[Linganth] Colleagues, follow up to the last AAA resolution on contingent faculty?

[Lavanya Murali Proctor]

Hi all,
I'm on the AAA's labor relations committee. The 2013 resolution was approved by the Executive Board after the meetings, as we did not have quorum, and then put on the ballot for the membership to vote on and approve, which we did. 

What has happened since then is a lot of effort and discussion with precious little result. As Steve mentioned, the EB has been sympathetic and supportive, but the fact remains that we have done very little for our contingent colleagues since then. I'm not going to say the resolution was "largely symbolic" to a semiotically-inclined and linguistically precise audience, but let's just say it isn't enough. 

The CLR is continuing to work on this issue. It has not fallen off our radar. We're trying to figure out what else we can do. I would like to say that AAA leadership is working on some things that might help just a little. 

Nate, I would also like to offer my help, such as it may be, and if anyone else has thoughts, comments, or suggestions please email me at lavanya.m.proctor at lawrence.edu or tweet me @anthrocharya. 

Best,
Lavanya

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jan 24, 2016, at 12:46, Steven Black <stevepblack at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Nate,
> First, some promotion: there was just an anonymous blog post on the Ethics Blog on topics related to contingent labor and intersectionality: http://ethics.americananthro.org/an-intersectional-pov-on-how-the-contingent-faculty-market-is-against-our-other-principles-in-the-aaa-code-of-ethics/
> 
> Last year, Netta Avineri (core member of the committee on language and social justice and I (in my capacity as chair of the Committee on Ethics [CoE]) and I (in my capacity as chair of the Committee on Ethics) worked on this last year with some colleagues from the committee on labor relations (CLR), with the hope of moving beyond the 2013 CLR statement (which I believe was approved by the AAA, but can’t find evidence of that online—here is a link to the statement: http://savageminds.org/2013/11/10/aaa-to-hear-resolution-on-contingent-and-part-time-academic-labor/). We came up with a document titled, "Statement on Ethical Standards for Contingent Faculty,” which the CLR submitted to the AAA leadership.
> 
> Netta and I wrote a blog post on our efforts here: http://ethics.aaanet.org/professional-precarity-ethics-and-social-justice/
> 
> I’ll send you some more info off-listserv about our documents, et cetera. For others who may be interested, the short version of the story is that the AAA  resisted the idea of further resolutions (eg. a “best practices” statement or something similar) with the logic that they could not support particular practices without having data on their effectiveness to back up their support (the circularity of the argument of not trying something because it hasn’t been proven successful was not generally recognized). In theory, however, AAA leadership seemed interested. The CoE would be interested in pursuing this further, and I’m willing to bet the CLR would as well. So, let me know how I can help!
> 
> Take care,
> Steve
> 
> Steven P. Black
> Chair of the Committee on Ethics of the American Anthropological Association
> 
> Department of Anthropology
> Georgia State University
> P.O. Box 3998
> Atlanta, GA 30302-3998
> 
> Phone (404) 413-5168
> Fax (404) 413-5159
> 
> From: Linganth on behalf of Nathaniel Dumas
> Date: Saturday, January 23, 2016 at 3:02 PM
> To: "LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG"
> Subject: [Linganth] Colleagues, follow up to the last AAA resolution on contingent faculty?
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I hope everyone's week is ending on a great note. I remember in the past few years the AAA has pushed the adoption of a resolution on contingent faculty issues, particularly at the 2013 meetings. Does anyone know if this conversation continued at the 2015 AAAs, including in the level of sections? I'm mainly asking in my capacity as a new board member for the New Faculty Majority Foundation, which is looking into the idea of having institutional supporters. (We've been approached by several disciplinary associations about this possibility.) 
> 
> As such, I'm curious as to if this issue has remained on the explicit agenda of the AAA like it has, say, for the MLA. I'm also curious about if this has come up in the SLA in regards to its recent rethinking of mentoring (based on the April 2014 survey Paul Kroskrity sent out) and how mentoring at the disciplinary association level, in light of the rising levels of adjunct faculty, may need to be different. (I was not able to attend the AAAs last year so I apologize if this may be redundant.)
> 
> Best,
> Nate
> 
> -- 
> Nathaniel Dumas
> Research Associate, Department of Anthropology
> University of Santa Cruz
> nadumas at ucsc.edu
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