Report of the Executive Secretary

Extract

A ? LEAST eleven steps have been taken to try to meet the problems and alleviate the tensions that revealed themselves at the 1968 annual meeting. That meeting itself has become something of a cause célèbre, resulting in massive correspondence with the Executive Council and Secretariat, meetings about MLA and the problems of the profession on dozens of campuses, and a spate of articles in the journals and the public press. All of this seems to me useful. No one would deny that we have problems, and I am heartened by the thought that so many people are thinking and writing about them. What concerns me is how this ferment can be translated into productive action. The steps we have taken this year have been largely to improve communication and to explore ways of adding new dimensions to the MLA concern. Inevitably even these steps, combined with the proposal for a dues increase, have led to unhappy letters from members that speak of the MLA as empire building, of its departure from its original purposes, of its increasing amorphousness, and of its politicization. The number of resignations does not yet constitute an important threat, but the feeling they reflect and the fact that among them appear a few of our distinguished members are a cause for concern.