8. OTHER PROGRAMS AND ACTIVITIES
Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline (FAD)
The Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline (FAD) continued to provide support in the form of small grants for projects that advance the discipline of sociology. Supported by the American Sociological Association through a matching grant from the National Science Foundation, the goal of FAD is to nurture the development of scientific knowledge by funding small, groundbreaking research initiatives and other important scientific research activities. FAD awards provide scholars with seed money for innovative research that has the potential for challenging the discipline, stimulating new lines of research, and creating new networks of scientific collaboration. The award is intended to provide opportunities for substantive and methodological breakthroughs, broaden the dissemination of scientific knowledge, and provide leverage for acquisition of additional research funds. The maximum amount of each award is $7,000 (2004 levels). (ASA homepage)
The first NSF award to ASA in support of a small grants program was made in 1987 (see Chapter 1). During the 1990s, the National Science Foundation made the following awards to the Program: in 1990, $60,000 (covering the period from September 1, 1990 to February 29, 1996); in 1994: $60,000 (for September 1, 1994 to August 31, 1997, including a supplement of $20,000); in 1997: $161,526 (for July 15, 1997 to June 30, 2001, including a supplement for June 2001), and in 2001: $165,000 (for February 15, 2001 to February 14, 2004).
From 1991 to 1997, the Program was directed by Executive Officer Levine, and from 1997 to 2002, by Felice Levine (the Principal Investigator on the NSF grants) and Roberta Spalter-Roth, with the assistance of Andrew Sutter. A FAD Advisory Panel (composed of members of Council) participated in making award selections.
From 1987 to 2001, 622 proposals were submitted to the FAD Program and 184 scholars received awards. The Program is limited to PhDs (or the equivalent degree), and grantees come from a broad spectrum of colleges and universities, all academic ranks, and a range of years since they received their PhDs (Spalter-Roth, in Footnotes , March 2001).
International Activities
The ASA has a long history of commitment to international issues. The Association addressed such issues in a number of ways, including by: (1) sponsoring activities at the Annual Meeting featuring international themes and topics, (2) participating in the International Sociological Association (ISA) and other international organizations and events, (3) initiating activities through ASA committees and sections, (4) collaborating and networking with other professional organizations relating to specific area studies (e.g., Latin America), (5) hosting visiting foreign delegations, (6) responding to requests for assistance from sociological associations in other countries, and (7) featuring articles on international events in Footnotes , and in other ASA publications. The ASA has also responded to human rights violations (see Human Rights), and to efforts in response to international conflicts and acts of terrorism.
Task Force on the International Focus of American Sociology
In August 1999, a Task Force on the International Focus of American Sociology (TFIFAS) was appointed “to provide the Association with a comprehensive review of the international focus of the Association…[and] to undertake specific activities that reinforce this strong commitment.” (Council Agenda Memo, August 1, 1999) The members of the Task Force were Michael Micklin (Chair), James McCartney, Cathy Rakowski, Saskia Sassen, Brent Shea, and David Wiley. The TFIFAS submitted its final report to Council in 2003. In August 1999, a Task Force on the International Focus of American Sociology (TFIFAS) was appointed “to provide the Association with a comprehensive review of the international focus of the Association…[and] to undertake specific activities that reinforce this strong commitment.” (Council Agenda Memo, August 1, 1999) The members of the Task Force were Michael Micklin (Chair), James McCartney, Cathy Rakowski, Saskia Sassen, Brent Shea, and David Wiley. The TFIFAS submitted its final report to Council in 2003.
As part of its mandate, the Task Force examined the Annual Meeting Programs , committee activities, and ASA teaching materials for international content. The analyses of program content showed a generally increased attention over the years to international issues at the Annual Meeting.
Committees also increasingly addressed international topics. However, levels of participation in ASA meetings by foreign sociologists (especially by non-Europeans) were found to be low, in part due to the lack of available funding. Teaching materials also generally had a low degree of international material. Finally, the Report assessed external funding sources that could enhance the participation of non-U.S. scholars at the Annual Meeting and recommended that ASA should reconstitute a committee dedicated to international issues.
Annual Meetings
Annual Meetings in 1993 (“Transition to Democracy”) and 1997 (“Bridges of Sociology”) were among those during the 1990s with a strong emphasis on international themes. In 1993, ASA President Lipset continued the practices of Presidents Melvin Kohn and James Coleman by inviting foreign scholars (especially those with Caribbean and Latin American interests) to participate on the program at the Annual Meeting in Miami. Funding was also obtained to support travel to the meeting by sociologists from the former Soviet Union, other Eastern European countries, and several developing nations. With President Neil Smelser, the 1997 Annual Meeting in Toronto was intentionally inclusive of most geographic regions of the world. The meeting theme was on the bridges between countries and between disciplines, and great efforts were made to include Canadian sociologists, with two thematic sessions assigned to the Canadian Sociological and Anthropological Association.
International Sociological Association (ISA)
The ASA continued to participate in meetings and activities of the International Sociological Association (ISA), the major worldwide organization of sociologists. The ISA meetings, which are held at regular four-year intervals, took place in Madrid, Spain in 1990 (the Twelfth Congress, as the ISA meetings are known); Bielefeld, Germany in 1994 (Thirteenth Congress); and in Montreal, Canada in 1998 (Fourteenth Congress). The ASA received block travel grants from NSF in support of travel by U.S. sociologists to the ISA meetings (with the exception of the Montreal meeting, for which funding was not requested, because it was considered to be no different than travel to an ASA meeting).
The ISA-ASA relationship was complex and reflected certain tensions. Over the years, ASA Council and other ASA members criticized certain aspects of the ISA governance, organizational, and operational structure. ASA long argued for a more democratic system with individual dues and individual voting by members. However according to the ISA Bylaws adopted in January 1994, ASA dues to ISA were increased—but each country would continue to have one representative in the Council of National Associations, regardless of the size of the country or the number of members it has in ISA. Discussion in Council during 1994 focused on these changes, including whether ASA should continue to be an institutional member. In August 1994, however, Council voted to continue its affiliation with ISA and to review it on an annual basis (given the governance issues of ISA), and to enhance coordination by having the ASA delegate to ISA serve as a member of the Committee on International Sociology.
In 1997, the Russell Sage Foundation awarded ASA $25,000 to fund the ISA-ASA North American Conference on “Millennial Milestone: The Heritage and Future of Sociology,” which was planned and coordinated by Council member Janet Abu-Lughod, and took place on August 7–8, 1997 in Toronto, Canada. A manuscript based on the conference, “Continuities and Cutting Edges: Sociology for the Twenty-First Century,” edited by Janet Abu Lughod was published by the University of Chicago Press in 1999.
Other International Organizations
The ASA also has a working relationship as part of the Consortium of Affiliates for International Programs of the AAAS. In 1992, former Executive Officer William D’Antonio was elected President of the International Institute of Sociology (IIS). Founded in Paris, France in 1893, the IIS (distinct from the ISA), is an organization of scholars sharing theoretical and research interests (Footnotes , March 1992:6).
Other activities relating to Internationalization of Sociology
Over the years, ASA has focused attention on international issues in many other ways. The ASA, for example, has been asked to lend its support on behalf of sociological associations in developing countries or those emerging from totalitarian regimes (e.g., In 1992, by the Albanian Sociology Department). The ASA also hosted delegations from a number of countries (e.g., of Chinese students in October 1997; as well as from Russia and other countries).
President Coleman also addressed the “rapid internationalization of sociology and what role the ASA should play to improve communication and collaboration. He also sought comments on the need to stimulate greater interaction among international sociology associations. Among items discussed were the current structure of the International Sociological Association, the role of the Committee on International Sociology, the role of the ASA/NSF Small Grants Program in funding proposals aimed at enhancing international networking, and foundation support.” (Council Minutes, January 1992)
The ASA additionally provided coverage of international issues in Footnotes , through its homepage, and through other publications. A regular Footnotes feature to the mid-1990s “International News and Notes” covered a range of topics, including international funding and teaching opportunities, news about research programs (such as the International Social Survey [ISS] Program of NORC), and so forth. President Coleman proposed this idea “to provide better visibility for the activities of overseas colleagues and to facilitate better communication in general. Although no formal motion was made, the editors indicated that they were sympathetic to the suggestion of highlighting international issues.” (Council Minutes, August 27, 1991)
Human Rights
Over the past several decades, the ASA has spoken out in defense of human rights generally, but especially on behalf of scholars who have been arrested, convicted, and incarcerated for activities relating to their scientific and scholarly work. ASA has long argued that restricting the academic freedom of sociologists and other scientists is certain to have a chilling effect on other independent scholarly investigations. Since the late 1990s, ASA has also advocated a strong U.S. governmental response to the infringement of academic freedoms as critical to promoting democracy in nations under study, since the “free production and circulation of knowledge [is] vital to both science and democracy.” (ASA Press Release on “Addressing Human Rights Violations of U.S. Scholars,” August 19, 2001)
Actions by ASA have been in the form of resolutions of ASA Council, letters of appeal or protest on behalf of those detained, articles in Footnotes (and, more recently, on the ASA homepage), op-ed pieces, press releases on ASA positions, and in general public announcements to mobilize action at the grassroots level in support of the victims. Since the mid-1980s, ASA has worked closely with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Human Rights Action Network (AAASHRAN) in coordinating appropriate responses on specific cases.
Human Rights Issues in the 1990s
The Association took up issues regarding human rights from a broad sociological perspective as well as from the context of potential suppression of rights of research scholar. For example, ASA also initiated efforts to further understanding of social confl icts that lead to massive human rights violations. In November 1993, under the leadership of ASA President Gamson, a Spivack workshop was held on “Initiative on Genocide and Human Rights,”which addressed the need to “mobilize social science associations and funding organizations to respond to situations of genocide and mass deaths, such as that now occurring in the Bosnia-Serbia confl ict. [Gamson] said that there was an agenda, as well as research roles, which go beyond the current activities of such organizations as Amnesty International.” (Council Minutes, January 1993)
In the late 1990s, a series of human rights cases emerged involving sociologists detained in Egypt and China that led to ASA’s engagement. In June 2000, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a Professor of Sociology at American University in Cairo who holds both Egyptian and American citizenship, was arrested with colleagues from the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies on charges widely believed to be politically motivated. Also, Li Shaomin, a PhD in demography from Princeton and a Professor of Business at the City University of Hong Kong, and Gao Zhan, a PhD from Syracuse University and a researcher studying Chinese women students, were arrested in China in early 2001. ASA raised a strong voice in protest in these cases. (Li Shaomin and Gao Zhan were released by the summer of 2001; Saad Eddin Ibrahim was released in December 2002 and acquitted in March 2003.)
In a unanimous resolution, ASA Council also called upon the U.S. government to strengthen its resolve to protect the safety and well-being of scholars engaged in scientific research in countries where basic freedoms do not exist, and to speak out assertively in support of academic freedom:
The ASA calls upon the State Department to go beyond merely working behind the scenes to secure the release and departure of social scientists once they are jailed. It is imperative that the State Department protects foreign-born scientists who are naturalized citizens or permanent U.S. residents with the same vigor it would apply on behalf of U.S.-born citizens; that it asserts and defends the values of free scientific investigation of human society, both for its intrinsic worth and for its ultimately positive consequences for the nations under study; that it does not stand passively by while academic freedoms are systematically repressed abroad, and that it must not itself act to curb research and thereby become a tacit participant in repressing those freedoms. (ASA homepage) ASA President Douglas S. Massey, Vice-President Richard D. Alba, and Council Member Craig J. Calhoun, who is also President of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), issued a joint statement which noted that the ASA is “very concerned that sociologists are most at risk because the issues they study inevitably touch on the distribution of power and resources in society and the methods they use frequently involve contact with ordinary citizens, as in surveys or observational studies.” (ASA Press Release, August 19, 2001)
The ASA Archiving Project
The preservation of sociology’s history has been a topic of discussion for decades. Stephen Turner summarized some of these issues in a May 1991 Footnotes article on “Salvaging Sociology’s Past,” in which he described concrete steps taken by ASA to preserve the history of the Association.
In 1983, ASA donated its records to the Library of Congress, where some 57,900 ASA administrative records and documents from 1931 to 1986 are part of the Manuscript Division Materials of the James Madison Building of the Library. In 1989, supported by a grant from the Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline, Michael R. Hill and Mary Jo Deegan conducted an inventory of the materials and prepared a “finding aid” based on their assessment of the contents. As Turner notes in the 1991 article, this archive at the Library of Congress, while substantial, is still only a small part of the potentially large body of information that exists on the history of sociology during the 20th century.
ASA Council turned its attention to exploring other approaches for preserving records from the Executive Office, when the Library of Congress informed ASA in 1992 that it would no longer accept the ASA archives. From 1989 to 1993, Council reviewed various proposals for archiving projects, and reached a consensus that Pennsylvania State University’s offer should be further explored.
Further negotiations were pursued with Penn State while the Committee on Archives worked to establish guidelines for what should be preserved and archived, to define criteria for classification of materials as “restricted” and “non-restricted,” to work out procedures for transmission of materials to the archive, and in general, to define specifications to ensure the integrity and security of the ASA archive. The Committee on Archives during this time was co-chaired by Stephen Turner and Lynne Zucker, and also consisted of John M. Goering, Sydney Halpern, Michael Hill, John Stanfield, and Executive Officer Felice Levine.
In September 1997, ASA signed the contract with Penn State to create the ASA archive that affirms “a common commitment to establish, maintain, and provide access to the ASA records, documents, and materials for research and investigation by current and future generations.” ( Footnotes , November 1997:1) State-of-the-art methods were to be used to maintain and provide access to documents. The final agreement also provided for the “appointment of an ASA Archives Advisory Committee, to be named by Penn State and ASA, to make recommendations regarding the ASA archives and its operations. This Advisory Committee would include potential scholarly users.” (Council Minutes, August 12, 1997)
The American Sociological Association Archives were dedicated on February 28, 1998 in a one day symposium focusing on use of archives for scholarly research and on the importance of Jessie Bernard in Sociology.
