Advisory Council--in preparation for a vote

[Megan Crowhurst]

In preparing for a vote in a couple of days, on the structure of 
IGALA's Advisory Council, it might be helpful to review the recent 
discussion until now.  This message (fairly long, of necessity), 
contains that summary, to prepare you for the vote coming up soon, 
and also to encourage any additional discussion before the vote takes 
place.  Let's put the limit on discussion at Monday, February 7.  On 
Tuesday, February 8, we'll send the vote to the list.

In her message (of November 29, 1999),  Kira reminded us that at the 
end of August we voted in two steps that (A) "yes, we want some kind 
of advisory council," and (B) that this advisory council would have 
"some slots reserved, whether based on scholarship, underrepresented 
group, or other factor to be decided if this option is approved."

I don't think I can summarise the situation better than Kira.  Here's 
the rest of her message:

"Since the (A) option was approved, we now need to decide on what we want
the advisory council to look like.  We had a number of opinions earlier on
this subject that I will attempt to summarize here.

Some IGALA members argued that slots should be reserved for members of
particular groups underrepresented in the field.  Suggested categories
included: (1) graduate and undergraduate students; (2) members in
non-traditional employment situations (for example, independent scholars,
part-time and adjunct faculty, scholars working in the industry); (3)
members of color;  (4) non-native speakers of English, or members outside
the US, Canada, and the UK; (5) lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual
members; (6) men; and perhaps even (7) feminists.  There was some
discussion that category (6), in particular, might be unnecessary.

Others argued that slots should be reserved for representatives of
particular concerns or theoretical/research perspectives, who would not
necessarily have to be "members" of the identity category associated with
these perspectives.  Suggested categories here, paralleling those above,
included: (1) representative for graduate and undergraduate issues; (2)
representative for scholars in nontraditional employment situations; (3)
representative for issues/research in gender and ethnicity/race; (4)
representative for geographic or linguistic diversity; (5) representative
for language and sexuality research/issues; (6) representative for language
and masculinity research/issues; and (7) representative for feminist
research/issues."  [End of Kira's summary.]

Since the end of November, only a few people have posted on this 
issue.  Here is a summary of the opinions expressed (I sincerely 
apologize if I've left anything or anyone out!):

- Two members suggested that positions on the council be left 
unspecified to be filled by open-minded people. One of these members 
suggested the possibility of an appeal or review mechanism--perhaps 
to be activated if the selection process fails?

- Another member endorsed the view that the advisory council should 
be more 'issue oriented', and that the fact that 'common sense' and a 
majority vote would ensure that people who don't really represent 
some issue would not be elected.

- Two members advocated the inclusion of a position for a 
representative of feminist research, and one of these also advocated 
the inclusion of a position for representing research in men's 
studies, noting that to exclude them "[Š] assumes feminism and men's 
studies as givens, with the other research specializations as 
marginalized, which in my [.i.e. the writer's--MC] opinion reproduces 
their marginalization." (I'll quote liberally from some of these 
postings, but won't include names here.)

- Two other members suggested that feminist and men's concerns *not* 
be specifically represented in positions on the Council.

- One member expressed concern about building the type of structure 
summarized in Kira's message into the council itself, noting that 
some flexibility might be useful, and that this would be served if 
some seats "would be open, and people would run for a position based 
on whatever platform they feel needs to be represented on the 
council--political, professional, whatever." She suggested two 
possible structure in which this flexibility could be incorporated:
1. (A bipartite council?) Having some seats appointed by the 
Executive Committee with diversity of groups and/or professional 
issues in mind.
2. (A tripartite council)  Having one third of the seats open, one 
third designated "professional"
and one third designated "political," with these to be determined by 
who actually runs for them.

- Another member expressed the concern that it wouldn't be easy in 
practice to distinguish "professional" and "political" concerns (and 
I perceive this concern in messages from others as well).  She 
suggested a council that leaves five seats undesignated, and five 
seats earmarked for the following.  Here's the relevant portion of 
that message:

"The earmarked seats that stuck in my mind as a useful thing from last time
this subject was aired are:
1. a seat to represent grads and or undergrads
 (If option two above was chosen, this seat would have to change more often
than every five years--probably every year)
2. a seat to represent scholars not employed by universities ie. working in
industry or elsewhere
3. a seat to represent scholars not in the US
4. a seat to represent scholars working on gay, lesbian, transsexual issues
in linguistics
5. a seat to represent scholars working on languages with minority 
status in the communities where they are spoken (the wording of this 
last needs work, but I mean scholars working on African American 
Vernacular English, Creoles, Spanish in the United States etc)"

- Another member wrote that "the tripartite council, as proposed, 
also has the advantage of less
identity-categorizing, which is something not a few people have 
objected to.  The categorization seems to be more functionally 
based."  He also noted that unless we want an entire council to be 
"at-large", potential councillors are going to have to make decisions 
about what and how categories are associated with seats on the 
council, and that this isn't such a bad thing.  The same member noted 
that nothing prevents a councillor associated with a specific seat 
from having input on other topics.  He also noted in response to the 
concern regarding the difficulty of distinguishing between 
"professional" and "political" issues, that it can be just as 
difficult to define "the differences between the research-area-based 
issues.  For example, the difference between "Scholars outside the 
US" and "Scholars studying minority/ threatened languages"."  The 
trick will be to come up with adequate definitions--not an 
insurmountable task.  For example, could "academic" be substituted 
for "professional"?

In short, (and, sorry--I know it hasn't been!) it sounds like most 
people who've written lately have in one way or another been worried 
about ensuring that the structure of the Advisory Council is flexible 
enough so that our hands aren't tied, and both flexible and 
structured enough to ensure that everyone who wants to be can be 
heard.

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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