Chapter 3
Moving Forward at Century’s End: ASA at 2002–2004
1. BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
On the eve of its Centennial year, the American Sociological Association is a strong and healthy organization, well poised to serve its membership, the profession, and the discipline of sociology into the 21st century. Reflecting on the substantial contributions of ASA over its 100-year history, and at the same time looking forward, Executive Officer Hillsman observed recently that the ASA’s “operational efficiency, productivity, and program quality (e.g., its publications, annual meetings, academic alliances, minority affairs, research on the profession, policy and media relations efforts), all contribute to the Association’s future prospects to continue as the premier representative of professional and academic sociology in the United States.“ (Footnotes , February 2005)
New challenges to the nation, the profession, and the ASA have emerged over the past several years. In this context, from 2002 to 2004, the Association expanded its services, its membership, section activities and membership, and maintained subscriptions to journals and other institutional services at a healthy level. This period culminated in a record-breaking attendance at the 2004 Annual Meeting. The Association addressed a range of challenging science policy issues, including ASA’s role as a publisher of scientific journals. The ASA leadership continued to think creatively on how to raise the visibility and relevance of ASA and sociology, to enhance and streamline Association services and operations, and to find new ways to link sociology’s contribution to the public good. The Association also launched a program of planning and activities leading to the commemoration of its Centennial in 2005.
Context and Issues
A defining issue for the nation in 2002 was the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on America on September 11, 2001. In late 2001 and throughout 2002, sociologists in general, as well as the Association through its leadership, turned their attention to how they could contribute knowledge and expertise to addressing the problem of terrorism. The ASA Executive Office facilitated this process in various ways, including by disseminating relevant materials and resources and referring sociological experts on key issues to public discussions. The opening Plenary Session of the 2002 ASA Annual Meeting, “The Challenge of September 11: The Social Dimensions of
Terrorism,” explored the effects of terrorism from religious and cultural perspectives, and a large number of sessions on the 2002 Annual Meeting Program included discussions on other aspects of this issue.
The Association also reacted to policies enacted by the U.S. Government as part of its response to the “Global War on Terror.” In January 2002, ASA Council passed a resolution calling for certain measures to ensure public access to data sets that were being removed or restricted by the federal government in the months following the terrorist attacks. Also, an ASA member-initiated resolution against the U.S. invasion of Iraq was approved overwhelmingly by the membership in the spring 2003 ballot.
The ASA Council turned its attention to other national disciplinary concerns as well. Under the leadership of ASA President William Bielby, the ASA continued to focus on the issue of collecting data on race categories. Council decided unanimously to urge California voters to reject Proposition 54, which would have forbidden public agencies from collecting data on the race, ethnicity, and national origin of its citizens. Another member-initiated resolution on opposition to a U.S. Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriages was supported by ASA Council and by the vote of the membership in the spring of 2004. In 2003 and 2004, ASA also joined with other professional societies in two amicus briefs deemed vital to sociology and the Association: the ASA brief in the Michigan affirmative action case (2003), and the JSTOR brief in Faulkner v. National Geographic Society , a case with important implications for ASA as a scholarly publisher.
The 2004 Annual Meeting, which featured the theme of “Public Sociologies,” was the culmination of a year-long effort by President Michael Burawoy to raise professional and public awareness of “sociologies that transcend the academy and engage wider audiences. Our potential publics are multiple, ranging from media audiences to policy makers, from think tanks to NGOs, from silenced minorities to social movements. Teaching is central to public sociology: students are our first public for they carry sociology into all walks of life…” (ASA homepage). Held in San Francisco, the 2004 Annual Meeting was the best-attended meeting in the Association’s history, with overflowing crowds at the many plenary and regular sessions. President Burawoy worked extensively at outreach before the meeting. He visited regional and aligned sociological association meetings to present information about the topic of the meeting and its special events and programs, and secured a grant to bring to the meeting public sociologists, public intellectuals, and activists from developing countries and the former Soviet Union.
Leadership Changes
The Association marked an important transition in 2002: A new period in ASA’s history began with the appointment of Sally T. Hillsman as ASA Executive Officer effective May 15, 2002 to succeed Felice J. Levine. Hillsman, with specialties in crime and justice, came to ASA from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), U.S. Department of Justice, where she had served as Deputy Director from 1996 to 2002.
Executive Officer Hillsman serves the Association at a unique and special time. As Hillsman noted in her January 2005 column in Footnotes , “It is a once-in-a-century privilege to be the ASA Executive in office at an historic moment—the 100th anniversary of this organization.” Centennial events will draw attention to past accomplishments, and as Hillsman noted, “the ASA has helped build and support a membership and a discipline that has contributed richly to our society and our world through its scholarship and in intellectual collaboration (and creative tension) with sister disciplines’ studying behavior, culture, and society through the economic, political, psychological, cognitive, and natural sciences.” (Footnotes , January 2005:2) As the Association moves into its Centennial year in 2005, Executive Officer Hillsman is dedicated to working with the membership and the ASA leadership in creating a memorable commemoration of this historic event.
Executive Officer Hillsman’s background in research and administration has been demonstrated on pressing issues of electronic publishing, a new ASA website, ethics, Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), and social science funding. Building on achievements in the Executive Office of the past twenty years, she has undertaken a process of refining administrative and programmatic functions that have evolved over the years into a structure of Executive Office departments to improve service and accountability. While these efforts are still ongoing, progress on key fronts indicates continued growth and professionalization of services offered by the Association to its membership.
In collaboration with the science policy community, Executive Officer Hillsman is working to ensure that important science issues are firmly on the nation’s agenda. Hillsman brings sociology’s perspective to key science issues by implementing policies of the ASA Council on vital science issues, and by participating in a range of joint efforts with the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA) and other learned societies on such matters. These initiatives educate and inform policy makers on the relevance and contributions of the social sciences to national policy issues (e.g., on terrorism and disasters). Collaborative efforts by Executive Officer Hillsman and leaders of other scientific and professional societies have also challenged policies and practices of the U.S. government, which have adversely affected (or have the potential of doing so) the integrity of scientific processes.
A change in Association leadership also took place in 2004, when Arne L. Kalleberg who served as Secretary of the Association from 2001 to 2004, was succeeded by Franklin D. Wilson who will serve as Secretary from 2005 to 2007. Kalleberg’s period as Secretary was characterized by his effective leadership in ensuring a smooth transition in the Association’s changes in Executive Officers and the Association’s development of a new strategy for investing its assets.
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