Can I get 100 AWP members to vote–again?

Let’s practice some genuine literary citizenship, people. Let’s do something positive.

AWP is this close to having a quorum. They are at 54%. They need to get to 60%. By next week!

Incentive for them: If they get to 60%, they save beaucoup bucks in legal fees, and they’re better equipped to serve you.

Incentive for you: You can win a Kindle Fire or Paperwhite. Plus, you know, making a difference and all that.

Just go here and vote.

Even if you voted last year–the last time I tried to help in this effort–you have to vote again!

How should you vote? Vote yes or no. Doesn’t matter. Just vote.

Who should vote? Every freaking body. Tenure-track faculty. Non-tenure track. Individual members.

What are you voting for? Here’s the explanation from my friend and colleague, Jill Christman, member of the AWP board.

We are closer than we have *ever* been to reaching the quorum necessary to reform AWP’s governance and enter this millennium with pens poised.  AWP’s current articles of incorporation and bylaws have many vestigial remnants from the 1960s and 1970s, when AWP was a much smaller organization. We need new bylaws and articles to help AWP to better serve a more diverse and bigger association. Regional representation of the programs and faculty will continue in the new system of governance, with the regions expanding from five to six groups of membership. Each of the new Region Councils shall have a representative on the board, as the regions have now.

The last call for votes brought us up a couple percentage points, but we’re not to 60% yet, and we need to get there before the end of this semester.

You don’t have to vote “yes.”  You don’t even have to vote “no.”  You simply have to register your presence.  Let us know you were there. Remember, the voting cycle started anew in Fall 2013, so if you voted *before* that, do it again now.

Remember the final pages of Horton Hears a Who​?  The mayor tearing up those fabulous Seussian staircases in Whoville with his megaphone in search of that single shirker?  That final, critical, town-saving “Yopp”?  Go find the Jo-Jos in your program and encourage them to put down their yo-yos and vote. We can do this.