Vote results.

[Megan Crowhurst]

RESULTS OF THE VOTE ON THE STRUCTURE OF IGALA'S ADVISORY COUNCIL.

Many thanks to everyone who sent in a ballot for last week's vote.
39 people voted-I think this is, or is close to being a record for
this group.  Here are the results of the vote, with a summary.

A note on how votes were counted: we asked for a "yes" or "no" vote
on every item.  If someone failed to do this for any item, I
registered an abstaining vote. I did this because I considered it
inappropriate for me to be in the position of interpreting a null
answer as "yes" or "no", even in cases where someone voted "yes" on
the items she wanted, and rendered no "no"votes.  In no case did
counting abstaining votes as "yes" or "no" change the outcome.

ITEM 1:  GENERAL STRUCTURE OF IGALA'S ADVISORY COMMITTEE.
BIPARTITE VS. TRIPARTITE STRUCTURE.

	YES	NO	ABSTAIN	STATUS
(1)	16	21	2		Rejected
(2)	7	31	1		Rejected
(3)	28	10	1		Passed

ITEM 2:  NUMBER OF SEATS ON THE ADVISORY COUNCIL.

(4)	YES	NO	ABSTAIN	STATUS
	35	3	1		Passed

ITEM 3:  CATEGORIES FOR WHICH ADVISORY COUNCIL SEATS
MAY BE RESERVED.

	YES	NO	ABSTAIN	STATUS

(5)	36	2	1		Passed
(6)	30	8	1		Passed
(7)	32	5	2		Passed
(8)	33	4	2		Passed
(9)	25	12	2		Passed
(10)	17	20	2		Rejected
(11)	24	13	2		Passed

ITEM 4:  LENGTH OF TERM FOR ADVISORY COUNCIL SEATS.

	YES	NO	ABSTAIN	STATUS
(12)	34	3	2		Passed
(13)	34	3	2		Passed

SUMMARY:

We voted that the Advisory Council (AC) should have the tripartite structure,
as described below:

(3)	A TRIPARTITE Advisory Council with:
	- A number of designated seats, to be filled by members representing
	  specific POLITICAL concerns and APPOINTED by the Executive
	  Committee; and
	- A number of designated seats, to be filled by members representing
	  specific PROFESSIONAL/ACADEMIC concerns and APPOINTED by
	  [still to be determined]; and
	- A number of undesignated "at large" seats, to be filled by members
	  who will be ELECTED based on a platform proposed by the candidate.


We voted that the AC should have 12 seats to be divided as evenly as possible
among the three parts.

And we voted for 6 designated seats in the following categories:

(5)	A seat to represent STUDENT CONCERNS.

(6)	A seat to represent scholars not employed by universities
	(i.e. working in industry or elsewhere).

(7)	A seat to represent scholars with affiliations not in the US,
	the UK,Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

(8)	A seat to represent scholars working on queer (including gay,
	lesbian, bisexual, transgender) issues in linguistics.

(9)	A seat to represent scholars working on languages or language
	varieties whose speakers are socially or politically marginalized
	in the communities where they are spoken.

(11)	A seat to represent scholars whose work directly reflects and
	addresses feminist issues/concerns.

A seat to represent scholars focusing on men's language use, (10),
was rejected by a narrow margin.

Finally, we voted that student seats should have a two-year term, and
other AC seats should have a three-year term.

SOME CONCERNS

A few concerns were expressed.  A number of voters commented that all
AC seats, not just the student seats, could be for a two year term.

One voter questioned reserving only one seat for (7), and another
explicitly wanted more for (7) -- scholars not in US, UK, Aussie, and
NZ) Comment:  Note, however, that no seat is reserved for scholars
who *are* in the latter countries.  One voter commented "Perhaps a
better way to unweight U.S. weighting is to have the Executive
Council "home" move around??" (This seems like something we ought to
consider-MC.)

Another voter commented regarding the seat, (6), for scholars not
employed in an academic setting: "Re no.6 : or nowhere. I would
arrange the wording to include those scholars
who are not employed but who have something to contribute and are managing
to keep current - it happens (illness, retirement, &c. or just plain
unemployed)."

No-one remarked that any categories we'd discussed had been excluded,
but one voter commented "I don't understand proposing a category such
as (10) without an equivalent one, that is, a seat for scholars
working on women's language.  The feminist concerns in (11) does not
equal work on women's language.

One voter noted that if all of the seven categories passed, we might
not have enough seats on a 12 seat AC to accommodate them.  Since 6
of the seven passed, this is something we need to discuss.  If we
have a 12 seat AC, and 4 seats are for political concerns, and 4 are
for academic/professional concerns, possibly the seat to represent
feminist concerns (since it passed could count as a "politics" seat)?
That would leave us with 5 seats to decide about: 3 politics seats,
and 4 professional/academic seats.

~~'~~'~~'~~'~~'~~'~~'~~'~~'~~'~~'~~'~~'~~'~~'~~'~~'~~'~~'~~'
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