Anybody else notice that ASA Council’s proposal for updating the income brackets for ASA membership implies a hefty dues increase?
Keep in mind that Council cannot approve a dues increase larger than cost-of-living without membership approval. Note that the main increase in progressivity is differentiating the $70K+ category. The ASA footnotes article provides this long, essentially irrelevant paean to progressive taxation, because, we’re all for that, right? But even someone at the bottom of the previous highest category ($70K) is now being asked to pay 11% more.
Seriously: the major economic function of this dues change is not to shift the cost of running ASA from its lower-income members to higher-income members. It’s to increase the overall dues revenue to ASA. This is a significant dues increase that is trying to sell itself by using the left politics of the ASA membership to treat us as an easy mark.
Remember: You can vote no. And, if it passes, you are under not obliged to report your income to ASA.
UPDATE: It’s actually worse than I thought. I thought at least student dues were going to be decreased, but no. The only decrease is for sociologists in the new “Unemployed” category and non-students who make less than $20K. Student memberships stay the same. Everybody else goes up; most by a percentage in the double digits. The write-up about this proposal in Footnotes is, in my view, misleading. The main purpose of this change, not mentioned at all in the Footnotes article, is to attain what looks like a 10-20% increase in total ASA revenue from dues.
scatterplot 
Not only did I notice it, but I was wondering how long it would be until I got to read your take on it. Thanks for fulfilling my expectations. :)
LikeLike
Since the ASAs do not (to my knowledge) provide space or time for a deliberative process, I wonder what you all will do to discuss this issue with your colleagues? I’m wondering particularly about those folks who aren’t reading the blogs. I’d hate to add more email to already full inboxes (and particularly if many of us would send similar messages)…I guess I’m wondering if we can engage in some collective action to draft and distribute a response to ASA members, noting the reasons we oppose the proposed dues hike (on the logic that one email is better than many).
LikeLike
ACTUALLY, I think they explicitly said this was supposed to be both a dues increase (above the cost of inflation) and a rejigging of the dues structure (to reflect the fact that some of our asst profs are getting that to start and some full profs at smaller universities are not there and probably won’t be. If they had lowered the rate on the 70k earners, I wouldn’t have been at all unhappy. I like the work ASA does for us (as sociologists but also as social scientists in general) and I do think admin is a reasonable thing to pay for. I would have liked a clearer explanation of just what the rate INCREASE was for (not just that we hadn’t had one for years, but what are the costs that have outstripped inflation and/or what are the new tasks taken on). I didn’t like the separation of dues and journals in the first place and am happier to see more integration (since part of what our assoc should be doing is encouraging all our members to read more soc, whether ASR or Contexts). Could we start off with a dialog about what we want to know rather than how offensive the lefty cant was? I have a guess about where that came from and was not so surprised to see it there, but condemning it as a coverup of intentions to raise dues suggests we can’t read any better than they can write.
LikeLike
I am presuming you are talking about the Footnotes article that I linked. If so, then as far as I can tell, what you are saying is simply inaccurate.
Let’s go through it: The article contains an introduction which says nothing about why ASA needs more total dues revenue and focuses only on fairness, progressivity, and the new category for unemployed sociologists. Then, it contains a section on “rationale” that talks about how dues have only increased by the rate of inflation — again, nothing about why the ASA dues would need to increase by more than the rate of inflation. Then is all the stuff about “The Principle of Progressivity,” which certainly says nothing about why ASA needs more total dues revenue. Then it explains the dues structure and has a “next steps” section. Where do they talk about this representing a significant increase in the overall dues revenue to ASA?
Also, it is certainly erroneous to claim that we have not had a dues increase for years. We’ve had a so-called COLA increase virtually every year.
The big issue is that ASA “needs” a dues revenue increase *significantly* larger than COLA, and has offered no explanation for why.
LikeLike
I inquired of two ASA-connected colleagues about their opinions.
#1
I would be inclined to ask ASA for an explanation for the dues increase before making up my own mind which way I’d want to vote. I do know there is a strong commitment by ASA to DC (which I approve of, not only for lobbying but intra-associational politics) and there has been at least 10 years of debate (with that many or more councils) about the best way to get an electronically adequate space ever since they gave up the house. So I’d hesitate to say my real estate acumen is better than theirs. I do think that the emphasis in the footnotes article was completely misplaced — way too much about the category rejiggering (especially since progressivity is a long established principle) and way too little on what our dues pay for and what is needed and why. Last time I saw an ASA budget (a good long while ago) we were very solvent and strategic about spending, so if we are in some great need for “higher taxes” there is presumably a specific reason other than platitudes about the common good. I’d like to know what it is.
#2
I have been sort of following this. The ASA Council spent two years working through issues around dues, salary caps on staff, how to deal with new programing, etc. Council felt that there was a need to raise dues and that, at the same time, the structure should be made more progressive — which is the case for the new dues structure even though it is still not a fully progressive structure. There has been a lot of bad information in some of the postings, and a fair amount of aggressive hostility. The claim was made that the ASA did not post its tax returns and audits on line, which it does. [My understanding is that the more updated posting happened after the complaining. -ow] And there was a complete distortion of the character of its investment portfolio, its purchase of a “condo” (which was actually the purchase of the building in which it is housed), and other things.
I am not sure why Jeremy sounds so disdainful and angry about this, and why he is describing a $9/year increase for the bottom levels a “hefty” increase. The increases at the top levels are “hefty” perhaps, but at the bottom is is nominal. Jeremy is correct that the change in dues structure is also an increase on average, but after much careful review of the budget for the ASA the Council voted unanimously that this was justified. It is the first non-inflation adjusted increase in dues since the early 1990s, and in that period the ASA has expanded programs quite a bit.
ME: At this point I’m just collecting opinions, still deciding what I think. I suspect some of the issue is just what the “programs” are that ASA is promoting.
LikeLike
Ugh. If person #2 actually is well ASA-connected, it reminds me of the reason that I started on this timesink errand of being curious about ASA finances in the first place, which was being party to conversations with people in elected ASA leadership roles where they said things that did not square with basic information I had.
So, this person says people have claimed ASA does not post its tax returns online. Do they? You can get tax returns for any nonprofit online from third-party services. This is where I got the tax returns that I linked to earlier. If that’s the only place they are, I’m not sure why #2 thinks that counts as transparency by ASA.
As for posting the “audits” online, the information was only updated after a complaint and is on a page that is unlinked from anywhere else and discovered by Googling. Again, this is #2 defending the financial transparency of ASA?
That said, I do agree with #2 about the mischaracterization of some reasonable investment decisions as malfeasance.
Anyway, #2 is wrong to emphasize the $9/year increase for nonstudent sociologists making under $30K. This is a small fraction of all ASA members.
But, note that a sociologist making $31,000 a year will still be paying $37 more per year to belong to their professional association than the highest paid economist (the economist also gets three journals as part of the deal, as opposed to one for the sociologist).
What angered me about the Footnotes article was the misleading character of it. This is ultimately shifting at least 10% more above inflation out of the pockets of sociologists (or their research accounts) to ASA, an organization which many of us already feels charges too much for dues overall. They could have presented their proposal in a way that explained why that increase made sense, but instead it’s this long thing about why progressive taxation is good, as if this is actually only about changing the brackets.
LikeLike
minor correction: I like Jeremy could not find the audits on the ASA web page without googling. Having seen where they were, however, (in the “about” folder), I clicked around and discovered that there is a link to the audits as a subheading in the “governance” section which, in turn, is a subheading in the “about” section. So there is a link but it is, indeed, buried.
Similar situation: My university posts the grade distributions for every section on campus in a 500-page PDF document (NOT a spreadsheet!) that you would never suspect is there, as the only path to it is by way of a heading called “enrollment information.” Hidden in plain sight, as they say.
LikeLike
Repeating what I wrote over on orgtheory:
Thanks, Jeremy, for calling our attention to this. I agree with you and Kieran that the ASA’s approach to this is an insult to sociologists’ intelligence, and is generally consistent with the high-handed, oligarchical managerial style that has been noted in earlier discussions, especially by the Disgruntled Sociologist. If an aggregate increase in revenue (above inflation) is being called for, the justification must be provided in terms of some incrase in aggregate expense. The progressivity of the fee structure and the wonderfulness of the services provided are smokescreens; the former is only relevant if there has been, or is intended to be, some *change* in the expenses needed to provide such wonderfulness; and the latter– as has already been mentioned– is utterly irrelevant. (For sheer chutzpah, you gotta love the nonsequitur at the heart of the ‘rationale’: “Dues amounts have also not increased over this 14-year period, except to reflect inflation. However, the income structure of academic sociologists has changed significantly.”)
Sociologists should certainly vote no unless a straight explanation is provided– one that frames any increase in aggregate dues relative to ASA’s expenses and benchmarks those expenses against ASA’s peer professional associations. And we should demand explanations from council members.
How about an online petition that asks the simple question of what increase in expenses justifies an increase in dues, and calls on sociologists to vote no, unless an explanation is provided. While we’re at it, we can demand more transparency– as per the earlier discussions.
LikeLike
the economist also gets three journals as part of the deal, as opposed to one for the sociologist
Seven journals, actually.
LikeLike
A little more digging. It was not easy but I learned that the price to an employer of a 30-day ad in the job bank is $220. (Departmental members get a whopping 10% discount on this.) Given the abysmal state of the job market right now, one service the ASA ought to be providing its members is maximizing their information about jobs, by taking ads from potential employers for free, or at least for a more token fee. THAT could (in my opinion) justify a higher tax on those of us who already have good jobs.
LikeLike
Setting aside the absence of any justification for *why* the ASA needs greater dues revenue, the ASA’s argument seems internally inconsistent. The footnotes article claimed that dues increases are warranted because dues haven’t risen in 11 years, except to reflect the cost of inflation. Yet, doesn’t the ASA regularly report that professorial incomes haven’t kept up with inflation? If the goal really is to bring dues in line with the changing income structure, shouldn’t all but the highest earning sociologists be paying *lower* dues?
LikeLike
Costs might rise even if our incomes don’t.
However, there have been cost of living rises in the dues. So this is a rise in dues over and above cost of living and, hence, can’t be justified just by inflation.An increase in dues beyond cost of living would to be justified in terms of new program and expanded activities. That is precisely what is NOT provided as a justification.
LikeLike
It doesn’t help when you relocate to one of the few MSAs that’s still going strong after the crash. another way to put this is that there’s a very different basket of goods in the CPI (a nationally-averaged basket of household consumption) as compared to the ASA’s expenses (mostly DC-based skilled labor and real estate).
LikeLike
Sorry, I wasn’t clear: the ASA justifies the rise in dues by referring to the absence of an increase (except inflation) over the past 11 years, despite a changing income structure . (I left the key last clause out of my comment).
My point was simply that even if we accept the ASA’s implied premise that dues should be tied to “income structures” rather than the costs of ASA services, the ASA’s own data on salaries in the profession imply that dues have risen more over the past 11 years than professorial incomes. Sure, there are some sociologists who did very well in the winner-take-all job markets of the 2000s, but by the ASA’s own logic, dues should not be going up.
That’s setting aside the broader issue of whether dues should be pegged to the income structure, to actual costs of member services, to the cost of living in DC, to fees charged by other social science professional associations, or some combination thereof.
LikeLike
One of the most frustrating things about these issues is the apparent disconnect between the ASA staff, the council, and the members. How can we all have such varying ideas about what the reality of the ASA’s financial situation is, what should be done about it, and what the justification for raising dues should include? My sense is not that the writers of the justification are trying to fool anyone, but that they didn’t spend too much time crafting a strong argument in favor of it. It’s as if this is seen as a routine matter of little concern to the membership that would arouse little opposition. This seems crazy to me, and a reason to vote against the budget just to wake people up a little.
LikeLike
I have read enough now to second Ezra’s call that there be a petition. Maybe Jeremy and olderwoman could jointly set up an ipetition?
I recommend that the petition appeal for two pieces of information:
(1) The gross increase in revenue that this proposal would generate for the ASA (assuming no changes in membership patterns and projecting how the >70,000 category will end up self-reporting and then paying, etc.);
(2) A clear and transparent explanation for why this increase in revenue is justified.
I do think that it is possible that such an increase is both necessary and justified (though I say this because I want to think that our current and recent ASA officers and council have done a good job of minding the shop).
But, if the petition does not receive a response or the response is as lame as I fear it might be, then I will certainly vote “No”. And, I would lobby others to do so too.
(Another idea would be to have scatterplot invite current ASA office candidates to offer positions on the issue.)
LikeLike
Maybe Jeremy and olderwoman could jointly set up an ipetition?
Ha. Nice try, Morgan.
LikeLike
Stirring up trouble … and no follow through?
Oh well, hopefully there is a windmill tilter in our midst. Kieran?
LikeLike
Well, division of labor is healthy. I guess Jeremy wants to be a tree-shaker, not a jelly-maker. But doing an online petition seems easy. So I drafted one. The text is below. Please suggest edits. Also, two questions for y’all:
a. ipetitions only seems to allow fields for name and email address (which the signer can choose to make anonymous or not). I think other online petitions allow you to give more fields. Any thoughts on this?
b. Any thoughts on the best way to get the word out? Obviously, one way is just to post it, and publicize it on these websites. And people who want to sign it will do so. But even better if people are willing to send the link to colleagues.
Here’s the text:
We the undersigned members of the American Sociological Association hereby register our concern with the ASA’s recent announcement of a dues increase in the February issue of Footnotes (see http://www.asanet.org/footnotes/mar11/dues_0311.html).
The stated rationale for the dues increase is that the ASA dues schedule should be more progressive. We support the principle of progressive taxation and we are willing to believe that the previous dues schedule was not sufficiently progressive. However, the ASA statement does not explain why it is asking for a substantial *aggregate* increase in dues (see https://scatter.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/dues-increase/).
We believe that any *aggregate* increase in dues can be justified only by: (a) an increase in the expenses necessary to provide the ASA’s service to its members; and (b) a benchmarking analysis that shows that the ASA’s expenses, and its dues schedule, against those of ASA’s peers (e.g., APSA, AEA, AAA).
Unless the ASA leadership provides a compelling justification that meets these criteria before the May elections, we urge our fellow ASA members to vote against the new dues schedule.
LikeLike
I’m on board with Ezra’s drafting. we might also want to add
c) a decrease in revenues other than membership fees
my best guess is that there is no decrease in revenues, but this raises the issue that ASA also raises lots of money from journal rents. similarly, i like that the whole DC location thing isn’t directly raised in the petition but would be a part of any coherent response by ASA leadership to “a” and “b.” overall, i like the idea of at this time simply saying “where is the money going” without necessarily debating the merits of the expenditures.
LikeLike
Good point, Gabriel. Thanks.
LikeLike
I just spent some of the last scarce money in our departmental budget on our “membership” $300. That’s a token fee for you people at top research schools; for us down here at So. Ill, it means that I can’t replace a printer for an assistant professor until next FY. The problem is that ASA has located itself in DC. I disagree with the colleague who suggested that ASA lobbying of congress is effective and necessitates this. And, since other organizations (notably the Economists) are NOT in DC, and are often sideswiped by ASA actions, I can’t see how interorganizational relations justify this. ASA offices should be somewhere cheap, and hiring and staffing should focus on professional issues, not political ones. AEA has its offices in a basement of a virtually abandoned building across from Vanderbilt, and I don’t think their NSF budget was hurt by that.
LikeLike
I am prepared to write a letter (well, an email) to every member of the ASA council asking for an accounting of why, exactly, we need a dues increase. Does anyone have easy access to their email addresses?
LikeLike
I like the idea of a petition and am prepared to sign the one Ezra drafted. I think we are entitled to reasons. But in offering its reasons, I do not think it is a good idea to encourage ASA to “benchmark” to econ or to move out of DC, since soc has a different set of needs and resources. Soc has more work to do to convince NSF (and many other funding agencies) that it is science and has something worth saying on many issues (while econ gets credit for appropriating soc arguments years after the fact) and soc also does commendable work bringing different soc sci orgs together rather than condescending to them or ignoring them. ASA “plays well with others” which I think helps us all (especially in a divide and conquer climate).
LikeLike
I very much like Ezra’s proposed petition. I would certainly sign it and encourage others to do so as well.
I suppose, if I had my druthers, I would drop the progressivity framing, which I think is a side issue and need not be debated. I think it would be useful to ask the ASA to do something: release information on the amount of aggregate dues this change would raise and then justify why they need it. I worry that in framing the petition with progressivity and benchmarking, an ASA response will choose to address those issues (a repeat of the progressivity blather followed by a statement about why the ASA is distinctive and hence can’t be benchmarked to the AEA or the APSA, etc.). Then, in so arguing, they may not then feel compelled to release any financial projections, etc. If you stick to the central issue: How much money is the ASA asking for and why does the ASA think it deserves it, then there is less room for obfuscation.
But, I am no expert on social movements or how institutions respond to the demands of petitioners, and so I would certainly be very, very happy to sign this current version.
LikeLike
Dear Jeremy and other friends (this is long so, in case you don’t know who dontd is, its me don tomaskovic-devey)
I was not surprised to see that the dues proposal stirred up a hornets’ nest of discussion. Luckily I have lots of Benadryl at home. I miss all those meetings at ASA, including Pub Comm, where I recall you also could have a bit of a sting. Since I was the Secretary of the Association for the last four years, I am probably to blame for any messes we are in and reasonably situated to pull the information together to clarify what is happening. All of this information has been available to Council and much, albeit in disbursed form, available to the membership on the irritatingly complex ASA website. Jerry Jacobs is voluntarily trying to work through that problem, so please direct web-site complaints to him.
First, the infamous dues proposal. ASA’s elected leadership has been aware for about a decade that the dues structure no longer matches the actual income structure of the membership. Arne Kalleberg and Franklin Wilson, the past Secretary and President when I took on this role, urged me to fix the dues structure before I left the job. I was more strategic than that and left it to my successors to enact. But here I am anyway, go figure.
The current proposed dues revision was crafted around the goal of reintroducing a progressive dues structure that matched the members’ 2010 income distribution. Thirty-six percent of members now report incomes above $70,000. Many Research 1 universities now start Assistant Professors near or above $70,000. Our goal in the new income categories, the top ones we think have few incumbents, was to create something that might be serviceable for twenty years, protecting the next five secretaries from writing a blog-entry like this one.
This new dues structure will we hope also raise somewhere between $100,000 and $200,000 in income for the association. It will reach the upper estimate if membership stays the same, our estimates of the distribution of faculty in the new upper income brackets are correct, and most members report their income accurately. This increase makes up less than half the yearly budget cuts taken by the association over the last three years and is intended to partially restore association activities slashed during the recession, including modest pay raises for ASA staff.
But what about the general ASA financial situation? As with most professional organizations and most of our departments, ASA experienced recession related declines in income during 2008-2010. Almost all sources of revenue dropped as University hiring and spending contracted. In 2009 alone revenue was $326,000 less than budgeted. Council responded by freezing salaries and making cuts in operating budgets of $250,000, but ASA staff extended cost cutting to a total of $507,000 to relieve the pressure. These substantial cuts averted a potentially large structural budget deficit. Council also audited current programmatic activities to assess whether programmatic cuts were necessary, but decided that the Association’s financial position was sufficiently solid to not yet require retrenchment in the minority fellowship program, the teaching and learning function, research on the profession, and ASA’s federal research funding and disciplinary advocacy projects.
Dues comprise about 35% of ASA income. Income also comes from journals (30%), teaching publications and the Job Bank (10%), the Annual Meeting (17%) and a variety of other smaller sources. All except journal income declined during the recession. We expect flat (or declining) revenue from all sources of revenue except journals until university hiring and budgets stabilize. Dues income is particular sensitive to the sociology job market, which has been hit hard by the recession.
Over the past decade the ASA has mostly had modest budget surpluses. These created reserves to fund the 2007 purchase of the executive office and for anticipated budget deficits during the first two years after the purchase. We did not anticipate the Wall Street recession (but please look for my forthcoming paper in ASR on financialization and the crisis). Luckily, the ASA maintains investments as organizational reserves to cover unanticipated costs or revenue declines, and these were available to cover the very large deficit of 2008 and the small deficit of 2009. ASA is now operating with a much leaner and balanced budget.
The new executive office space condominium was considered by Council an investment in the future of the Association. It was financed at 3.58% and, under our purchase model, is predicted to provide major cost savings relative to renting beginning in 2016. It also looks nice. We have recently moved from self-publishing our journals to partnering with Sage. This contract provides income minimums to ASA, which protected us from declining revenue during the recession; it also has built-in revenue sharing for the future. The revision of the dues structure, with the associated increase in member contributions, primarily from our high earning members, is one aspect of a much more complex and general strategy to support the professional project of Sociology.
Kate Berheid, the current ASA Secretary, has an article with more information on the current state of ASA finances on Footnotes that is worth looking at for more information.
What does ASA do, anyway? The Association exists to serve its members. For most members the functions we focus on immediately are those that serve our personal careers, especially the annual meeting, the section structure of subspecialties, the journals, the Job Bank and Employment Service. The ASA also provides leadership in the more general professional project of Sociology, a role that only occasionally comes into focus for the membership at large. Council, which is elected by the membership, has consistently insisted that the executive office expand the professional project functions in the executive office. Externally, this includes increasing the access of sociology to the media and the media to sociology, providing sociological expertise to the executive, legislative, and judicial functions of government, and even fighting the US State Department when necessary to insure global academic freedom. Internally, the most important aspects of the professional project have been the ASA’s research on the discipline and its teaching and learning center. Research on the discipline has become a central tool of Sociology Department chairs in arguing for resources and the importance of sociology in their colleges and universities. Our teaching and learning activities have become a major resource in the dissemination of teaching materials across the discipline and have been recognized by the National Science Foundation for our leadership role in science education. Admittedly, this portfolio is a bit larger than that of the AEA, but they have advanced their professional project on other fronts.
So if you want to vote against the revision in the dues structure, don’t do it because you suspect it is simply a soak the rich ploy. Rather it is part of a thoughtful, and reasonably democratic, response to the short and long term dynamics of the profession. Is the organization a work in progress? Sure. It is not, however, particularly predatory. And it is run by its members. You are on pub comm right?
LikeLike
Thanks to Don for the very thoughtful response. Hopefully Jeremy will respond.
The Disgruntled Sociologist is puzzled, however, by the continued focus on the progressivity of the dues structure. And in particular, the claim that those who oppose the proposal “suspect it is simply a soak the rich ploy.” The Disgruntled Sociologist has never made this claim. Neither, to TDS’s knowledge, has anyone on orgtheory or scatterplot. So why raise that point, other than as a red herring?
LikeLike
I also want to thank Don for the useful information.
I’ve got a longer response on WITW (http://whatisthewhat.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/2585/), but the point of my spear is this: I’d like to know what association activities were “slashed.” Maybe whatever was cut isn’t necessary? Why presume our holding state in 2007 has some kind of inevitability to it?
LikeLike
Hi Don. I hope you are well.
I’m glad that you are engaging on this, but:
1. It is unfortunate that this explanation of the situation is coming in a blog comment rather than in an official ASA communication to its members, and specifically as part of the rationale for the dues increase.
2. It is unfortunate that you decided to characterize the criticism of the recommended dues increase as opposition to “soaking the rich.” If you read the discussions and/or the draft of the petition that was posted, youwill see the opposition is not to progressivity but to the fact that the ASA wants to increase aggregate dues revenue and is not being up-front about that fact. Rather, it provided a “rationale” that had nothing to do with the dues increase. That is hard to understand except as a serious error or an intentional attempt to mislead. I know that sounds harsh, but that is how it is being read by a quite a number of your fellow sociologists.
3. This is the first time that a representative of the ASA has acknowledged that the recommended plan involves an aggregate increase in dues rather than simply a change in the degree of progressivity in the dues schedule. It is still unclear from your memo why the ASA needs $100k-$200k more in revenue. What were those services that were slashed, such that revenue is needed to restore them? Perhaps we don’t need them?
4. What is your opinion of the graph showing that the ASA dues are considerably higher than AEA and APSA? Given the fact that our dues are already high, should they really be higher?
5. As you know, there is a lot of skepticism regarding the need for an ASA presence in DC given its cost (whether renting or owning), and it is not clear that whether the ASA digs look nice is important to the membership (to the point that they are wiling to pay for it). Would it be possible for the ASA to release the “purchase model” that was developed, and what alternatives it considered?
6. As far as I know, this is the first public acknowledgement that the journals are a big money maker for ASA. It seems appropriate to mention this to authors who are asked for voluntary donations when they hand over their intellectual property to Sage. There is also concern about the deal with Sage. Would it be possible to release the details of the deal, and what alternative offers were considered?
LikeLike
So ASA wants to raise more money from dues because income from non-dues sources has declined in the recession as “university hiring and spending has contracted.”
The question everyone is asking is what does ASA do? Where does its money go? Where do our dues go? Not into the journals — they make a profit. Not into the convention — that makes a profit, much of it off our convention fees.
The journals make a profit for the association on the backs of the free labor of ASA members who review articles for the journals. There seems to be some kind of idea that the ASA office provides the journals to us. Uh uh. The collective good providers are the unpaid reviewers. Our free labor generates profits for publishers and ASA.
What’s missing from the conversation is a cost-accounting of what ASA spends its money on.
LikeLike