Advisory Council composition

[anna livia]

1. Governing Structure versus Advisory Council

I've been following the debate around the composition of the advisory
council with great interest and I appreciate the chance to hear the
different points of view expressed. I think this is an important discussion
for us to have prior to agreeing on the structure of the organisation.
However, I am now a little worried that we might be losing sight of our
goals.  It seems that the posts have started to be divided between those
that discuss the Advisory Council (which is now a debate on the ideology of
representation) and those that discuss the governing structure (see Sara
Trechter's last message). These are not, or rather should not be, separate
threads.  The more separated they become, the more the ideological debate
will appear to hover above the more "practical" concerns. I think it may be
the increasingly theoretical nature of the debate which is raising the
emotional tone of posts.  Absolutely no objection to emotional posts per
se, but they seem a little at cross purposes, which is something one needs
to look out for when engaging in debate via the Internet.  I believe
everyone is responsible for maintaining the conditions under which a
thoughtful and considered debate can take place.

2. Representation is Also a Practical Concern.

I believe it is imperative to know things like:-

>>1) What was intended by having both an advisory council and an executive
>>committee,
>>2) how the two would communicate,
>>3) possible term lengths and whether to have limits or not, and
>>4) a secretary or secretary/financial officer combination position.

*while* we discuss the make-up of the advisory council.

As Sara states:
***The advisory council would be elected by the group as a whole as would
the executive committee.

The Advisory Council would be responsible for setting policy.

The Executive Committee would carry out the policies by establishing
procedures.

I thank Sara for clarifying these issues.
********************************************************************************

I would like now to think aloud about what this means in practical terms.

The members of the advisory council are meant to help the executives in
various ways, by offering experience, expertise, opinion on issues as yet
unknown but in areas where, because of their research or because of their
membership in different constituencies, they are more competent to speak
(or more sensitive) than the average member.  It doesn't seem to me
terribly controversial to say that there are indeed areas where greater
competence or sensitivity is needed and to predict that those areas will
include domains of social inequality.

The least controversial "advisor" is the student position. I am four years
out of grad school and it is honestly difficult for me to remember exactly
what my concerns were back then. What would this advisor do? We don't know
yet, obviously, but part of our job is to start projecting into the future
of this organisation and imagining what we would like to see and how we
would like to it to work. I imagine conferences (such as the one at
Stanford next year), a journal (already discussed), special issues of the
journal, position papers,  advisory roles for GALA on other bodies,
databases of research interests for mentoring, advising and public
speaking.  Not hard to see that grad students might have a different
relation to all these activities--less money, no sabbaticals, need for
mentor rather than being one themself.

OKay, so I agree to the grad student rep.  What about the person of color?
THat special issue of the journal, how about we do it on Ebonics and other
minority dialect debates throughout the world, seeing it as a mother
tongue/official code thing?  Might be reasonable to suppose that our
advisor would have thought more about this debate than I have-- might be
reasonable to pick the kind of advisor of color who was interested in
linguistic issues that particularly affect people of color. They get to
talk about anything else they want, vote like anyone else, but in this
particular area we seek their advice because we respect their ideas on the
issues.

I don't intend to go through each category--though I do find the male
member slot a little odd, but I would, like to propose we consider what the
members of the advisory council would do as well as who they would be.
##############################################################################
Anna Livia (PhD)
Visiting Assistant Professor, French Department,
UC Berkeley, 4125 Dwinelle Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720