Dear ASA Council,

The undersigned members of ASA would like Council to begin a discussion of whether and how to reduce the carbon emissions generated by ASA’s annual conference.

We bring this up at this time because of the extraordinary and unprecedented experience of the 2020 Virtual Engagement Event.  Many of us were very pleasantly surprised to see how successful this event was at enabling the exchange of ideas that is the heart of the annual meeting’s mission—a result of the hard work of President Christine Williams, the Program Committee, and all of the ASA staff.  Of course, an online event is not a substitute for an in-person event, for many reasons that sociologists are well-positioned to appreciate.  Nevertheless, this experiment taught us that an online event is possible, and the consequences of this for carbon emissions are worth exploring.

While we do not have any specific proposals, we do ask that Council begin a discussion of the issue and communicate the results of this discussion to the membership.  In particular, we would like to suggest particular lines for discussion:

Could the annual meeting be held less frequently?  Perhaps we might try an online event every fourth year?  (And if this proves successful, perhaps we might even eventually move to every other year?)

Could the ASA experiment with hybrid options, to allow scholars who do not wish to travel the option to participate from home?

We do recognize some of the difficulties of making this change, particularly, that annual meetings are planned far in advance, that there are contractual commitments with hotels that need to be kept in mind, and that hybrid arrangements are costly.  Thus, we reiterate that we are not posing any particular demands.  We ask Council to enter this discussion not to explain why these particular requests aren’t possible, but rather, to explore and make suggestions about what is possible.  ASA meetings that have not yet been planned could be considered for an online option; smaller hotels could be considered; and the membership could be canvassed for ideas on how to reduce costs while increasing accessibility.  Because the sociology job market is partially independent of ASA, sociology is one of the disciplines where creative solutions may be possible to this issue that affects all of us and our world.

Sincerely,

Isaac William Martin, University of California - San Diego

Monica Prasad, Northwestern University

Cedric DeLeon, University of Massachusetts - Amherst

Jeffrey Broadbent, University of Minnesota

Andrew Jorgenson, Boston College

Michael Goldman, University of Minnesota

Elizabeth Popp Berman, University of Michigan

Stephanie Lee Mudge, University of California - Davis

Josh Pacewicz, Brown University

John Robinson, Washington University St. Louis

Steven Karceski, University of Washington

Victor Ray, University of Iowa

Daniel Hirschman, Brown University

Philip Cohen, University of Maryland

Charlie Eaton, University of California - Merced

Alondra Nelson, Institute for Advanced Study

Abby Kinchy, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Jeremy Levine, University of Michigan

Anna Korteweg, University of Toronto

Caroline Lee, Lafayette College

Ethan Schoolman, Rutgers University