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Students Committee
Students’ Committee Annual Report September 2002
The Students’ Committee continued to formalize and expand its activities over the past year. We are pleased that the Association has created a Task Force on Graduate Education, and look forward to supporting and being involved in the work of that group in the coming years.
The Committee extends its thanks to outgoing members: Raúl Coronado, Eve Meltzer, Deirdre Murphy, and co-chair Adam Golub. In September, returning co-chair Colin Johnson resigned. With the approval of John Stephens, Stephen Sumida and the Executive Committee, Anne Martínez replaced him as interim chair. At this time, the Committee would like to nominate Laura Barraclough and Amy Nathan as co-chairs, to work closely with Anne in the coming months.
1. Ongoing Projects
1.1 Student Access to the Annual Meeting
Based on the concerns we expressed in our Midyear report, John Stephens spoke with representatives from Conferon about hotel rates and availability for students attending the annual conference. We will continue to monitor student hotel issues throughout the fall and report difficulties to the Conferon representative. We are pleased the Local Arrangements Committee has secured an overflow sight, but remain concerned that hotel rates make attending the conference prohibitive for some students. We are grateful to the continued generosity of ASA members in supporting the Baxter Travel Grants.
Roommate Connection Service
For the fifth consecutive year, the Students’ Committee will sponsor a Roommate Connection Service for the ASA Annual Meeting. In response to graduate students’ requests for help in minimizing the costs of attending conferences, the committee will work to connect conference attendees looking to share a room.
1.2 Fundraising
For the sixth consecutive year, the Students’ Committee will host a Hospitality Lounge for students at the Annual Meeting. The Hospitality Lounge has served as a conference space where graduate students can enjoy a free continental breakfast as they meet with one another. In addition to soliciting funds from American, Asian American, Chicano/Latino and Native American Studies programs and departments we are targeting African American studies programs to support the Hospitality Lounge at the Houston meeting. Our goal in expanding our outreach is not only for financial reasons - we are hoping to attract more scholars from these departments and programs to the ASA Annual Meeting.
The Hospitality Lounge is a popular conference event among graduate students. It is one of the few social spaces open to all students at the annual meeting. Last year, over 100 students visited the hospitality lounge to meet with other students and provide ideas and suggestions to the Students’ Committee. During the hours of its operation, the Hospitality Lounge is staffed by members of the Students’ Committee who are available to talk with students about issues that are important to them. Between the questionnaires we collect and the professional academic conversations it fosters, the Hospitality Lounge provides a critical opportunity for the Committee as we work to engage the graduate students we represent.
The Students’ Committee gratefully acknowledges contributors for the 2002 Hospitality Lounge:
American Studies Programs and Departments
Bowling Green State University
College of William and Mary
Emory University
Harvard University
Northwestern University
Purdue University
Smith College
Tufts University
University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
University of Hawai’i, Manoa
University of Iowa
University of Maryland, College Park
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
University of New Mexico
University of Texas, Austin
University of Virginia
Vanderbilt University
Other Programs and Departments
Asian American Studies, Claremont Colleges
Black Studies, College of William and Mary
American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern California
Individuals
Paul Croce, Stetson University
Roy Doi, University of California, Davis
Shirley Teresa Wajda, Kent State University
Rafia Zafar, Washington University
1.3 Task Force on Graduate Education
The Students’ Committee is pleased that the Executive Committee and National Council are interested in the experience of graduate students in American Studies. We have contacted former ASA President George Sánchez to offer our support and desire to be involved with the Task Force on Graduate Education.
We are concerned that job options for American Studies graduates are limited. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of our American Studies training, we are concerned that we are not strong candidates for positions in traditional disciplines. Many traditional departments want candidates with degrees in their disciplines. However, due to the small number of American Studies jobs advertised each year, it is clear that we must apply for jobs in traditional disciplines, and so we find ourselves at a disadvantage. In addition, increasing numbers of American Studies graduates are working in non-academic positions. It is our hope that the Task Force will examine this issue, and consider recommendations to American Studies programs and departments concerning preparation for such jobs. We hope the Task Force will consider placement concerns in addition to programmatic, curricular, and other issues of the graduate experience.
Over the past few years, the Students’ Committee has worked to incorporate needs and issues of students of color into its on-going agenda. We hope the Task Force will consider strategies for the recruitment and retention of students of color to American Studies and Ethnic Studies programs and departments.
2. 2002 ASA Annual Meeting
The Students’ Committee is continuing to work in collaboration with other ASA committees in planning events for the Annual Meeting. At this year’s meeting, we are co-sponsoring a roundtable session, “American Studies in the Public Sphere,“ with the Committee on American Studies Programs. This session will bring together faculty, administrators and American Studies graduate students working outside of academia to discuss this increasingly important issue.
We will again sponsor “Academic Job Interviews in American Studies: A Demonstration Workshop.“ This popular session includes a mock interview with feedback for the candidate from American Studies and other faculty. Attendees will then be able to ask questions of the candidate and interviewers. This year’s session features a candidate for an African American Studies position.
In keeping with our desire to provide professional development opportunities for graduate students, our third session focuses on the publication process. “Getting Published: A Workshop for Graduate Students,“ features representatives from American Quarterly, the Journal of American History, American Art, Feminist Studies, and the Journal of Asian American Studies, as well as a speaker on the topic of electronic journals. These panelists were chosen so that the session would reflect the broad variety of journals to which American Studies and Ethnic Studies graduate students, as interdisciplinary scholars, might submit work.
The Students’ Committee is hosting its biannual Town Hall Meeting to get graduate students together for discussion with current ASA President, Stephen Sumida, and President-elect Amy Kaplan. We would like to provide support and feedback to the leadership of ASA in the coming years. The meeting will also be a more formal venue for graduate students to guide the Students’ Committee agenda in the coming years.
3. New Initiatives
3.1 Graduate Student Bill of Rights
Currently, members of the Students’ Committee are at work on a draft of a Graduate Student Bill of Rights that we hope to present at the Town Hall Meeting in November. We have examined a number of Bills of Rights from various institutions and organizations. Because institutional standards vary so widely, we feel that it is important for the ASA to take a leading role in defining a coherent set of “best practices” where academic, professional and institutional support of students in the field are concerned. While we understand that the ASA is not necessarily in a position to produce a document that is binding, we feel that it is incumbent upon the preeminent professional organization in the field to offer an outline of some basic student rights and responsibilities that, if granted, will help create a learning environment that is vibrant, intellectually responsible, professionally sound, and socially equitable.
We believe that a Graduate Student Bill of Rights that is endorsed by one of the United States’ leading learned societies will be an invaluable tool for both students who wish to work with administrators of their own programs and departments to improve their graduate school experience, as well as faculty administrators who wish to work with college and university governing bodies to improve the overall quality of life for students in their program. Several other professional organizations have already taken this step in their own fields, and numerous colleges and universities have acknowledged the importance of having a Student Bill of Rights by producing their own. The AAUP has also produced a Graduate Student Bill of Rights. We believe the ASA should follow suit by formulating and endorsing a Graduate Student Bill of Rights that can be used as a model by programs, departments, and institutions across the country.
3.2 Teacher Certification
At the 2001 ASA meeting in Washington, D.C. members of the Students’ Committee met with members of the Committee on Secondary Education to discuss the challenges that those who hold both graduate and undergraduate degrees in American studies face when trying to find employment in primary or secondary education. In many states, political pressure to improve poor academic performance by primary and secondary school students has resulted in the passage of certification requirements that are increasingly narrow and contemptuous of interdisciplinary training. Students who wish to pursue interdisciplinary courses of study sometimes elect not to when they learn that doing so will either complicate the certification process, or disqualify them entirely.
This is also an issue for those holding M.A.s or Ph.D.s in American Studies who would gladly teach in secondary schools, but find themselves unable to because the majority of their coursework is not classifiable in the strictly disciplinary language employed by many state certification authorities. This means that thousands of teaching jobs are unavailable to highly qualified, often unemployed, candidates. It also means that important scholarship being done in the field and across disciplines (especially interdisciplinary work on the social, historical and cultural achievements of communities of color) is often subtly excluded from primary and secondary school curricula. We feel that this is an issue of extreme importance; one that the ASA should address in its capacity as the leading professional organization in the field.
In collaboration with the Committee on Secondary Education, the Students Committee is planning to propose a session at the 2003 ASA meeting in Hartford that will bring together members of the ASA community to develop a plan of action to address this problem. In addition, members of the Student’s Committee and other interested persons will raise awareness about the issue at the regional level through presentations at ASA regional meetings, discussing the issue with ASA regional leaders, and utilizing ASA regional newsletters. Our hope is to begin a process that will yield specific actions by the ASA in the 2003-2004 academic year. We invite suggestions and assistance from the National Council.
Respectfully submitted by the Students’ Committee, 2002-2003
Laura Barraclough, University of Southern California, Co-Chair
Themis Chronopoulos, Brown University
Colin Johnson, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Anne Martínez, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Student Councilor and Interim Co-Chair
Amy Nathan, University of Texas, Austin, Co-Chair
Jessica Nathanson, State University of New York, Buffalo
Rob Nelson, Rutgers University, Student Councilor
Barbara Shaw Perry, University of Maryland, College Park
James Salazar, University of California, Berkeley
Elizabeth Otterson Wiley, George Washington University
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