This past summer, the ARSTM leadership team committed to undertaking a series of actions in support of structurally integrating anti-racism into our organization. One of our early proposals was to rededicate funds from the 2020 ARSTM@RSA preconference, which was cancelled due to COVID, to providing micro-grants to members of the ARSTM community. The idea was inspired by similar micro-grant efforts made by other organizations in and outside of rhetoric.
However, as we examined the financial possibility of micro-grants, we realized that we needed to take a much deeper dive into ARSTM’s finances to ensure that any fund redistributions had maximum benefit for as many members as possible.
Ultimately, we decided not to distribute micro-grants. Instead, the funds that would have paid for the in-person ARSTM@RSA preconference back in May have been rolled over to pay for the costs of our virtual ARSTM@NCA preconference in November. While a virtual preconference doesn’t have room, refreshment or projector costs, we do have costs associated with professional captioning and providing keynote speakers with honoraria in recognition of their time and expertise.
Typically, a preconference’s costs are covered by the membership and registration fees paid by attendees at that preconference. Since we are rolling over some funds, however, we have created more flexibility in our budget and aren’t exclusively relying on membership and registration payments to cover our cost.
That means that we are able to offer no-questions-asked membership fee waivers this academic year to anyone who would like to join ARSTM and attend the ARSTM@NCA preconference, but for whom the fee would be cost-prohibitive. This fee waiver is good for the entirety of the 2020-21 academic year membership, and we explicitly mean for it to make ARSTM a welcoming space for precarious scholars and community members who otherwise would be shut out. To acquire a fee waiver, simply fill out the membership form and select the “please waive my fees option” to automatically be granted a waiver and a full year’s membership.
As we discussed budgeting over this past summer, the leadership team also identified an opportunity to make ARSTM more inclusive by restructuring our membership pay scale and membership benefits. With the approval of ARSTM’s Board of Directors, we have made two major changes:
- We have updated the membership fees to include multiple tiers reflective of different career stages.Fees are now assessed differently for graduate students, contingent and NTT faculty, community and industry members, and assistant, associate, full, and emeritus professors.
- We have bundled preconference registration costs with membership fees. There is no additional registration fee for members to attend the @RSA or @NCA preconferences.
We hope that these changes enable us to grow our membership by expanding it to include rhetoricians at all career stages and in a variety of life circumstances. We welcome feedback on these changes and suggestions for other ways to increase organizational inclusivity. Get in touch with us at our various emails!