Vote on program committee

[Megan Crowhurst]

Here is a summary of the recent vote on whether to accept/reject the
one-time program committee proposed by Penny Eckert to organise the
first IGALA conference.

Thank you to the 54 members who voted this time.  Here's how we
voted, as a group:
	52 voted for item 1 (to accept Penny's slate), and
	2 voted for item 2 (to reject).

While this vote constitutes an endorsement of Penny's organising
committee (at least in the context of existing time pressures),
concerns were expressed that we feel should be reflected in the
record. One member expressed disappointment that the program
committee was proposed to the membership as a fait accompli, and that
this was an unfortunate departure from the generally democratic way
in which IGALA policy has been decided.  Another member noted with
concern that the proposed committee does not reflect the diversity to
which the organisation has expressed commitment:  the women on the
proposed committee are all English speakers, are anglo/white (as far
as the commenter is aware), and are not geographically distributed
(two committee members are located on the west coast of the USA), and
there are no males on the program committee.  While we anticipated
these concerns before presenting the vote to the membership,  we felt
that given the need to move quickly, we should present the proposal
to you so that Penny can move on.  We would like to stress, however,
that this is a one-time "let's make do" measure; we expect that
standing program committee will be constituted and elected with full
input from the membership.

Regards,
KMMS

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Megan Crowhurst, PhD			Phone: 512-471-1701
Department of Linguistics		Fax:   512-471-4340
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX  78712-1196
USA