November 8, 2002

Dear Colleague:

During the past week the American Sociological Association sent out dues renewal forms to the membership. The Membership Committee of our Sociology of Education Section is asking for your assistance in a recruiting drive for 2002-2003. Over the past ten years our section has grown from slightly over 300 members to in excess of 600. The result of this growth has enabled us to hold more sessions at the American Sociological Association annual meetings and to sponsor more activities for members. For many years we sought to reach the 600-member goal in order to be permitted by ASA to add more sessions at the meetings. However, membership totals tend to be fluid and if we fall below that level, we lose some of the sessions we have worked to gain. In an effort to preserve sessions and even to expand benefits the committee and I request a small favor from you.

Besides renewing your own membership, we would offer the following modest suggestion. There may be a graduate student with whom you work who is a member of the ASA, but not a member of the Sociology of Education Section. Please consider buying one or more of your students a membership, which costs $7 at the student rate or $12 at the regular membership rate, as a "thank you" for their help on a particular project or their work as your teaching or research assistant. It is an inexpensive reward, but it will help them with their professional socialization and benefit your section, too.

The Sociology of Education Section has a website that can be accessed by clicking on to www.asanet.org/soe . Please click on this web address and familiarize yourself with the numerous benefits and sources of information, employment, and data provided by the section. Then please print a copy of the section membership form displayed below for that student you wish to thank. In addition, please print off other copies and talk to your colleagues or graduate students. Please encourage at least one person to join the section.

When you speak to your colleagues and students, you might want to point out that the section has many benefits to offer, including access to an on-line website that contains an extensive bibliography on educational issues created by Robert Dreeban of the University of Chicago; a jobs and fellowships board and access to data and information for research projects and research funding. The section sponsors a successful annual dinner at the ASA meetings and an auction that generates funds for graduate students. We make awards to students and honor the accomplishments of educational researchers; we hold conferences that address salient issues in educational research and education policy; and we sponsor large and successful roundtables at the ASA meetings where, frequently, senior scholars have served as critics, offering positive suggestions to improve student and faculty research.

Thank you for helping our section and one another. If merely one-quarter of us are successful in recruiting one new member each, we shall not only assure ourselves of continued access to all of the sessions we currently enjoy at ASA meetings, we shall gain additional sessions, thereby enabling more people to share their research.

Sincerely,

A. Gary Dworkin
SOE Membership Chair 2002-2003

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