3. GOVERNANCE: STRUCTURAL CHANGES

Sections

Memberships in ASA sections were 21,386 at the end of the 2004 Membership Year—the highest number ever (see Appendix 14). In the first meeting of the 2005 Council, Past President Michael Burawoy commented that Sections are “one of the most wonderful things about the ASA and urged Council to do nothing to tamper with the current Section system. He noted that some Sections would never become large entities, but they were nonetheless vibrant groups that contributed to the value of the ASA.” (Council Minutes, August 18, 2004)

How Council should handle situations when a section membership falls below the required 300-member level continued to be a subject of discussion. The Committee on Sections (COS) considered various options for dealing with this issue. At the Council Meeting on August 20, 2002, Lynn Smith-Lovin speaking for COS, reported that as an alternative to small sections, “the committee asked Council to consider the formation of ‘interest groups’. Interest groups may not have enough people to constitute an official section, or necessarily want the organizational costs and benefits of full section status, but would like to have a session on the program at annual meetings, and perhaps a room to hold a business meeting.” Council endorsed the idea in principle but asked the Executive Office to assess the long-term implications of such a change. In January 2003, Council voted not to move forward with an “interest group” structure because of both policy and administrative concerns with its feasibility.

Over the past several years, three sections attained full section status: Labor and Labor Movements (2002), Animals and Society (2002), and Ethnomethodology and Conversational Analysis (2004). On the recommendation of the Committee on Sections, in August 2004, Council voted to approve a new Section-in-Formation on Evolution and Sociology (see Appendix 17). On the recommendation of the Committee on Sections, Council also voted to increase the maximum number of awards a section may present each year to five single-category awards per year.

Task Forces and Committees

Council created three new task forces in February 2003: Task Force on the Assessment of the Undergraduate Major, Task Force to Revise the ASA Areas of Specialty, and the Task Force on Bridges to the Real World (that merged with the Task Force on the Institutionalization of Public Sociology, created in January 2004).

Most of the task forces appointed since 1999 (after the reorganization of the ASA Committee structure in 1998 and 1999) completed their work from 2001 to 2004 and submitted final reports (see Appendices 16 and 24). The Task Force on Opportunities Beyond Graduate Education: Post Doctoral Training and Career Trajectories (established in February 2001) was disbanded with no report. The three Task Forces established in February 2003 (and 2004) remain active.

Status Committees

When the ASA committee structure was reorganized, Council also authorized four committees on the status of the following groups in sociology: persons with disabilities; lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people; racial and ethnic minorities; and women. Council mandated that the work of these status committees be reviewed “in five years to evaluate how they fit in relation to the Association’s goals in these areas.” (Council Minutes, February 1999)

The Committee on the Status of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Persons in Sociology presented an 85-page Report to Council in August 2002 of its findings on major aspects of the professional experience of LGBT people in the discipline. The Committee on the Status of Women in Sociology, presented an extensive preliminary draft of its Report in 2003, and a final Report on August 17, 2004. Members of Council discussed favorably the work of these two committees; Council voted unanimously to extend their work for an additional five years, and requested their Reports be made available on the ASA’s homepage.

The Committee on the Status of Persons with Disabilities in Sociology requested an extension to complete its report, as did the Committee on the Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in Sociology. Both will submit final reports to Council in February 2005.