Option “Fromm”

Overview:

The Erich Fromm Society of North America will consist of 4 committees, consisting of 3 members each. The 4th committee would consist of one member from each of committees 1-3. In all, each of 9 persons would serve a 1-year term, while responsibilities in the 4th committee may rotate (see committee descriptions below).

Committees:

  1. The Social Inquiry Committee would organize scholarly conferences, publications, and manage other academic affairs.  Its purpose would be to ensure that Fromm and Critical Theory continue to be studied and applied.
  2. The Clinical Practice Committee would organize projects and activities to promote Fromm’s ideas within therapeutic practice.
  3. The Social Action Committee would organize and assist members in creating or joining already existing groups to advance social, political and environmental issues.
  4. The Coordinating Committee will consist of three liaisons – one person selected or elected by their peers in the other three Committees. The members of any of Committees 1-3 may decide to rotate in/out who is their liaison for the Coordinating Committee, so that more than one member of each of those committees (1-3) can serve on the Coordinating Committee during the year. Responsibilities of the Coordinating Committee:
    • coordinate initiatives across the domains of the other Committees
    • draft by-laws to be voted on by the membership as a whole (if necessary)
    • interface with the International Erich Fromm Society
    • address concerns and/or adjudicate any complaints from the membership at large
    • convene at least one annual meeting and/or conference for all members
    • manage any outreach or public/online representation that pertains to the general membership, i.e., more than one Committee’s area.
      • Committees 1-3 will otherwise do their own outreach to network with other like-minded/focused groups and organizations

Elections, nominations, etc.:

A new year’s committee members would need to be selected based on a combination of nominations and elections. Elections would be yearly, and organized by the Coordinating Committee. Members could self-nominate, or accept nomination from others. Service would be based on election, unless there are too few people for an actual election to function, in which case nominees will be accepted into office without election. Preference would go to new nominees over the prior year’s committee members rerunning for the same committee two years in a row.

Click here for more on elections, etc.

Addenda:

  1. Ad hoc committees can be formed as needed for specific purposes and events, via any of the other committees (e.g., setting up a conference at the university of someone in the larger collective but not currently in one of the general committees).
  2. Generally, the norm should be that Committee meetings will be open to anyone in the full society to attend. For these open meetings, each Committee can internally decide how to organize/run them. Committees are not required to hold every meeting as an open meeting. They may opt to hold some meetings privately.
  3. For any particularly volatile/controversial issues in the wider world which members want to publicly engage in, they are advised not to do this under the mantle of this society, but rather as independently acting, unaffiliated persons or groups or persons.
  4. Every 2 years, in conjunction with but prior to election time, the Coordinating Committee should organize a collective revisiting of the question of organizational structure, with the option to continue as already mapped, or make changes small or large for the coming year, elections included.