NACE Awards
2004 Kauffman Award
Rochelle Kaplan
Rochelle Kaplan has a tendency to boil down her duties at NACE
into basic terms.
“It’s very simple,” Kaplan explains. “Members
called or e-mailed and I responded with the legal info I thought
would be most helpful to them as it pertained the their specific
situations.”
Those who worked with Kaplan or who solicited her guidance know that putting complex information into plain language is one of her gifts. Since 1985, Kaplan has provided critical information and expert guidance to NACE members.
For making a tangible contribution to NACE that significantly improved the association, Kaplan is the recipient of the 2004 Kauffman Award.
“This really is an honor,” Kaplan says. “I have enjoyed my work. The career services and staffing professionals I have worked with are all high-caliber, high-quality people. They took me in and made me part of them. It has been my pleasure to provide service to them.”
Kaplan served NACE members by providing legal advice about policies, procedures, trademarks, copyrights, contracts, and governance and compliance issues to the NACE Board and staff; writing columns and articles for NACE publications about legal and ethical issues that affect the ways in which career services practitioners and human resources professionals operate; and making numerous presentations at NACE National Meetings, regional conferences, workshops, teleconferences, and web seminars. Her work is the core of the NACE legal department.
“I’m proud of the whole legal department programming—the
workshops, web seminars, and articles—we developed for NACE
members,” Kaplan explains. “Most of the issues I deal
with are the same as when I started at NACE in 1985. Except for
the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1992, there have not been
any new federal laws that impact the membership. However, the context
in which employers and career services professionals can operate
within those laws has [changed]. The challenge remains keeping up
with the legal trends, regulations, and case law so that I can best
serve NACE members.”
In addition to those duties, Kaplan served as NACE staff liaison
to the Principles for Professional Conduct Committee—which
addresses various ethical issues arising within the profession—for
15 years.
“My work with the Principles for Professional Conduct Committee
has been a highlight of my professional career,” Kaplan says.
“I was part of the initial group that created the Principles
for Professional Conduct, and I’ve been with the committee
ever since.”
Kaplan has played a large role in creating the resources—including
training and annotated resources—for the Principles for Professional
Conduct Committee that result from the advisory opinions given by
the committee.
Although Kaplan is no longer providing direct legal advice to NACE
members, she is still providing legal resources to NACE that are
available to members through NACEWeb’s online legal department
and in articles that appear in NACE Journal.
