Regular Governing Board Position Candidates
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Candidate:
Jeff Heydon Wilfred Laurier University How many CSA conferences have you attended? Four Link to CV Platform Statement Plank One: I will push to expand the international presence of the CSA. Plank Two: I will promote partnerships with other Cultural Studies associations to increase collaboration among colleagues. Plank Three: I will promote the Association to graduate Cultural Studies programs in an attempt to increase membership and expand membership. |
Candidate:
Joshua Synenko Trent University (Canada) How many CSA conferences have you attended? Three Link to CV Platform Statement Plank One: I will speak strongly and passionately to meet the needs and interests of early career scholars. Plank Two: I will be an advocate for Canadian Members, acting to promote the CSA to Canadian scholars, institutions, and funding agencies. Plank Three: I will advance the interests of members whose work coalesces around geography, information studies, media studies, and visual culture. Feel free to list anything else you'd like to add about your candidacy. I have proven organizational skills in my role as an academic coordinator, as president of a scholarly association, and assistant editor at an independent academic journal. CSA is my favourite U.S.-based group; I feel highly motivated to commit my time and energy to advancing its mandate, and I think I can make a strong and unique contribution as a dependable member of its governing board. |
Candidate:
Leigh Gaskin, Ph.D. Unaffiliated Researcher How many CSA conferences have you attended? One Link to CV Platform Statement Plank One: I will help our non-affiliated members by advocating for their needs within CSA. Plank Two: I aim to use my experience outside of academia to support CSA initiatives that develop skills and shape talent for those considering alternative academic positions. Plank Three: I want to build CSA membership of intellectuals and scholars who work outside of academia, to bolster the use of our work beyond the confines of the institution. Feel free to list anything else about your candidacy. As the crisis of academia continues, we must look for other opportunities to translate our research for a larger audience. The research that CSA membership generates has implications beyond academia and should be considered as a way to expand the reach of our organization. |
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Candidate:
Steven Gotzler Carnegie Mellon University How many CSA conferences have you attended? Four Link to CV Platform Statement Plank One: I will help to develop and maintain a small permanent virtual component for the annual conference, to increase global participation while lowering financial burdens and ecological impacts of travel. Plank Two: I will encourage and explore alternative and experimental session formats for future in-person/virtual annual conference sessions. Plank Three: I will continue helping to manage and grow the association's online presence, and investigate open-access platforms for conference programming and administration. Feel free to list anything else about your candidacy. In May, I will be finishing a 3-year term as a student GB member. I would love the opportunity to continue contributing to the exciting initiatives and long-term goals being developed by the board. |
Candidate:
Josh Smicker Catawba College How many CSA conferences have you attended? Five Link to CV Platform Statement Plank One: I will focus on helping connect Cultural Studies scholarship to a broader audience. Plank Two: I will work on developing initiatives for collaborative scholarship, especially around pressing contemporary political and social issues. Plank Three: I will expand career development initiatives and resources for cultural studies, both within and beyond the academy. Feel free to list anything else about your candidacy. In this moment of overlapping crisis, my main concerns in this position would be to help expand the reach of cultural studies scholarship that provides necessary and unique insights into our current context, and to develop structures to help support cultural studies scholars who are facing a litany of specific personal and professional challenges. My experience working in a broad range of institutions doing very different kinds of work--from traditional academic scholarship and program development, to editorial work and teaching in correctional institutions--would also provide a unique and relevant perspective in that process. |
Student Governing Board Position Candidates
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Candidate:
Dave Zeglen Cultural Studies George Mason University How many CSA conferences have you attended? Six Link to CV Platform Statement Plank One: I will continue to cultivate interdisciplinary perspectives at the CSA conference by further building ties to graduate students and faculty outside of CS departments that share our social and intellectual commitments in fields such as Queer Studies, Disability Studies, Post-Colonial Studies, Political Economy, Critical Theory, Black Studies, and Indigenous Studies. Plank Two: Given the continuing casualization of academic labor, I will also be launching a laboring organizing session and discussion at next year’s conference on how students and faculty can build solidarity for academic labor organizing on campus. Because our work is always timely and relevant, the CSA should have a loud, clear voice about the politics and policies that actively threaten academia, the humanities, and graduate studies in general, and our specific kind of work in particular. If this year’s labor session is successful, I will institute the session as a permanent fixture of the CSA’s annual conference. Plank Three: As a member of the conference organizing committee over the past three years, I have worked on developing stronger ties with the non-academic community by organizing filmmakers, activists, and community leaders to participate in our conference. I will continue to build these ties with non-academic communities to enhance our organization’s visibility and commitments and exchange ideas with cultural and political practitioners to enrich our own work and inform us of perspectives and problems our field may be inattentive to and lack. Feel free to list anything else about your candidacy. Over the past three years as a governing board member, I’ve helped write new policy and by-law language bolstering our commitment to diversity, inclusion, and equity for the CSA, worked on securing grants and external funding to help our organization grow, helped develop the conference programming, organized working groups, and managed our annual elections. A second term as governing board would enable me to build on the experience and knowledge I’ve gained over the past three years to better serve the CSA community. The CSA is my intellectual community, and I’m deeply committed to making this community as welcoming and as inclusive as possible for others who are also committed to the Cultural Studies scholarly and political project. |
Candidate:
Leelan Farhan How many CSA conferences have you attended? One Link to CV Platform Statement Plank One: I will suggest & organize online workshop and networking events specific to graduate students in cultural studies Plank Two: I will provide outreach & support to CSA graduate student members Plank Three: I will ensure (via surveys and email) that students' voices and interests are heard at CSA meetings and events Feel free to list anything else you’d like to add about your candidacy. Although I have only been a CSA member for a year, this membership has been valuable in accessing resources and connections in cultural studies as a student, and I hope to be able to represent my fellow graduate students on this governing board. |
