GALA and BWLG

[Natasha Warner]

Hi,

I'm also a former organizer of BWLG, and I'd like to explain why I think
merging BWLG into GALA is a good idea for both organizations at this
point.

At first, I was opposed to BWLG being taken over by GALA.  If there were
students at Berkeley now interested in continuing BWLG, especially any
working in language and gender, I would still be opposed to it. However,
it seems that there are no students at Berkeley, working in language and
gender or otherwise, who want to take over organizing the next conference.
BWLG has gotten by for several years being organized by people who are
dedicated to the conference and to women's issues, but don't work in
language and gender themselves (like me).  Of course, it would be better
for the conference if it were being run at least partly by people who do
work on language and gender.  However, if there is no one (in language and
gender or otherwise) at Berkeley who wants to continue the conference
right now, this really isn't the issue.  The issue is what's going to
happen to the existing knowledge and resources of BWLG, and how it can
continue (in some form).  (I am not suggesting that a GALA run conference
should be the same as a BWLG conference.  Many things can change.)

"Taking over" BWLG would be of considerable benefit to GALA.  An ongoing
conference is in some sense a business.  If GALA ever wants to have a
conference, it will need the things BWLG has:  a computer, a database
(both the database software and its contents), etc.  Acquiring and
creating these things from scratch takes a lot of effort and money.  There
are other less obvious advantages.  For example, some number of libraries
already buy BWLG proceedings.  If a GALA conference put out proceedings of
any sort, it would be useful to have records of past BWLG proceedings
sales.

On the other hand, the option for BWLG of putting all the BWLG resources
in storage until, at some future point, there are students who want to
continue BWLG at Berkeley, is not a realistic possibility.  If the
conference is not active, it will have to give back the storage and office
space it currently uses.  More importantly, if someone wanted to start
BWLG back up later, the knowledge of how to do so would have been lost.

In sum, I am disappointed that BWLG doesn't seem able to continue as a
student run conference at Berkeley.  However, since it doesn't seem able
to, merging BWLG into GALA seems to be an excellent opportunity for both
organizations.

Natasha Warner

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Natasha Warner				     	Ph.: 31-(0)24-3521372
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics   	FAX: 31-(0)24-3521213
PB 310					     	Email: Natasha.Warner at mpi.nl
NL-6500 AH Nijmegen
the Netherlands
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