By 1996, archivists had been both grandfathered into the Academy and admitted to membership by taking the examination. The founders of the Academy of Certified Archivists agreed to develop a process to insure that Certified Archivists maintained the high standards of professional practice and competence that the exam established. As the first elected Regent for Recertification (what is now Certification Maintenance) in 1995, Willow’s job was to construct a process that would be, in content and method, fair, firm, and professional and one that members would accept and respect.
That Willow’s task was a challenge became inordinately clear at the 1995 Society of American Archivists meeting in Washington, D.C., the meeting at which she was installed as the new Regent for Recertification. Some ACA members and even some members of the Committee for Certification Maintenance were dubious about how, or whether, recertification would succeed. Willow recalls that “I can no longer remember why I thought it would work, nor why I thought I would be able to do it.” While Willow provided strong leadership and direction she is quick to point out that she did not create a system of recertification by herself and credits the success of the recertification program to the work and input of the many members involved in the process.
After obtaining numerous interested and dedicated volunteers for the Certification Maintenance Committee, Willow and the Committee began to develop the point program and the system of awarding credits for a variety of archival activities. The Committee worked out the form for providing information to the reviewers, and the instructions for filling out the petition forms. Petition review teams were formed and a reviewer regent structure was developed to provide for resolving issues, answering questions, reviewing new ideas that arose, and settling differences of opinion among reviewers. Petition Review Teams were designed to be autonomous, but their decisions had to be unanimous; if they could not reach unanimity, the specific issue was discussed at a range of higher levels, beginning with the Regent and moving on up through the Committee to the Board of Regents.
When recertification petitions began arriving in 1996, the process was new and untried and many were nervous. However, due to the leadership and exhaustive attention to detail from Willow and her hand-picked teams, the first recertification by petition cycle worked very well and the cynics were largely silenced. The process has worked competently and more smoothly with each passing year.
Trudy Huskamp Peterson
Trudy Peterson has long been a proponent of archival certification. In 1977 Trudy wrote a draft proposal for archival certification. It appeared in the July 1977 Society of American Archivist’s newsletter asking for comments, to which she responded in the September SAA 1977 newsletter. This was twelve years before the Academy of Certified Archivists came into being. During these years she was actively involved in discussions about certification within and outside the SAA Committee on Education and Professional Development. In the early 1980’s, Trudy was very much involved in writing “Archivist: A Definition”, which appeared in the January 1984 SAA newsletter. This article pushed forward the process of defining who an archivist is and what an archivist does, including elements of both theory and practice—something that proved valuable for identifying what ACA should consider when developing a certification examination.
Trudy continued to be supportive as the Academy began to take shape and grow. She is now the ACA representative to the International Council on Archives, and serves as the ACA representative on the Section of Records Management and Archival Professional Associations (SPA) of ICA. With Trudy’s representation ACA has increased its visibility in the world community of Archives. The best example of this is that ACA was represented by a speaker at the VII European Conference on Archives last year to discuss certification and how it is done by ACA, generating interest among the European archival organizations.
Trudy Peterson’s support has been long-lasting and substantial. It is because of her concern as well as her conscientious and well-focused efforts that ACA has been recognized by a much broader-based group of archives and archivists.
