A New Direction

One of the things that really energizes and encourages me as a SWATA Executive Board member is working with the students within our association. I get to see on a first hand basis how bright our future is and the passion each of these student athletic trainers has for the profession. Earlier in the year I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to visit with the District 4 Student Senate – I flew to Ft. Wayne, Indiana and spent a few days with them at their annual symposium. The purpose of my trip was to observe how they operated and how they fit in with the GLATA Executive Board. Based on the observations from this trip as well as a lot of brainstorming session with SWATA leadership, the idea was hatched to take our student program within SWATA in a different direction.

The SWATA Student Leadership and Development Committee, formerly the SWATA ATSA, was restructured this summer to encompass the Student Research and Education Committee, the Competency Workshop Committee and the newly created Student Senate. The SWATA Student Senate will closely mirror other districts within the NATA that have similar organizations. A group of 21 students were asked to be on the Student Senate Task Force and were able to meet in San Antonio and Arlington this past summer. From those meetings, the Student Senate by-laws, policies and procedures and senator application were developed – each of these can now be found at http://www.swata.org/. Currently the Task force is working on student programming and hands-on workshops for the 2010 SWATA Annual Meeting. Programming will include multiple days for students as well as hands on workshops for varying levels of student athletic trainers. Applications and requirements to serve on the SWATA Student Senate will be accepted in December and the inaugural Senate will convene in Arlington in July 2010.

I cannot stress how much I appreciate the hard work of some of the individuals who have tirelessly worked to bring this idea to life within the past year – they were given a large task to undertake in April and had all of it completed by the end of July. The SWATA Student Senate task force was chaired by Kelley Menefee, the District VI Representative to the National Athletic Training Students’ Committee. The chair of the SWATA Student Senate is Kelley Henderson, Clinical Coordinator for the TCU Horned Frogs Athletic Training Education Program. We truly appreciate the “two Kelleys” and all of the hours and hard work they have put into this task.

If you do not believe me in how exciting the future is for our profession, I invite you to come and visit one of the Task Force meetings or a Student Senate meeting next summer. There are so many opportunities in our association for our students to step up and be leaders – I encourage you to look at your student staff and identify someone who might be a good fit for the Student Senate. Go to the website and submit their application – they are the future leaders of SWATA and NATA.

Next week I am going to spotlight another great opportunity our students have to utilize within District 6 – the SWATA Competency Workshop. Until then, I hope you have a wonderful weekend and you are enjoying a bit of the cooler weather.

As always, never hesitate to let us know if your Executive Board can do anything for you.

DT
SWATA Vice President