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2020-21 CoSIDA President Sam Atkinson Emphasizes "Change" In First Message To The CoSIDA Membership After Receiving the Presidential Gavel
(June 12, 2020)
Message To Membership After Presidential Gavel Exchange To New 2020-21 CoSIDA President Sam Atkinson From 2019-20 President Herb Vincent
Thank you, Herb, on behalf of the CoSIDA Board of Directors, the staff and the entire membership, for serving as our president this past year. It’s quite the honor to follow you in this role and I know how much being CoSIDA president “just meant more.” to you. As people know I'm good for a joke here and there but right now it is tough to laugh.
These are serious times for all of us. This is not the speech I intended to give in Las Vegas — a speech that I wrote two summers ago in anticipation for this moment. Things have drastically changed for all of us.
I want to focus for a moment on the word change. We've been forced to change the way we do our jobs, we've been forced to change the way we teach our children, and we have been forced to change the way we shop and go to stores. But, most importantly, the recent Black Lives Matter protests has made us all think about how we treat one another and how we all need to step forward together to create change.
We face a lot of change now in moving forward. Change starts with you. If change is going to happen, it needs to happen on a personal level first. Be unafraid of what lies ahead of us. Be the change.
This current situation in our future this fall is unlike any other obstacle we have faced in our lifetime. Make no mistake, this coming year will be a challenge for all of us. But we will get through this together. This will be a challenging year for CoSIDA. Maybe the most challenging in our history. There will be a lot of tough questions. Some questions we don't have answers to.
Difficult decisions will have to be made moving forward. I encourage you, our members, to continue to show your support for CoSIDA this coming year. We are here to help you, but I also hope that we help each other as we are in this boat together.
In recent years CoSIDA has been a champion of change and a leader in the collegiate athletic space when it comes to diversity and inclusion, advocacy, goodwill and wellness, and connecting with our young professionals. There's still so much more work that needs to happen and be done and I have full confidence in all of you to play a role in helping us move CoSIDA forward.
I'm humbled and honored to serve as a president of CoSIDA for the 2020-2021 academic year. The historic moment of a (NCAA) Division III member becoming CoSIDA’s president is not lost on me. I'm hopeful this inspires others to strive to be leaders within our organization as leadership knows no boundaries.
At this time I also want to thank my wife Emily and my daughters Molly and Clare for all of their support throughout my time and also the Gallaudet University staff for their support so I can follow my passion to support and champion this profession. I also want to congratulate the new slate of CoSIDA board members who will make a positive impact and valuable contribution to our organization in the coming years ahead.
Finally, I hope this is the first and last time a CoSIDA president needs to accept the gavel virtually. I'm pretty sure I'm the first CoSIDA president to accept the gavel by wearing shorts!
Our hope and goal is to be in Orlando in June 2021 together again for our annual family reunion. Thank you everyone for your time today. Please feel free to reach out to me at any time. I know I'll be leaning on many of you this coming year as we navigate these unchartered waters together. Please take care of yourself, your family and friends, and one another.