Dear SFRA, please find below the candidate statements for this year’s candidates for the at-large positions on the executive committee. After this year’s special one-year pilot, these positions will have three year terms like the other positions on exec.
Per our bylaws, we now enter a thirty-day period where additional candidates may present themselves. The bylaws describe the process this way:
Within 30 days of the publication of this slate of candidates in the SFRA Review, additional candidates may be nominated by submission of a petition signed by at least five persons of the membership in good standing entitled to vote in the election to the secretary of the association. At the end of this 30-day period nominations shall be closed and the ballot shall be prepared.
If you would like to take advantage of this process, please reach out to me and we can get the ball rolling. The ballot will be locked on November 30, and the ballot period will close on Friday, December 29.
Thanks all! Gery
Helane Androne (Miami University)
I am happy to stand once again for the At-large position on the Executive Committee of the SFRA. I am currently Professor of English at Miami University of Ohio Regional campuses (open access), and I’m an Affiliate of the Global and Intercultural Studies Department. I teach courses in African American literature, Latine literatures, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Women’s Studies, and the Sacred in Science fiction–all which inevitably intersect and engage the premises and texts of Scifi and its conscientious questioning of the status quo. I am committed to teaching and learning practices that engage non/traditional students through multidisciplinary and multi-modal learning, and I seek to reflect that concern both in my courses and in my scholarship. My current project uses Chela Sandoval’s Methodology of the Oppressed alongside Malidoma Patrice Somé’s rite of passage teachings to point out how myth and magic operate as an activism of radical survival in black womanist SFF. I have recently engaged SFF to present on Love Theory, on anti-racism, on activism and resistance, on intersectionality and the image of God, and on methodologies of emancipation. Along with scholarly interests, I have concrete experience and skills that enhance my candidacy and, I hope, my ability to continue contributing productively to the complex discussions and decisions within the SFRA Executive Committee. For example, I have successfully written and co-written almost $200K in external and internal grants and I have presented for more than 70 conferences, workshops, and lectures. I also remain an active scholar, continuing to support the kind of multi-disciplinary knowledges represented in my interests. I like to think that my academic administrative experience chairing a department and co-directing a graduate program, my service on similarly complex committees, –including serving as chair for the 1921 Award for 2 cycles at the American Literature Society–, alongside my creative and entrepreneurial experiences as an independent magazine editor, writer, and serial entrepreneur, provide a useful perspective. As an At-large member of the SFRA, I believe I’ll bring a balance of academic experience, administrative conscientiousness, and scholarly aptitude, as well as energetic support for the diverse and expanding role of SFF.
Kania Greer (Georgia Southern University)
I am interested in serving as an SFRA Representative At-Large on the Executive Committee. As a member of SFRA for the past couple of years I have seen the value in the community that SFRA provides for those who have an interest in science fiction, and I would like to use my expertise to expand this community. My research focuses on how people utilize science fiction to access science and how this access promotes critical thinking. Through this research, we have discovered that many people who work in scientific and engineering fields have close ties to science fiction through print and media channels. This provides potentially untapped opportunities to engage students in content that is thought provoking while also entertaining. From comics to novels there are a myriad of genres and platforms to allow students to access science and literacy through fiction. I know personally, just attending SFRA Conferences for the past couple of years how I have come to consider differing world views and examine privilege through safe conversations around fictional people.
My current role at Georgia Southern University is that of Coordinator for the Center for STEM Education. Even though I have a doctoral degree, this is a staff level position that does not provide tenure benefits nor faculty status. Through this center, housed within the College of Education, we promote STEM education through both formal and informal educational opportunities across K-20 grades. We work with teachers in every field to provide engaging and hands-on opportunities for students often showcasing activities that get students thinking critically about outcomes. With Georgia’s recent focus on literacy across the state, we have begun to host professional development workshops for teachers utilizing science fiction to engage students in science fact. For example: utilizing The Hunger Games and having students consider what District 12 could utilize in order to produce food. Then students design their solution whether it be a greenhouse, water tower, electric grid, etc. Their solutions require that they have knowledge of the constraints of the story but engages the solution focused part of their brains through an engineering design process as well. In this way we are combining literature with STEM learning to improve critical thinking skills.
I think my unique experiences in working with science fiction from a researcher perspective could serve the membership well and potentially expand SFRA to more members. I have also served on the SFRA Student Paper Award Committee for the past 2 years and am currently chair of the Committee.
Gabriela Lee (University of Pittsburgh)
As an academic and author from the Global South, I am very excited to renew my commitment as an at large member of the SFRA. I am looking forward to highlighting and raising up voices from my side of the world and bringing them into conversation with other scholars and writers from the Global North. I am also looking forward tocontinue supporting regular activities that the SFRA currently has and encouraging new initiatives, and I intend to bring my energy and work ethic to these projects. Outside of the SFRA, I am also the co-editor of an upcoming sourcebook on Philippine speculative fiction, soon to be published by the University of the Philippines Press. I am also currently a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh, as well as a faculty member (on leave) at the University of the Philippines, where I teach creative writing, children’s literature, and Philippine literature in English. Broadly speaking, my creative and critical work has usually focused on intersections of children’s literature, speculative fiction, and the post/de/anti-colonial, especially the ways in which it manifests in Philippine literature. I hope that through the at large member position in the SFRA, I can contribute to making visible many creators and scholars who may not have had opportunities to be seen and heard, as well as learning from a community of like-minded scholars and writers. I look forward to serving SFRA community in imagining and moving towards a kinder, more compassionate world.