Agenda items/concerns

[Victoria L. Bergvall]

First, my congratulations to this (largely untenured!) group of wonderful
women for getting this important organization going. We've needed this for
a long time (speaking as one who served on the Committee on the Status of
Women in Linguistics for the LSA, and had to field many questions about the
role of that committee with respect to G&L issues).

I have a concern that I'd like to raise as an agenda item: Do others feel
the need for a central journal dedicated to G&L issues, arising more out of
linguistics than does the Women and Language journal, affiliated with the
Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender? Refereed
journals articles are a critical part of tenure reviews, and I've long
wished for a G&L journal that brings together cutting-edge linguistic
perspectives together, akin to what the Berkeley Women and Language
Conference does as a conference.

A second concern: How do we formulate and distribute any of this work so
that those with energy and ideas get credit towards jobs/tenure/promotion
(especially trying NOT to burn out those overworked grad students and
faculty in tenuous-track positions!). I speak as a tenured faculty member
who felt like she almost killed her career running a conference (the
COSWL-sponsored 1993 conf. in Columbus, Ohio)--though I now regard it as a
central part of my career.
We want to encourage fine work in G&L, but not at the risk of ruining
careers--or making it impossible to have a personal/family life too.
   As I see it, creating this organization as a formal structure is one way
to help consolidate attention and possibly resources, to solidify this as
field and make this possible.

Vicky