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Figure 2. Organization chart of Acoustical Society of America committees.
has almost 7,000 members! This is only possible because of the army of volunteers who carry out the mission of the Society by working on the various ASA committees and in leadership.Thisvolunteerarmyisshowninthecommittee organizational chart (Figure 2).
The TC is chaired by the VP and is composed of the 13 Tech- nical Committee chairs who provide direct representation of the Society membership through the open Technical Com- mittee meetings that take place at each ASA meeting. You can find a list of the technical committees and their roles at https://bit.ly/ASA_committees (see also Figure 2). The term TC is used at the ASA to represent both the Techni- cal Council, and the individual Technical Committees, e.g.: TCUW. In this column I will use it to represent the council and will write out technical committee in full, but this is not usually done, so keep the two meanings in mind in future when you hear or read the acronym.
The ASA also has administrative committees that support the mission of the Society and report to the EC (Figure 2). Membership on some administrative committees requires specialized knowledge or ASA experience. Administrative committees are also listed at https://bit.ly/ASA_committees.
As a member-driven organization, member input is solic- ited on many ASA issues at the Society meetings. The
ASA accomplishes this by organizing its meetings into a sandwich structure. On Monday morning, the EC meets to consider and discuss Society business including many items that require membership input. These are dis- cussed by the technical committee chairs (i.e., the TC) on Monday afternoon. The technical committee chairs dis- cuss the ideas at the open technical committee meetings later in the week where they solicit feedback, new ideas, issues, and concerns from their members. Everyone is welcome to attend these meetings. The ideas generated at the open meetings are discussed further by the technical committees at their Friday morning meeting and then brought to the EC by the VP Friday afternoon. Along with their other responsibilities, the EC acts on the new and continuing technical committee items as appropriate.
It is not uncommon for chairs or members of technical committees and administrative committees to later be a candidate for ASA elected office. These committee experi- ences are not required for officer positions, but the expertise is very useful. To be a candidate for elected office, you must be a full member or Fellow (see https://bit.ly/3r01Ovt for an online application to transfer to full membership).
Every year, a new nominating committee proposes can- didates for president-elect, VP-elect, and two of the six members of the EC. In addition, any ASA member
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