fifth CRTNET post preview

I recently submitted a post to CRTNET, which I hope will appear tomorrow. For folks who do not know, CRTNET is an email list service published by the National Communication Association. It is used for announcements, calls, job postings, and discussions. According to the CRTNET archive, I have published a total of 17 times since 1996, about once a year, on average. A majority of those posts were announcements. Four of them were discussion items: one about the boy scouts, one about the history of cultural studies, one in response to a scholar who attacked a journal in our field, and one about the recent hotel boycott. I am about to post, then, my fifth discussion piece.

As an aside: in general, I think it is not wise to post on CRTNET because it has thousands upon thousands of subscribers. If something is said, it should be well thought out and not hasty. In general, those who post frequently on CRTNET are regarded unfavorably. To post on the service frequently on this or that minor issue or quibble is a waste of time for a very large audience. So, in general, I don't think posting on CRTNET is wise unless the issue is of major importance to most subscribers.

I think recent policy changes by the NCA are abusive and single out graduate students. I don't think this singling-out is conscious, but I do think our grads are getting screwed. It's one of my professional hobby-horses. The Rhetoric Society of America has recently really gone out of their way to make their conferences affordable to students, bending over backwards to help. NCA has done the opposite. It makes me angry.

So, here's a sneak-peek at the post:

I am writing to express my strong disappointment with NCA's recent decision to force early registration for the annual conference. I am also writing to criticize the disingenuous rationale offered by NCA staff for this policy change, as well as the underlying attitude toward NCA members that the registration policy seems to represent.

For the past two years or so, our national, professional organization has been forcing scholars, teachers, and students who appear on the tentative program into "early bird" registration in September. Let me offer three practical reasons for why this policy is misguided, and then comment on the larger ideology that funds the policy.

First, early registration is +too early+. For many program participants, requiring payment by mid-September is a financial hardship. For many if not most educators, the official school year begins on or shortly before September 1st. What this means is that the first paycheck for the year tends to arrive on or around October 1st. A September 17th deadline for registration comes before many of us have been paid. This is especially difficult for graduate students, many of whom struggle to make ends meet (notably, summer teaching opportunities are not guaranteed for anyone at many places, especially for graduate students). Although I understand our national office needs to plan, the timing of early registration is simply +too+ early for the most financially challenged in our organization.

Second, early registration assumes members will use a credit card. Many members do not own or use credit cards. In this dour economy, in fact, not using one's credit---if she has any left---is advisable. Early registration is, at least indirectly, a request for members to use credit in an economic environment that actively discourages it.

Third, early registration requires the national office to be technologically primed. For the past two years the fax machine at NCA headquarters has been malfunctioning on or around the registration deadline. If the national office is going to force members to pay early to participate in the program, they need to at least have the infrastructure set up to handle early registration. Because early registration is at the beginning of the school year, the office (and its equipment) should be prepared for a wave of last minute registrants.

What troubles me more than the imposition of early registration is the disingenuous rationale given by national office staff: the printing of the program. Two days before the deadline, I emailed the national office to request an extension on registration, as a series of unexpected emergencies this summer evacuated my savings. Of course, I was told no extension was possible. Then, a NCA membership manager offered the following explanation:

"The September 17 deadline is for participants to be included in the program. This is the latest date we can have and still produce a program for the convention. There is no extension of the deadline possible for participants to be listed in the program because of the production time needed."

Such a rationale is disingenuous at best.

Instead of engaging a lie, lets discuss the real reason for this recent change in registration policy. As former NCA President Martha Watson wrote in the October 2005 SPECTRA, the annual convention "has a plague of what might kindly be called cd's: convention deadbeats." In her editorial on the criminality of the convention deadbeat, Watson noted "the leadership of NCA continues to investigate the problem of the cd's and to explore solutions. One idea is to simply drop persons from the conference who do not register or pay a membership by a certain date." Of course, this "solution" has come to pass. The reason for forcing program participants to register early +is not+ the production of the program, then, which appears to be the national office's party line. The reason is for getting money out of the dreaded deadbeat.

Not coincidentally, who is most likely to skip registering for NCA? The student, of course. The student is precisely the person who needs professional development the most. The student is precisely the person who attends the no-host, not to schmooze, but simply to eat! In short, the early registration deadline punishes precisely the kind of person who could use the most charity. In this respect, early registration replicates a class system in which the least powerful and disadvantaged are getting "disciplined" by those in power.

In the context of the national office's actions in the last few years---I stress the well-known distinction between the office and leadership---it is difficult to describe this "deadbeat solution" as representing anything more than a growing, bottom-line-driven antipathy toward NCA's members, especially students. Of course, the national office's silence and inaction regarding homophobia and the boycott of last year's convention---until the eleventh hour---demonstrated a certain attitude toward its membership. This attitude is reflected, increasingly, in management and policy decisions that have a certain us/them character. Forcing early bird registration on program participants is part of that attitude.

I recognize that NCA has grown and is growing quickly, and this growth creates all sorts of challenges. A number of respected colleagues work hard behind the scenes and within NCA leadership for positive change as we grow. I'm very pleased we are searching for a new executive director; this is a positive step. Art Bochner served marvelously as the recent president and I'm thankful for his service and the changes he helped to shepherd. Betsy Bach is continuing that competent leadership style.

What I'm writing about is more of a structural attitude or ideology that repositions NCA as a business in service to the bottom line, as opposed to a professional organization that should serve its members---not penalize and punish them! I am not concerned here with individual people, but rather the structure or culture of the national office and the corporatized direction it seems to be heading. Deliberately not doing anything about the problem with the conference hotel last year--at least until it was too late--is a symptom of this larger problem. Failing to make exceptions and to help the most disadvantaged members is a symptom of this larger problem. Forced early registration is a symptom of this larger problem. And lying about the reasons behind early registration is also a symptom of this larger problem.

The national office needs to extend registration deadlines to students so that they can remain on the program, and it should do so +this year+ (Perhaps only those who are not registered as "students" should be dropped from the program?). For next year's conference, consideration should also be made for those individuals who would like to remain on the program but are better able to register in October. And beyond this, NCA leadership needs to work on correcting this "us/them" attitude discernable in NCA policies and rhetoric, including its conspicuous silences on matters of controversy.

The International Communication Association and the Rhetoric Society of America are increasingly attractive homes to NCA members, and this is not simply because they are smaller. Perhaps NCA can learn something from how ICA and RSA treat their members?