This is a call for members to participate in the newly-constituted Standing Committee on Activism.

Background: ASLE is regularly presented with requests to sign petitions, participate in protest, and otherwise engage contemporary issues related to its mission. ASLE has also confronted proposed meeting sites that are compromised by political controversy. Finally, it has adopted an Advocacy Policy that allows members to bring proposals to the Executive Council for consideration.

In such cases, the leadership requires detailed information about the issues at hand, as well as a sense of the membership, to guide deliberations. However, council members are often too busy with core functions to obtain these data themselves.

Therefore, at the officers’ retreat in San Diego in March 2018, the Executive Council empowered a Standing Committee on Activism to provide research and reflection for the leadership on a case-by-case basis. In its initial year, the committee will be co-chaired by Anthony Lioi and Janet Fiskio, who will present a report on its progress to the EC during the next ASLE conference in Davis, California in 2019.

Mission: For each case, the committee will provide a summary of the issue, background information required to make a judgment, and an initial recommendation with a rationale. The committee members will act only as advisors and will not vote on any matter. Therefore, no officer or member of the EC may serve on the committee during their term of service.

Call: ASLE Members interested in joining the committee should contact Anthony Lioi at alioi@juilliard.edu and Janet Fiskio at jfiskio@oberlin.edu.