Just to add a few thoughts to this important discussion, as a recent
member of the National Board (as chair of the LPR committee for 4
years, which awards the APA prizes):

It's wonderful that things are finally coming together with the new
Exec Director and the work of the terrific feminists on the current
board! I think it's also important to acknowledge the previous efforts
of many division presidents and members of the board (e.g., chairs of
CSW) over many years towards the goal of greater diversity and
inclusiveness--e.g., Virginia Held, Anita Silvers, Eve Kittay, among
many others.

The structure of some of the national meetings remains a bit
problematic for inclusiveness, in my opinion, though it's not entirely
clear what to do about it.  Although the contributed papers for the
Eastern have been anonymously refereed at least since 1984 (when I had
the opportunity to chair the program committee), the limitation on the
number of panels is a drawback for wide participation, though on the
other side, there is already a lack of sufficient attendance at many
of the sessions. In the 80s, a committee I was on for increasing
diversity and inclusiveness considered the possibility of integrating
the group meetings into the program. Political science, for example,
has a meeting where nearly all the panels are proposed by their 60 or
so organized sections.  (Of course, their single annual meeting draws
6K attendees, so it's not comparable in many ways.)  The compromise
was to list the groups together with the main program (instead of in a
separate section afterwards), and also to create the advisory
committee to the program committee (with appointees from various
subfields of the profession), with the aim of promoting diversity
(also in terms of philosophical approaches). I think attention could
be given to further changes in the structure of the meetings which
could work to enhance inclusiveness.

All best,
Carol

Carol C. Gould
Distinguished Professor, Hunter College and the Doctoral Programs in
Philosophy and Political Science, The Graduate Center, CUNY
Editor, Journal of Social Philosophy
www.carolcgould.com



On Sun, Mar 16, 2014 at 2:05 PM, Sally Haslanger <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear all:
> I have followed the threads about the APA with interest, being the current
> President of the Eastern Division. I have been a harsh critic of the APA for
> many years.  There are still many problems with the organization. However,
> there have been important changes in past three years, many of them due to
> the hard work of Amy Ferrer, the new Executive Director.  I  think it might
> be worth mentioning a few things about the APA that haven't been noted in
> the threads so far:
>
> 1) To my knowledge, papers submitted to APA conferences in all divisions are
> refereed anonymously.  The Pacific APA has been collecting demographic data
> for a few years.  This year the Eastern APA will be following suit.  There
> is data on the attendance, etc. regarding the Pacific meetings that has been
> analyzed in Molly Paxton's report linked here:
> http://www.apaonline.org/members/group_content_view.asp?group=110424&id=210635
> It is definitely worth reading.  Also, the number of papers submitted to APA
> conferences has increased dramatically in the past few years, putting a huge
> burden on the program committees.
>
> 2) The APA dues and meeting costs do not even adequately cover what it costs
> to run the APA.  Until fairly recently, the APA was running in the red, and
> this wasn't due to administrative "bloat," I can assure you.  Other academic
> professional organizations charge even higher fees for both dues and
> conferences.  (See also (4) below for reasons why the APA desperately needs
> MORE money.)
>
> 3) The APA is a professional organization the performs many services that
> aren't obvious to all members.  The current National Board and Executive
> Director are working hard to find ways to provide more and better services
> to members.  It might be worth looking at the list of committees to see the
> sort of work that is being done and has been done for decades:
> http://www.apaonline.org/members/group_select.asp?type=11963
> I can assure you that there are individual's whose professional rights being
> violated and the APA is doing work to protect them.  You may not need this
> service, but it is the sort of service that only a professional organization
> can provide.
>
> 4)  I strongly believe that there is a role for the APA to have policies at
> a national level that guide and protect is members, and to monitor adherence
> to the policies.  The APA Task Force on Sexual Harassment has been very
> important in analyzing and understanding the range of the problems in the
> field; the Site Visit Program is an APA supported program that is an
> important tool for making change.  These programs could be improved and more
> could be done, but these sorts of efforts would not be possible without the
> APA.  There is currently an APA Task Force on Diversity (led by Liz
> Anderson) that is working hard to figure out how to promote diversity and
> inclusion.  One major issue is actually LACK of funds to support diversity
> efforts.  There are ways to make contributions to diversity efforts
> specifically here:
> http://www.apaonline.org/donations/
> I have put out information on this fund and called for donations to many
> lists and I'm profoundly disappointed by the lack of response.  PIKSI is
> going to do a crowdsourced funding effort and will open it soon to
> contributions.  It may be that people don't trust the APA, but I don't
> believe that giving up on it is the best strategy.  We need MORE activism,
> more organization, more funding to achieve what we need to achieve, and
> investment not disinvestment is going to make the difference.
>
> 5) Having been on the APA National Board for 2 years now, I can say that
> everyone on the board and in the Executive office are very open to input
> from the membership.  It has been my experience, however, that people expect
> the APA to accomplish great things, but aren't willing to step up to do the
> work.  The APA is just us.  The National Board is a board of philosophers
> who have full-time jobs.  Many of us are working hard to improve the
> conditions for women and minorities in philosophy, but we this is on top of
> everything else we do.  How was the APA Task Force on Sexual Harassment
> formed?  There was a proposal for such a Task Force submitted to the APA.
> How was the Site Visit Program created?  Three of us put together a detailed
> proposal after having investigated other similar programs in other
> disciplines.  How was PIKSI formed?  A group of individuals envisioned it
> and submitted a proposal to the APA and have sustained it over the years.
>
> I believe that critique is different from complaint.   Active resistance is
> different from disinvestment.  Change requires a LOT of hard work.  We're
> never going to change the profession without people who step up and
> ORGANIZE.  Personally, I don't care whether people organize through the APA
> or not - I have and continue to organize in the profession independently of
> the APA.  But if you think something needs to be done, please please
> organize to make it happen, don't expect others to do the work that's
> needed.
>
> In solidarity, Sally
>
> --------------------------------------------------------
> Sally Haslanger
> Professor of Philosophy and Women's and Gender Studies
> Massachusetts Institute of Technology
> http://sallyhaslanger.weebly.com
> --------------------------------------------------------
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