Roundtable: The Room Where It Happens: A Community Roundtable on the AWM’s Policy & Advocacy Priorities

Abstract: As one of its responsibilities, the AWM Policy & Advocacy Committee (P&A) writes statements on behalf of the AWM, as well as signs on to statements and letters from other organizations. Historically, these have covered topics ranging from endorsing legislation increasing access to data science education in the U.S. to commenting on international political movements. The committee charge guidelines are fairly broad, and it is up to the Committee to decide which topics are in line with the AWM Mission and Legislative Priorities, and judge their importance to the membership as a whole. In this session, we seek to increase transparency on P&A’s activities and to solicit feedback about where the broader community would like us to focus our efforts.
The session will include a short presentation with a summary of P&A’s activities, including some examples of recent events on which we debated whether or not to comment. We will then break the participants into groups and encourage smaller discussions about priorities. The last segment of the session will bring everyone back together, and end with a short presentation about the resources and training available for those who want to get involved with advocacy at a local level.
In concert with this session, P&A will be circulating surveys (both on paper and digitally) to give all AWM members a chance to weigh in, and will use the outcomes of both the session and the survey to inform future work.

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