Teresa Mora, Candidate for Council

"As a member of Council, I would like to continue my work with the Diversity Committee and partner with other stakeholder groups to examine how SAA can support all of its members and create transparent systems in which everyone feels they have a voice."

BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT

I currently serve as the Head of Special Collections at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), a position I have held since 2017. Prior to that appointment I served as the University Archivist at UCSC. I have also worked as an archivist at The Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Brooklyn Historical Society. I have been an active member of SAA since early on in my career, receiving the Harold T. Pinkett Award to attend my first Annual Meeting in 1999. The Archivists and Archives of Color Section was my first "home" in SAA and I served as its co-chair from 2004 to 2006. I have held numerous appointed roles within SAA, including serving on the Awards Committee; Appointments Committee; Committee on Ethics and Professional Conduct; Program Committee; and as chair of the Membership Committee. I currently serve as chair of the Diversity Committee. My work with these groups has given me significant experience which I am eager to apply as a member of Council, bringing insights to what works as well as what could be improved within the organization. My career has been informed by my relationships with colleagues, and I value the relationships developed through my work with SAA and regional organizations. I have been active in my regional organizations since the beginning of my career, initially as a member of MARAC and later as a member of the Society of California Archivists (SCA). I served as President of SCA from 2018 to 2019 and continue to be an active member of that organization. I find the work of regional organizations to be absolutely essential to the health of the archival profession at large and therefore to that of SAA.

DIVERSITY STATEMENT

(Each candidate prepared a diversity statement according to SAA guidelines.)

One's relationship to DEIA is deeply personal. Our lived experience affects how we view the world and interact with others. It is imperative that we recognize that we all come from different places and that everyone's lived experience is valid. As a mixed race Chicana who has struggled with issues of identity and belonging throughout my life, issues of diversity and inclusion are at the forefront of my work. I entered into the archival profession with a personal interest in working to diversify the archival record. Over the years, my views on what constitutes diversity have become more nuanced as I continue to learn, interrogate my own assumptions, and evolve. However, one constant remains: my belief that DEIA efforts need to be rooted in empathy and respect. In my professional life, I have focused much of my energy on working to ensure my students and community understand that we are all history-makers. I established a Community Archiving program at my institution, have revisited our collecting policy to broaden its scope, and worked closely with students to introduce them to primary sources and stress the fact that our collections belong to the larger community, not simply academics. I consider it essential to impart to students that every collection is informed by individual bias, that personal bias needs to be interrogated, and that our individual communities need to take ownership of their histories to ensure our stories are told. As a professional organization, SAA needs to strive to ensure all members feel seen within the organization. I have experienced biases first-hand in my career, however I have been lucky to have mentors to commiserate with and encourage me on my path. This is not everyone's experience. SAA should work to ensure that such support is not the exception but the rule in developing and supporting new professionals and emerging leaders. Additionally, as those who help to shape the historical record, our professional organizations need to advocate to ensure our work encompasses a broad history and that efforts to do so are not silenced.I am eager to use my role on Council to move these efforts forward by leveraging the good work of the numerous committees engaging in DEIA work, allocating resources to support these efforts so the burden is not unfairly put upon volunteers and SAA's small staff, and ensuring that the organization is itself upholding the values it espouses.

QUESTION POSED BY NOMINATING COMMITTEE

How would you manage competing priorities for financial stability and meeting membership needs? What specific measures do you plan to pursue to guide the Society in alignment with its mission and strategic goals? What qualities and values would you bring to this role to ensure equitable and responsive governance of the Society?

CANDIDATE'S RESPONSE

As a current committee chair I am particularly interested in working as a member of SAA Council to ensure transparent and regular communication with our membership. Despite having been an active member of SAA for decades, I can still find the organization to be opaque (which certainly doesn't bode well for newer members with less experience in the organization). SAA can best serve its membership and best advocate for the profession when our membership has a clear understanding of the work of the organization and how to work within the organization to affect change. To that end I would ensure that individual committees, staff and task forces were tasked to provide clear deliverables in response to our strategic goals and that the lines of communication between various groups remain open to ensure we are working together towards the same goals. My time on the Diversity Committee has shown me how important it is that the various component groups remain aware of the work the others are doing. So many of our efforts align with that of other component groups and if not for the participation of ex-officio members of groups (such as the Native American Archives Section and the Membership Committee) in our meetings we would not be as effective in our own work.As a former president of a regional professional association I also consider it imperative to be transparent about the very real budget challenges of the organization. It is important that our members understand the true costs of such undertakings as the Annual Conference so they can better understand why Council makes the decisions it does and how the organization simply cannot support every initiative. In better understanding how choices about resourcing are made, members will better understand Council's need to hear from them to understand the priorities of the membership which we serve.I spoke above about my commitment to diversity efforts and I consider this work to be of paramount importance to the work of the organization and Council. I believe many of SAA's efforts on this front can be affected by being more transparent and being more willing to speak up and advocate for our members in a public way. Increasing the public standing of archivists helps the profession by making it both more visible and accessible to a larger and more diverse group of colleagues. When we ensure a recognition of how archival silences impact the history that is told, we encourage communities to record their own histories and we introduce a broader demographic to archives as a career path. A commitment to promoting ethical (and equitable) hiring practices, including advocating for a living wage, will allow for more opportunity and increased recruitment and retention within BIPOC communities. As a member of Council, I would like to continue my work with the Diversity Committee and partner with other stakeholder groups to examine how SAA can support all of its members and create transparent systems in which everyone feels they have a voice.

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