Vision
An Openspace session was held at the joint SAS/SPA/AACS Conference in August 2005 to develop a vision for our new organization. Forty members participated. The purpose was not to arrive at a single vision but to talk in small groups and a session of the whole group to clarify how the new organization should serve its members and contribute to positive social change.
What follows is a summary of the notes provided by participating sub-groups. The Board of Directors will use this material in planning AACS activities and will revisit it periodically with the full membership.
HOW TO MAKE A VITAL COMMUNITY?
CONFERENCE
Most of our energy was spent on creating a conference that would improve the vitality of AACS. Some ideas for consideration:
- Better marketing to increase the number of attendees.
- A reception area (meeting area) with vitality
- Better graphics
- More people
- Message board
- Need more events with better energy – rather than increasing feelings of being marginalized. Eat and drink together. The leaders of the organization need to mingle with the members.
- Stress the non-competitive, non-elitist nature of AACS.
- Welcome new members.
- Offer credits for continuing education.
- Consider tracks for applied, research, clinical.
- Consider having a conference theme, a keynote address, interactive workshops.
- If we are a small group (under 100), consider having the whole group stay together for all the programs. Maybe have some breakout small groups to discuss the ideas presented in the whole. Papers could be brought to the conference and passed out. We would stay together to learn and socialize. Many members of the group were excited about this revolutionary change.
- Make the conference affordable to applied people who are not sponsored by an organization and to students.
MEMBERSHIP
Some time was spent on improving the benefits of membership during the 360 days we are not at the conference. Some ideas:
- On line dialogue on the topic du jour
- Applied case studies in the newsletter or on-line
- Once a month – feature a person – on line
- Have a career fair
- People were not aware of the list serve
CERTIFICATION:
- Clinical Sociology is an important component of the mission of AACS.
- Certification is seen as subsidiary to the issue of Clinical Sociology, but Certification was considered to be an important mechanism for promoting Clinical Sociology.
- Marketing the availability of certification, as well as making the process more easily understood, was seen as mechanisms for promoting both certification and clinical sociology. These were not only desirable but actually critical objectives for the new AACS.
STUDENT MEMBERS:
- Continue the tradition of conference opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students including papers, competitions, presentations, journal article opportunities for stellar work, clinical projects, student programs board member, and even student run sections of panel presenters at a conference.
- Promote fall conference meeting dates with considerations for off-site less expensive hotel rooms, and meetings held on or near college campuses.
- Improve graduate and undergraduate applied and clinical education by promoting accreditation of existing programs.
WHAT ARE THE BEST USES OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR ITS VARIOUS CONSTITUENCIES WITHIN APPLIED AND CLINICAL SOCIOLOGY?
- Students
- Training in applied skills
- Showing career options, providing performance venue
- Teaching with good examples
- Faculty
- Give useful research presentation venue/ publications
- Case studies and teaching examples
- Grants or rainmakers for programs
- Practitioners
- Stimulation from colleagues, networking opportunities
- Continuing Education Units for skills and keeping current
- Performance venue/recruitment from trainees
- Public
- Better communications of sociology’s many contributions
- Resource to help with social issues/ social problems
- ASA
- Push to value the discipline’s applied side advantages
- Open shades on public sociology before it was it
- Clients
- Identify potential consultants, sociologists ready to help
- Problems
- Assist with identification
- Understanding problem
- Understanding how to understand / methods for empowerment
- Revealing solutions they can discover / own
- Media
- More understanding about what sociology does and does not do
- Clearer presentation of the scientific process applied to the social arena
- Funders
- Resource list of local talent – quality control through credentials or identification researchers – a consultants directory with interests outlined for showing compatibility with mission of foundation
- Vehicle for carrying out foundation missions/ evaluating success
- Governments
- At all levels, provide services,
- Consult especially in interventions that are social processes
- Evaluate the accountability of institutions or organizations receiving government funding
- Assess citizen satisfaction with services
- NGOs or Non-Governmental Organizations
- Help with verification of program achievements to secure future funding
- In-kind cost sharing through coalitions with applied sociologists on needs assessment and research questions