving as the Chair of the CRLA Membership Committee. Working on the 3Rs of membership with the committee members especially Nicole Tracy for a couple of years now has been very rewarding. I have treasured all the memories I have made by being part of the CRLA and I am looking forward to making new ones.