Council Seeks Comment on Proposed Changes in Member Affinity Groups

This was announced at the Performing Arts Roundtable, and a question came up that I think would be helpful for everyone to be able to see - will these proposed changes, once comment has been received and taken into account, be voted on by the SAA membership? This is an organizational change of significance, so I feel strongly that it should be not only commented on by the membership, but voted on by membership.

I also echo the concern that groups that may be focused on compositional diversity in the archival profession (the poster above mentioned LACCHA, which I think is a good example) may be in danger of being (or ending up) below this 4% threshold for the very reason that they represent groups that are underrepresented in SAA. Since this is such a huge issue, especially when looking at the A*CENSUS data, I would be hesitant to use the amount of people as a benchmark, and instead would suggest some level of activity beyond what happens at the annual meeting as a more appropriate measuring tool. It didn't look like it made its way into the final set of changes, but also determining who gets space and who doesn't at the annual meeting, should there "not be enough space" based on total "full" membership numbers for the affinity seems problematic for the same reason. There is a mention in the May 2015 document that provisions for "sunsetting" affinity and virtual groups should be consistent and based on participation and activity, so this idea is there in the recommendations.

I really liked the recommendations document's focus on incentivizing affinity groups to collaborate by providing additional resources to those who decided to have joint meetings and presentations at the annual meeting, and the notes about which sections and roundtables have similar charges and might consider mergers.

Also, I liked the recommendation of a New Leader Orientation - while I felt the forum was helpful, it didn't cover many of the specifics and "how-tos" that new chairs/co-chairs would find helpful - for example, examples of annual reports and how to structure them, considerations when updating your bylaws, how to plan out your tenure in either a leadership or a supporting/steering role, how to do succession planning to ensure continuity, etc. This doesn't have to be exhaustive, but even a half an hour overview would be super helpful. I also liked the May 2015 document's call for there to be more (or at least one) loosely structured opportunities (a coffee hour, etc.) for those in leadership roles (new and more seasoned) to get to know one another, as this would facilitate collaboration among and across affinity groups.

My two cents. Thanks for the request for feedback!

I agree with Frank Boles's great suggestion that Council consider productivity-based metrics in addition to body counts as a means of assessing whether newly monikered Affinity Groups should continue in existence. I don't know that this has to be in place right from the start, but Council should have a plan to introduce some productivity measures into the assessment of whether Affinity Groups should continue within the first year or two after Affinity Groups are officially introduced, be completely transparent about that plan, and involve some current Section/RT leadership in determining what some useful productivity-based metrics might be.

I'd also like to see all Affinity Groups, since they'll continue to hold annual elections, have on their ballots a check box asking Affinity Group members to reaffirm annually that they're satisfied with the Affinity Group each year. Groups that drop below some specified % of their membership reaffirming that group's continued existence could have a year or two for their leadershp and members to explore if/how that Affinity Group could continue in existence and better meet the needs of its members. Having this member reaffirmation in place, in addition to some productivity metrics, would help all SAA members because it would help to make more transparent what SAA members expect from their affinity groups on an on-going basis.

Finally, I have no idea how many current Roundtables have significant numbers of SAA non-members participating. Have those figures ever been produced, or do we have a sense of whether or not this would be an issue in no longer allowing SAA non-members to participate in Roundtables after they become Affinity Groups? Presumably, if there are such Roundtables, they could spin off an affiliated Virtual Community Group through which they could still engage with SAA non-members if that's considered important within the context of that Roundtable-turned-Affinity-Group?

All in all, especially if Council and current Section/RT leadership can rise to the occasion of exploring some productivity-based metrics for assessing Affinity Group performance from the perspective of those groups' members, I think this will be a beneficial and much-needed change for the membership of SAA.

Hmm. My initial response to this is that it doesn't change much-- it replaces the current Section-Roundtable stratification with the Affinity Group/Virtual Community Group (both of which are mouthfuls!) stratification, with the change that the "New Roundtables" don't have rights to Annual Meeting space. But I'll bite-- here is a (partial) list of specific comments on this:

• To the extent that Sections/Roundtables are being merged into one entity, it's a good move. There were a lot of arbitrary differences between the two affinity groups and simplifying the structure is going to make it easier for people to get involved in leadership.
• I appreciate that the primary goal of this is to cut down on moribund/inactive affinity groups. I think that's a reasonable goal! By giving members the ability to choose from only *active* groups you increase the probability that they find groups they can actually get involved in, which helps them feel more connected to SAA as a whole. That said:
• The 4% threshold seems arbitrary. Moreover, I have serious doubts that it will have any appreciable winnowing effect, especially since this proposal would remove the limit on number of affinity groups members can join. If members *can* join any number of affinity groups, why wouldn't they? Particularly if there's no commitment required on their part.
• On the other side of that-- raw numbers don't seem like the best way to gauge a group's activity. For example, RMRT has over 1100 members officially listed as members of the group, but I would estimate MAYBE a fifth of that number are actively involved. (As it happens the RT's steering committee puts in a lot of effort to provide value to its members-- but on the raw threshold criteria, it wouldn't have to.) Conversely, a group like LACCHA might be extremely active, but its numbers might be naturally capped by its nature as a minority interest group, which would mean that it would fall below the 4% threshold and lose its right to meeting space. I think in a profession that already has problems with diversity, discouraging minority participation in SAA like this is a dangerous thing to do.
• I think a better measure of Affinity Group activity would be between-meeting activities: What is their social media presence like? How many seminars have they facilitated? Do they have a blog or newsletter, and is it updated frequently? Basically, showing value-add for the group's members. This wouldn't be hard to monitor because groups should be including this kind of information in their annual report anyway. I do realize that this requires Council/SAA staff to make subjective evaluations vs. the cold hard numbers of the threshold model-- but I think decommissioning or downgrading affinity groups is something that SHOULD be done consciously. It shows that SAA is serious about cutting out chaff.
• Why are non-member participants being excluded from the affinity groups? This seems like it will have major repercussions on the viability of a number of existing sections/roundtables, particularly SNAP and the "cross-professional" groups (RMRT, PLASC, Museum Archives, etc.). These groups benefit from having external perspectives added to their conversations, and excluding non-members from said conversations will make them more insular and subject to echo-chamber thinking. I realize that all of these groups can take their lists elsewhere if they need to continue conversations with non-members-- but why should they have to? (Moreover, I suspect that there are more than a few affinity groups without the technical expertise to set up fora elsewhere-- so if SAA went down this road I would hope they would provide advice for doing this.)
• Eliminating Council Liaisons for VCGs seems short-sighted-- in many cases the council reports (and maaaaybe the plenary) are members' main connection to the goings-on of SAA leadership, and taking that away removes a key avenue for VCG members to communicate with Council. (Yes, members can email council members directly if needed-- but it's psychologically easier to do, I think, if those people are in specific roles to answer questions and receive feedback.) RMRT's Council Liaison(s) helped me a lot with questions of SAA policy and procedure during my time as chair of that roundtable, and I think depriving future group coordinators of that direct connection is unwise.
• Would VCGs be subject to the same branding requirements on external sites as affinity groups are currently? If so, I think the final policy should be a lot clearer on what VCGs get from affiliation with SAA in addition to their responsibilities to represent themselves as under the SAA umbrella. Otherwise, I think you run the risk of VCG leaders saying "this isn't worth it" and either deaffiliating or not putting the work in to fully follow the policy, which further feeds the disconnect between VCG members and SAA the organization.

Overall, I respect what this proposal is trying to do (encourage more activity from affinity groups, weed out the inactive ones, give members more flexibility to join affinity groups of interest), but as it is I think the mechanism to do so paints with too broad a brush. I would be more than a little dismayed if these changes went into effect without significant changes to more accurately assess Affinity Group activity and delineate the rights and responsibilities of both AG and VCG members and leadership.