I rage quit my professional association

[foralurker]

I rage quit my professional association. Still unsure how I feel about it, though a sense of relief is very much present.

My gripes:

No one does anything (I know... I know...) and new, inexperienced faculty and grad students end up in leadership positions. I ended up co-chairing a book committee. I have never written a book.

Prior authors of this book series show up at each meeting to tell us they have already written this book. There is no need for a new book. Please do not supplant their book. All five authors who visited us insist THEY have written the final word on our topic. (No one purchase these grossly overpriced reference books save for academic libraries at the behest of us faculty belonging to this professional association.)

While my department pats me on the back for cochairing a book committee during annual review time, I suspect they know this whole thing is bullshit. I'm embarrassed for participating in such obvious bullshit. (No one will ever cite this book, save for a grad student who stumbles upon it in their Library catalog. And the world it keeps on turning.)

A division of my professional association asked us to donate items for an auction that would fund grad student travel to our annual conference. I purchased a piece of pottery from a regional artist. Once the auction opened, it was clear the auction consisted of junk from people's houses. I re-read the call in case i misunderstood. Dusty shit from your house was not specifically encouraged. I'm still salty about it because the final price of the jug ($7) was significantly less than I paid for it ($40).

My final straw was when I was selected for yet another leadership position: coordinating scores for an annual award. After receiving scores from 3 of my six reviewers, I submitted my report and recommendation. I quickly received a scathing email indicating that I had instructed my reviewers to  review the WRONG AWARD and I would need to score the other award myself (with a couple of days to spare). After checking our website, and seeing that I was indeed working on the correct award, I resigned and canceled my membership.

I continue to receive emails, months later, asking me to do more work for our division and volunteer to score more awards. Seriously, eff these people.

Thank you for listening to my unhinged rant. This was cathartic.

[Wahoo Redux]

Wow.  I let me professional organization membership lapse simply because, while our discipline withers, the organization does very little but occasionally talk a little bit tough about activism. 

Did you tell them why you are ditching their august ranks?

[foralurker]

No, the only person who knows why I left was the lady we submitted our division's awards to. The initial email I received essentially said: "Susan Smith submitted the Honorable Z award over a week ago. You instructed your reviewers to score the wrong award. You were assigned to Honorable Y and your scores are due on Monday."

I resigned and pointed out her (and the illustrious Susan's) mistake. She did apologize.

This org is rather large, consisting of multiple SIGs and Divisions. Probably 10,000 members. No one is going to miss me. The feeling is mutual, though when I ranted on FaceBook about how unprofessional the org was (prior to the blowup) the doc students and mentors from my alma mater couldn't believe I was having such a bad experience. They simply adore these people.

[Wahoo Redux]

The Modern Language Association has withered by about half since its heyday in the '90s and early '00s.  Initially, in the first flush of being a grad student, it was fun to join and go to the big convention, although delivering papers there was a miserable experience. 

But as the discipline continues to wither and adjunctify, the MLA really does very little but update its byzantine MLA Handbook (so colleges are forced to buy it), publishes its "jobs list," and hosts its annual convention which used to be the nexus for interviews (all of which are being outmoded by the Internet and attenuated by the job market).

MLA has been around since at least 1883.  It's too bad it did not develop real, legitimate activism during those 140 years.

 

[Hibush]

Good job realizing that the professionals association has devolved to going through the motions rather than supporting your scholarship. I hope you can find a new scholarly organization that does things that are worthwile to you.

[sinenomine]

Agreed. I joined an additional professional association a couple years ago and was stunned at the opportunities and connections it offered and continues to offer. I now have no problem with disassociating from those that don't.

[lightning]

I rage quit my main professional association, about ten years ago, because too many people were glorifying themselves and not enough people were actually doing any work to support the organization. Five years ago, I went back, after a bigwig asked me to give the organization another chance.

It has been a lot better since my first tour of duty because more people are involved with the heavy lifting. (There was a major re-organization and complete replacement of the BOD and committee chairs, while I was away.) However, I sometimes feel like I should have stayed away. They need me much more than I need them, and it's my belief that the best movers and shakers for professional academic organizations are the ones where the organization and the leaders need each other.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I am not a member of any professional associations. Not because I am upset with them, but because there are no meaningful benefits to membership: I already have access to all the journals and conferences are on the university's dime whether I attend as a member or a non-member.

[apl68]

I belong to a couple of state-level professional organizations that do some worthwhile work.  I've declined joining the national-level organization due to the deeply misguided path it has been following for many years now.  It's going farther and farther off the deep end, with what are shaping up to be disastrous consequences.

[foralurker]

Thanks for sharing, everyone! I'm relieved to know it's not just me. I joined a much smaller org related to a subfield and found their early career resources and webinar series to be valuable. The vibe is so much better and I enjoyed their conference this year.

I'm not an MLA person, but I'm sad to learn what's becoming of them. Bummer!

[poiuy]

I am a member of a national and a regional organization for my discipline. The latter is so much more collegial and productive and affordable than the gigantic zoo that is the national organization.  After another year or two I plan to quit the national organization because the costs of annual membership and conference registration are extortionate.

[bio-nonymous]

Hey Foralurker, Good for you! I have been contemplating quitting one of my professional organizations since last fall (for a number of reasons), but have not simply because of the potential networking opportunities. Does that outweigh the negatives? I am still calculating...

[darkstarrynight]

I feel you on this. I quit one I loathed in 2020. The conferences were all in extremely expensive locations. I felt sorry for graduate students who could not get enough funding. I would attend sessions where the presenters and chair would not show up! Yet, I know these presentations are listed on their CVs, and I could never get my proposals accepted when I actually wanted to present. People were too busy exploring the fancy big city in which the conference was located. I only joined because my field is super niche but this organization is well-known in my college. My dean hosts a reception at this conference each year, so it was important for me to be involved pre-tenure. I joined a committee in my niche area and got elected to its board, a three-year term in which I was completely miserable. The chair of the committee was the type to send meeting invites without asking us our schedules, then constantly moved them around anyway and would cancel at the last minute after we all rearranged our schedules. I quit since my term ended in 2019. Then, lo and behold, a famous person I really respect in my field as me to serve on a panel for the virtual conference in 2021. I had to rejoin just to present from my basement on a Sunday afternoon for an hour. The organization would not let me join unless I paid dues for both 2020 and 2021, so I had to call and complain until they removed the 2020 dues from the invoice. The virtual platform was so bad we moved our presentation to zoom so of course on a Sunday with a last minute "location change," barely anyone attended. I asked for a refund for conference dues and got it. This year I did not join, but like you, I still get regular emails asking me to rejoin. What a disaster.

[foralurker]

the gigantic zoo that is the national organization

The gigantic zoo is an excellent description of the org I left!

I asked for a refund for conference dues and got it.

Now THAT is fantastic!

[Wahoo Redux]

the gigantic zoo that is the national organization

The gigantic zoo is an excellent description of the org I left!

The MLA conference is like a dog park without separate areas for the large and small dogs.