[Margaret Hanzimanolis]

I understood the commons to be an “open” area, for “exchange” of ideas.  I was just “rejected” from joining a group, the association of departments of English!!    I am the chair of the PTF discussion group, executive committee, and one of our projects is offering recommendations for an update of a letter, put out about four years ago, giving advice to departments about the treatment of adjunct faculty and otherwise contingent faculty.  I would like to be in dialogue with the “association of departments of english” on this matter, but I am “rejected” from joining the group??

I find this odd. Our group, the PTF group, is open, and anyone can join who is interested.  I call for egalitarian principles for the commons!!

 

Thanks!

[MLA Commons]

Hi Margaret,

I apologize for the confusion. The group you requested to join is not a discussion group but in fact an ADE committee reserved for department chairs. The name and description have been edited to make this clear.

You should not have received a “rejection” e-mail—in fact, you should not have been able to request membership at all, since membership is controlled by the MLA database. If you can let me know how you requested membership, we will work to fix the oversight to avoid this kind of confusion with other members.

I should note that we certainly share your desire for an open, transparent MLA Commons. However, the Commons must also function as a place for committees and other groups to conduct business. The need for privacy may vary from group to group, so we made the decision to designate all committees, divisions, and discussion groups as “private groups” by default. This allows the groups themselves to decide whether to open themselves up (which we encourage) or remain private.

We certainly welcome dialogue between members and between members and MLA staff on the Commons, and you are free to communicate with anyone—either in the context of another group or by sending them a message via their profile page.

Thanks for your feedback and sorry again for the confusion.

Chris

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