PAA Neutrality and Member-Initiated Meetings

For many years, PAA has had a policy of remaining neutral on social and political issues. Since the 1970s, repeated discussions at annual membership ("business") meetings and at meetings of the Board of Directors have confirmed a consensus that PAA has two core purposes: 1) To facilitate communi-cation among PAA members about research and policy issues of mutual interest; and 2) to educate the public about the importance of demographic data and analysis. The first of these purposes is met primarily through the Association's annual meetings and publications. The second is met primarily through the work of PAA committees, especially the Public Affairs Committee and the Committee on Population Statistics.

The PAA's annual meetings typically facilitate communication among PAA members through two mechanisms, the "presidential program" (i.e., sessions organized by the organizing committee and those individuals they recruit to assist them), and various member-initiated meetings. The latter cate-gory has grown and has come to encompass a variety of formal and informal sessions having many purposes. For example, such member- organized meetings as the Psycho-Social Workshop or the Economic Demography Workshop are similar to many of the sessions in the presidential program at which papers are presented, but are focused in terms of subject matter. They are intended to insure that PAA members sharing an interest in this subject matter have adequate opportunities to communicate during the annual meeting. Other member- initiated meetings promote informal discussions of new research areas, provide information and advice on obtaining research funding or using particular data sets, memorialize deceased colleagues, or engage in policy-oriented dialogue.

Two years ago, the Board recognized that member-initiated meetings might deal with issues on which the PAA as a whole chooses to be neutral. For this reason, the Board decided to separate

member-initiated meetings from the presidential program in the printed program book. They also established a policy of providing space for member-initiated meetings on a space-available basis.

At the Board's March 1997 meeting, this policy was reviewed and a decision made to formalize the process of applying for space at the annual meeting. Starting this year, the Call for Papers will include an application form for meeting space. Members wishing to hold a member- organized meeting will be required to use the application form and to submit it to the PAA office no later than November 21. The application deadline and the collection of uniform information from all applicants is intended to insure that space is allocated fairly. The application form is also designed to help the PAA office make an optimal allocation of the available space among groups of different sizes having different types of space needs (for example, for informal discussion as opposed to formal presentations). The Board hopes that this new procedure will continue to ensure the availability of space for member-initiated meetings while also ensuring the continued neutrality of the Association on social and political issues.