One outcome of the recent annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion is that the two co-chairs of the Contemporary Pagan Studies Group, Michael York and Wendy Griffin, came to the end of their terms.
Stepping into those positions are Jone Salomonsen (University of Oslo) and me.
You don’t campaign for these positions; you get them because everyone in the room is looking at you.
One of the chief duties of the (co) chair is writing the call for papers for next year’s meeting (Nov. 19-22, San Francisco), which I am working on right now. Jone supplies the brainpower, and I do the paperwork.
The rest of the committee: Shawn Arthur, Helen Berger, Graham Harvey, Nikki Bado, Michael York.
“You don’t campaign for these positions; you get them because everyone in the room is looking at you.”
This is how it’s worked for every Pagan-related position I ever held. I daresay it’s the method of leadership selection.
No doubt the same selection process occurs in non-Pagan-related program units of the American Academy of Religion as well. 😉