Representation in professional organizations

Updated: 7:10pm, 6/11/2019

Last week, the APA announced the results of its most recent elections. I think everyone elected is highly qualified and deserving of their new positions, and I congratulate them all wholeheartedly. Nevertheless, I would like to make a modest suggestion to the APA and other professional organizations about representation. To be clear in advance, the suggestion I will offer is not intended as a criticism. I appreciate what the APA does, and have benefited from it tremendously as a member. Further, a voluntary association, I think the APA is probably well within its moral rights to represent its members in the way it currently does and traditionally has. Rather, I merely want to make the positive suggestion that it might be good for the APA, the profession as a whole, and many of its members for it--and other professional organizations like it--to pay additional attention to some issues concerning representation. Allow me to explain.

Upon receiving the notification of the APA's election results, I quite naturally looked at who was elected. I was in turn pleasantly surprised that a number of people I voted for were elected--which made me happy, both for them and for the profession. However, I then noticed something interesting: that of the nineteen people elected, 18 are from research universities (the lone exception being Rebecca Copenhaver from Lewis and Clark College). Because I found this striking, I looked at the APA's Board of Officers page to see what the composition of its Board has been. When I went down the list of 26 people listed, I found that 23 officers work at research universities. Of the remaining three officers, two--Rebecca Copenhaver and Jeffrey S. Dunn--work at liberal arts universities, and the third (Matthew O'Brien) has a non-academic affiliation. In other words, across both pages I found that 41 of 45 the APA's officers, or 91.1%, are from research universities.

While I understand that research plays a central role in the discipline, this strikes me as potentially a missed opportunity in several respects.

First, as someone who works at a liberal arts university, my sense is that philosophers at institutions like mine face a distinct set of challenges--many having to do with pressures in higher education to marginalize the humanities, major and program closures, increased administrative and assessment burdens on top of high teaching loads, adjunct dependence, and so on (NB: my university is actually quite healthy - it is just not lost on me that many institutions that are struggling with the above issues are institutions broadly like mine). My sense is that if we want to preserve the discipline of philosophy and have it flourish in the decades to come, it may be very important for professional organizations like the APA to be sensitive to these unique challenges, in ways that (I think) only representatives from such institutions may be well-placed to understand. By a similar token, I think it would probably make a great deal of sense to not only have ample representation by faculty from liberal arts universities, but also from community colleges--as faculty in those environments almost certainly have professional challenges of their own that professional organizations might help with.

Second, I think that expanding representation in the boards of professional organizations may help faculty from non-research universities feel more included and valued in the profession--and, by extension, graduate students and job-marketeers seeking such jobs. For my part, I have heard on multiple occasions of how faculty from "teaching schools" can feel left out or marginalized in the profession--ranging from how they feel treated at conferences (viz. "People just ignore me when they see my nametag") to how the vast majority of prestigious prizes in the profession are for research rather than for teaching or service, to grad students being told by faculty in their grad programs that jobs at teaching schools are undesirable, and so on. I think, in other words, that more representation from faculty at different kinds of programs might help our discipline become less hierarchical, demonstrating more to its diverse membership that what we all do is valuable (and valued).

Finally, I'd humbly suggest that it might be good to seek out and include philosophy PhDs who have left academia for positions on the board--philosophers who are still interested in the profession, but who (for whatever reason) have pursued 'alt-ac' careers. I think this might help the APA and other organizations develop greater networks outside of academic for philosophers to flourish in.

Update: and lest I forget (and I am sorry I did!), I think it might also be very good for the profession to pursue greater representation for contingent faculty (adjuncts and other non-tenure track faculty) in professional organizations.

Anyway, these are just some constructive thoughts. Again, they are not meant at criticism--and I hope they are not taken that way, as again I appreciate what everyone at the APA and other organizations do. My aims in making these suggestions are purely positive: as expressing some thoughts on how we might strengthen our profession, and professional organizations, moving forward. What do you all think?

Comments

[Amanda]

I agree about the representation - and would go further and say that non-TT and adjuncts should have some representation as well.

I want to also note that when people talk about "teaching schools," most seem to think of private liberal arts universities. But a group that is just as large, if not larger, are regional state universities. These are universities where faculty typically teach a 4/4, and tenure decisions are skewed heavily toward teaching and service. These universities often have a couple of PhD programs in things like nursing and education, and maybe even a couple of research focused departments. Yet the vast majority of departments are are teaching focused. Schools like these have unique needs, but they probably have more in common with liberal arts schools than R1's. These schools typically come from a state that has 1 or 2 state run research universities, and maybe or maybe not some r1 private universities. The teaching state universities might feel like the disreputable family member that gets unfairly compared to their state R1 siblings.

Back to representation: it seems plausible that on reason so many grad students have confused views about the market, about what it is like to be a professional philosopher, etc -have a lot to do with who holds power in the profession: i.e. TT faculty at research schools, which are a small minority of those making a living as professional philosophers.

That said, were a decent number of non-R1 faculty running? I have no idea. But in general the status quo often stays in power because they are rarely challenged. If they were challenged, then it seems as though philosophers might be falling prey to voting patterns similar in general election politics: i.e. voting according to name recognition.

[Marcus Arvan]

Hi Amanda: thanks for chiming in. I totally agree! I added in a note about representation for non-TT faculty a little earlier this evening.

[Mr Pessimist]

A barrier to this is the fact that an APA membership is not worth it for most of us NTT folks. I have been a full-time (see: not terribly paid) NTT faculty member since receiving my PhD. I stopped paying for an APA membership around the time I stopped being a grad student for several reasons. First, I never had much luck getting my papers accepted to the APA conferences anyways. Second, the APA has shown relatively little interest in the concerns and issues that affect people like me (NTT and other precarious faculty, as well as job seekers more generally). Third, the cost of an APA membership is not insignificant to me. I know that they have levels of dues based on income, but if I were honest about how much I make per year, then it would still be too expensive.

I understand that this is a chicken-egg problem: how can NTT faculty be represented in APA leadership until they're willing to pay to be APA members and be more active at the APA? Of course, it won't happen. Furthermore, I am pessimistic that the organization will ever care about us, no matter how active we are in the APA. Most TT and well-placed people in the profession (Marcus excluded) do not care about us as a group at all. So I do not think it will ever be worth it for people like me to pay for a membership or to invest time in an organization that does not care about our interests (unless, of course, you enjoy conferences *shudder*).

My alternative suggestion is to invest your time, energy, and money in your union, or in forming a union with other NTT faculty at your institution. The unions I have been a part of have been the only organizations that have put themselves on the line for my interests, and the interests of those like me.