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Post by asatransparency on Apr 7, 2011 18:39:40 GMT -5
Sociologists, please consider if you would like to sign the following petition that calls for more transparency in ASA finances given the proposed dues increase. asatransparency.org/ |
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Post by sigh on Apr 7, 2011 22:49:22 GMT -5
I don't mean to bash the poster here, at all. But I've been following this thing on the blogs and I think that it's a whole lot of BS, with a little bit of substance. The faculty who are b*tching about this are at awfully nice schools (e.g., Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Stanford, UNC-Chapel Hill), and I have a good, strong feeling that their faculty and development funds are pretty flush. It's not as if they pay dues out of pocket. I'm not losing any sleep over them. For the rest of us who don't have much money, if you don't want to pay high dues go ahead and lie about your income. It's not like anyone checks your income, folks. (I do think that the job bank is a bit of a scam, but that's the market I suppose.)
What do these people think that the ASA is doing? Hoarding the cash for the tables in Vegas? It's a member-run organization. If you don't like it, run for office or contact the Exec Board. I think that the co-signers are embarrassing themselves.
Why not focus on something like getting these old faculty who should have retired years ago to stop rebuilding their 401ks and open up some jobs already!
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Post by thanks but on Apr 8, 2011 8:07:17 GMT -5
Thanks for posting this as I was unaware of the debate. After doing some reading into it, I decided not to sign the petition.
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Post by i hope on Apr 8, 2011 8:15:14 GMT -5
i hope to see some of those people run for asa office next year.
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yep
New Member
Posts: 21
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Post by yep on Apr 8, 2011 8:30:11 GMT -5
I'll tell you what we could use more transparency about, and that's paper selection. I don't know if anyone else has gone to academy of management, but they do blind peer review on all papers (x3) first, before the panels even get to select the papers. That makes it a much better forum for getting comments on a paper, even if you don't get a slot. (Let's just say that I haven't so far been impressed with the roundtable presentations - nobody shows up except the presenters, and having done them before, I absolutely understand why...) I'm not saying that ASA needs to have the "publication quality" requirement of work that is typical for AOM, but it certainly makes the experience more useful and helps with student professionalization more quickly.
Not to mention that I'm sick of organizing sessions and having famous (jerk) professors emailing me personally (!) to ask to keep an eye out for their paper -- or more commonly, their paper that's coauthored with their current favorite student on the job market. Totally not cool, but that kind of thing is absolutely going on all the time...
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Post by dochuh on Apr 8, 2011 9:35:54 GMT -5
What do these people think that the ASA is doing? Hoarding the cash for the tables in Vegas? It's a member-run organization. If you don't like it, run for office or contact the Exec Board. I think that the co-signers are embarrassing themselves. Why not focus on something like getting these old faculty who should have retired years ago to stop rebuilding their 401ks and open up some jobs already! Why is it embarrassing to ask for greater transparency? Given that ASA *is* a member-run organization, members shouldn't even have to ask for transparency. You might find transparency trivial, but that doesn't make it so. And asking for an explanation of the dues increase is well within the bounds of run-of-the-mill membership activity. |
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Post by poisonivy on Apr 8, 2011 10:50:19 GMT -5
Asking for financial transparency and accessibility is definitely a reasonable request from the membership that funds an organization.
When the ASA uses an irrelevant spiel on progressive taxation to convince the membership to raise dues, this is discomfiting (at best, this was ignorant on the bureaucracy's part, more likely they were trying to hoodwink members). Yes, some of the signatories have research accounts, but most do not (particularly grad students and underemployed sociologists). Lower dues will allow for more participation in the ASA; those with research accounts can use their funds to do more research, or perhaps pay for a student to go, and in general more price-sensitive students will be able to afford to attend. As someone noted, Paul Krugman would pay less in dues to the AEA than a low-income sociologist would pay under the ASA's proposal.
Further, there is the issue of why the ASA needs to raise dues and collect more revenue, when it's already much more expensive than other similar professional associations. Do we *really* want to incur the costs an expensive condo in DC, a large bureaucracy and an executive director making over $200K? That's something for the membership to decide, and having easily accessible and transparent information will allow the entire membership to make a better decision.
I frankly can't understand why anybody wouldn't be militantly for that kind of accessibility and transparency.
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Post by what on Apr 8, 2011 11:35:33 GMT -5
For the rest of us who don't have much money, if you don't want to pay high dues go ahead and lie about your income. It's not like anyone checks your income, folks. Wait... so someone posted a message regarding the fee increase and a need for greater transparency, and your argument is that the increase doesn't matter because you can lie about your income? I don't know enough about why the increase is (or is not) needed to comment about it. But I am pretty sure that taking the approach of "the fee increase doesn't matter because you can lie about your income" doesn't address the issue of whether more transparency is needed. |
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Post by lumpen on Apr 8, 2011 18:41:54 GMT -5
Yes, some of the signatories have research accounts, but most do not (particularly grad students and underemployed sociologists). There may be unemployed sociologists, but a sociologist with a job of any sort is hardly underemployed. |
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Post by sigh twice on Apr 9, 2011 6:33:42 GMT -5
I'm not against transparency, and I'm not saying that this isn't an issue. I'm just saying that I think that a petition and all this blogging is a bit like Sonny Wortzik yelling 'Attica! Attica!' The ASA isn't Scott Walker, and these bloggers are acting out as if there's some OUTRAGE. And perhaps trying to self-inflate their importance by being so procedural.
Meanwhile, coming on this board and posting about this to a bunch of people who are likely to not have a job (that is why we're here, right?) is rich. I don't know about anyone else, but I'd LOVE to have the HUGE PROBLEM of having to pay these dues from my poor Vanderbilt* research and development account. I'm not saying that the she's a thief for having a job, but c'mon: Shut up and pay your dues, and if you don't like it get on the committee and change things. Or just go to a committee meeting. Dollars to doughnuts none of these people ever showed up to a business meeting at the ASA.
*I'm picking the first signatory's home institution, and perhaps incorrectly guessing that because she's first, she's is the author of the petition.
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Post by sigh three times on Apr 9, 2011 6:40:52 GMT -5
For the rest of us who don't have much money, if you don't want to pay high dues go ahead and lie about your income. It's not like anyone checks your income, folks. Wait... so someone posted a message regarding the fee increase and a need for greater transparency, and your argument is that the increase doesn't matter because you can lie about your income? I don't know enough about why the increase is (or is not) needed to comment about it. But I am pretty sure that taking the approach of "the fee increase doesn't matter because you can lie about your income" doesn't address the issue of whether more transparency is needed. No, I'm not saying that lying is the way out of this, or that it solves it. I was trying to say that for those of us who aren't set in a nice job--which is why this board exists, I think--it's not like we have to join the ranks of the clearly outraged. AND I would think that as a graduate student, or a junior scholar looking for a job, I would *not* want to hire someone who would blog on and on about this sort of thing when there is a clear path to changing the fee structure: go to committee meetings. I mean, don't you worry that it's going to make you look like the kind of colleague who would rather b*tch on a blog post than someone who would come to a faculty meeting? |
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Post by just curious on Apr 9, 2011 8:14:22 GMT -5
Wait... so someone posted a message regarding the fee increase and a need for greater transparency, and your argument is that the increase doesn't matter because you can lie about your income? I don't know enough about why the increase is (or is not) needed to comment about it. But I am pretty sure that taking the approach of "the fee increase doesn't matter because you can lie about your income" doesn't address the issue of whether more transparency is needed. No, I'm not saying that lying is the way out of this, or that it solves it. I was trying to say that for those of us who aren't set in a nice job--which is why this board exists, I think--it's not like we have to join the ranks of the clearly outraged. AND I would think that as a graduate student, or a junior scholar looking for a job, I would *not* want to hire someone who would blog on and on about this sort of thing when there is a clear path to changing the fee structure: go to committee meetings. I mean, don't you worry that it's going to make you look like the kind of colleague who would rather b*tch on a blog post than someone who would come to a faculty meeting? I'm curious why you don't think a petition, especially one that is articulate, respectful in tone, and lists its signers openly, isn't an appropriate way to request more information. |
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Post by sigh4 on Apr 9, 2011 9:18:12 GMT -5
Oh, it's fine. I just think that it's a little too self-aggrandizy ('articulate' and 'respectful in tone'?), and that coming over here to cull names is a bit rich. Whatever.
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Post by goodgracious on Apr 9, 2011 9:38:08 GMT -5
Ten zillion bucks says nobody who signed that petition thought to email ASA and ask for more information before launching a petition.
(I'm all for more transparency here, but in my experience ASA is careful with their funds and I'm sure they're hurting, losing funds from all angles just like everybody else right now.)
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Post by anon27 on Apr 9, 2011 17:05:49 GMT -5
I have been following this on the blogs as well, and I think the people who initiated this petition make an excellent point--why should members pay more for ASA than comparable member organizations when we appear to get less out of the organization? And why can't the budget be transparent? Even if professors are paying out of research budgets, that is money that can be used for other things. Everyone is feeling an economic pinch right now, so it's fair to ask why we have to pay more. Also, some of those highly ranked institutions you have mentioned do not allow profs to pay for their membership fees out of their research money. It is not always the case that profs can avoid paying these fees themselves. And postdocs pay the same as professors, but don't make all that much more than grad students.
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