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Students Committee

Report of the Students’ Committee 2006

Since our last report, the Students’ Committee continued to pursue its core mission: to advocate for and support the needs of student members of the ASA. We have also continued to formalize and expand our activities, and have worked to increase committee visibility, to facilitate dialogue among students nationally, and to identify and develop ways ASA membership can empower graduate students and enhance professional development. The Students’ Committee has also worked on increasing collaboration with other ASA committees, and are pleased to be co-sponsoring a panel at the Oakland conference with the ASA Minority Scholars’ Committee. We thank our committee colleagues whose appointments ended in June—Devorah Heitner, Adalaine Holton, Elizabeth Scheps, and Manu Mathew Vimalassery—for their dedication to the work of the Students’ Committee. We also welcome our new members—Liza Burbank, Chris Phillips, Stephanie Ricker Schulte, Ami Sommariva, and Elizabeth Swift.

1. Ongoing Projects

1.1. Student Access to the Annual Meeting
An on-going concern of graduate students over the years has been the prohibitive cost of attending the ASA Annual Meeting. On average, students make up 25% of conference participants, and there are now several important mechanisms in place to facilitate student access to the Annual Meeting. As usual, we plan to conduct student surveys at this year’s Hospitality Lounge regarding, among other issues, conference accessibility. We are grateful to the continued generosity of ASA members in supporting the Baxter Travel Grants.

1.1.1. We continue to research and publicize alternative conference accommodations for students: this year, we’ve offered a broad list of alternative accommodations in the Oakland area.
1.1.2. While acknowledging the professional responsibility of graduate students to join the association and support the meeting through payment of conference registration fees, we are continuing to emphasize the single-day $10 registration for students this year. In Washington D.C., 2005, for example, a total of 45 students took advantage of the day-registration.
1.1.3. Roommate Connection Service
For the ninth consecutive year, the Students’ Committee has sponsored 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 works to connect conference attendees looking to share a room.

1.2. Fundraising
The Students’ Committee has solicited contributions from American Studies and Ethnic Studies programs and departments to support our programs and panels. This year we used an online system of donation, which greatly stream-lined the process. In recognition of the growing connections between the fields of American studies and ethnic studies, we have continued to broaden our fundraising efforts to include African American studies, Asian American studies, Chicano studies, and Native American studies programs, as well as traditional American Studies departments. In addition to asking for financial support, we use our fundraising letters to publicize our programs and panels to constituent departments and ask them to share the information with their students. 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.

2. Annual Meeting in Oakland

2.1. For the first time this year, the Students’ Committee has been able to insert an announcement about its events into students’ registration packets. We believe this will increase attendance at our (already well-attended) events, and would like to thank the ASA Program Committee for their help with this.

2.2. Scheduled Roundtables
This year the Students’ Committee is sponsoring two roundtables designed to address the needs and concerns of the association’s student members. We hope that the roundtable format will be conducive to more informal and candid discussions providing graduate students and junior scholars an opportunity to ask questions that they may not have an opportunity to ask elsewhere, and for discussants to share their invaluable, first-hand insights.

a. “Academic Job Interviews in American Studies: A Demonstration Workshop”
This workshop will demonstrate an academic job interview in American studies. We will conduct a mock interview for a hypothetical, tenure-track appointment in American studies with a specialization in urban history and ethnic studies. This position is housed within a hypothetical teaching-focused state university. After the mock interview session, the faculty panelists will review the candidate’s written materials and performance and then field questions from the audience about the job market and interview process.
b. “Negotiating Graduate School: Practical Advice for Students and Mentors”
Jointly sponsored by the Minority Scholars’ Committee and the ASA Students’ Committee, this roundtable discussion will bring together an esteemed group of scholars to address pressing concerns facing both mentors and graduate students. Topics may include: selecting and working with faculty mentors; defining research questions and completing dissertation work; applying for graduate funding; dealing with challenges and opportunities in the classroom; responding to institutional racism, sexism, homophobia and other debilitating ideologies; achieving publications; balancing activism and scholarship; and managing the job market.

2.3. Hospitality Lounge
For the tenth consecutive year, the Students’ Committee is sponsoring its Hospitality Lounge. The Lounge, offered on Friday and Saturday mornings of the conference, serves as a networking space for graduate students. The Lounge was initially organized in response to student feelings of isolation at the meeting and their requests for informal meeting space. In addition to an informal, students-only networking opportunity, the Lounge also features free breakfast. The Students’ Committee fundraises for this during the several months prior to the conference. It is a popular conference event among graduate students, and one of the few social spaces open to all students at the annual meeting. During the hours of its operation, the Lounge will be 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 Lounge provides a critical opportunity for the Committee as we work to engage the graduate students we represent.

2.4. ASA Graduate Student Reception
After the success of our event outside the hotel last year, we are again holding our committee sponsored reception in a local restaurant and funding free appetizers. This year we are also able to add a limited number of free drinks to the event. The Students’ Committee publicity arm has been active on this and on all our events.

2.5. “Breakfasts”
For the fourth consecutive year, the Students’ Committee is offering a discussion series called “Breakfasts.” Top scholars in important fields of study will meet informally with students in the Hospitality Lounge, to discuss their work and the state of their fields, and to give students a rare opportunity to interact with and receive advice from prominent intellectuals who also demonstrate a commitment to mentorship. The series has proved very popular in past years, and this year we are offering more “Breakfasts” than ever: a total of five, in the areas of “Borders, Law, and Immigration,” “Pedagogy in the US and Abroad,” “Material Culture in American Studies,” “Early America,” and “Female Professors and Faculty of Color: Authority in the Classroom.” In addition, this last “Breakfast” is a new kind of event—a “Junior Faculty and Grad Student Breakfast.” Bringing together graduate students and junior faculty to discuss teaching at the college level as a woman and/or person of color, the “Breakfast” will explore shared experiences and challenges on the theme of authority in the classroom. We’d like to thank all our committee members who worked hard on organizing these “Breakfasts.”

2.6. Other events

2.6.1. This year, demonstrating our renewed commitment to collaboration, we’ve publicized the roundtable “DeMystifying the Dissertation,” organized by Professor Karen M. Cardozo, as we believe this will be of interest both to faculty advisors and to graduate students who are gearing up for or have already begun their dissertations.
2.6.2. Another new event this year is a museum visit. The Students’ Committee and other graduate students will visit the Berkeley Art Museum exhibition “The Bancroft Library at 100: A Celebration, 1906-2006,” with a reduced entry fee for our group.

We are looking forward to an exciting and fruitful annual conference in Oakland, and would like to thank Dr. John Stephens for the guidance he has generously offered us in support of our work.

Respectfully submitted by the Students’ Committee, 2006-2007

Co-Chair: AMI SOMMARIVA, University of California, Davis
Co-Chair: ZOE TRODD, Harvard University
LIZA BURBANK, Brown University
STEFANIE HERRON, University of Delaware
HILLARY JENKS, University of Southern California
JESSICA MAY, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
CHRIS PHILLIPS, Stanford University
STEPHANIE RICKER SCHULTE, George Washington University
ELIZABETH SWIFT, University of New Mexico
REBECCA JOSEPHINE SHEEHAN, ex officio, University of Southern California
MILTON W. WENDLAND, University of California, Berkeley
SUSIE WOO, ex officio, Yale University