[ASEEES] 2017 Convention Survey; ASEEES Commons; Call to Action - Contact Congress

[Park, Lynda]

2017 ASEEES Convention Survey

The 2017 ASEEES Convention Chicago is now behind us.  For those who attended, we hope that you found your participation a fruitful one.  We thank all participants, attendees, program committee members, and organizers of external events for making the Chicago convention a success.  We are asking all registrants to complete the survey so that we can work to make the convention even better in the future: www.surveymonkey.com/r/ASEEES17<https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ASEEES17>  You can also tell us where you would like for us to hold the convention in 20122-2024.

The 2018 Annual Convention<http://www.aseees.org/convention/future-aseees-conventions> is in Boston, December 6-9.

Continue the Conversations on ASEEES Commons

Did you have particularly interesting conversations at the convention? Keep the momentum going online by creating a group on ASEEES Commons (here's how<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsupport.aseees.hcommons.org%2Fguides%2Fgroups%2F&data=01%7C01%7Clypark%40pitt.edu%7Cbe7e5d14490340cb220f08d52c520287%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1&sdata=TU5CHLAi5WHW7TWEIbAyRlLPzOtxvt%2B9NUhfEeSaAeg%3D&reserved=0>) to plan events, work internationally, talk about ideas for future panels, etc. Groups can be private or public (open to all ASEEES members) and come with a discussion forum with e-mail options as well as shared calendar and file space. They're also connected to the ASEEES non-profit open-access repository, CORE, where we encourage all convention attendees to upload and archive their presentations so that others can discover their work! Members get a DOI for any items they upload  to CORE (including course materials and syllabi), and items are indexed in places such as Google Scholar and Altmetric-and available for anyone to download (no registration required). To register for ASEEES Commons, go to aseees.hcommons.org<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Faseees.hcommons.org&data=01%7C01%7Clypark%40pitt.edu%7Cbe7e5d14490340cb220f08d52c520287%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1&sdata=VYyvv242804M8Ix0A4enGj1O90WD1Zbad78gufqw7TU%3D&reserved=0>.

Call to Action for US Members - Contact Congress

On November 16th, the US Congress House of Representatives passed a tax bill with a clause that would make waived tuition for graduate students subject to income tax. This would significantly increase the tax liability of hundreds of thousands of graduate students. You can read more about the legislation on the National Humanities Alliance blog<http://www.nhalliance.org/nhablog>. You can also read this opinion piece<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/16/opinion/house-tax-bill-graduate-students.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0> in the New York Times and the editorial<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-destructive-part-of-the-republican-tax-bill-youre-not-paying-attention-to/2017/11/16/b24cbe7e-c96b-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html?utm_term=.a452caa3bac5> in the Washington Post.

The Senate version of the tax bill does not include this clause and, as it currently stands, leaves the exemption intact.  We must take action now to make sure that the Senate does not add this clause into its tax bill.  Should the Senate pass a tax bill (even with the exemption intact), the House and the Senate bills will then move to a conference committee, at which point the House version could be adopted.

ASEEES urges all concerned members in the US to contact their members of Congress to oppose this provision and urge them to maintain the tax exemption. If your university has an office of federal/government relations, make sure that office is aware how crucial this issue is to the future of graduate studies and of the scholarly profession.

You can write to your members of Congress by using this NHA online action form<http://p2a.co/ZkGXFz8>. Call their offices and urge them to oppose the repeal of Section 117(d) tuition reduction assistance in the House's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.  You can find their phone numbers here<https://www.callmycongress.com/>.
The above info can be found at: http://www.aseees.org/advocacy/tell-congress-not-tax-tuition-waivers-graduate-students   Please feel free to share widely.


Lynda Park
Executive Director
Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
203C Bellefield Hall | University of Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh, PA 15260-6424 USA
+1 (412) 648-9911 (main), +1 (412) 648-9815 (fax)
Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/pages/Association-for-Slavic-East-European-and-Eurasian-Studies/141362775903086> | Twitter<http://twitter.com/#!/aseeestudies> | ASEEES Commons<https://aseees.hcommons.org/>

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