The process for vetting abstracts and composing the annual meeting program should be guided by MAP’s core values. These include a commitment to interdisciplinarity; a focus on promoting members at all career stages, but especially graduate students, junior faculty, and independent scholars; the prioritization of medievalists living in western North America and the broader Pacific Rim; and the importance of teaching the Middle Ages in all relevant disciplines. Furthermore, selection procedures should actively promote an ethic of inclusivity, mutual respect, and tolerance. Harassment and bullying by conference presenters and attendees are unacceptable. The program committee is charged to take steps in the vetting process to limit the chances of such behaviors taking place at the meeting itself. Submission of a proposal does not guarantee acceptance of a paper, and the program committee reserves the power to reject abstracts from those who do not act in keeping with the organization’s values. It is essential for MAP’s survival as an organization that the conference be a place where the vulnerable within our field are welcomed and protected.
Although it is the responsibility of the local organizing committee to determine the guiding theme(s) of the annual conference, subject to approval of the MAP Council, the Council itself should ensure that calls for papers highlight themes central to MAP’s identity.
When the call for papers goes out, or before if possible, the local organizers should make every effort to reach out to colleagues and organizations that can help recruit participants from marginalized and underrepresented groups.
The program committee is typically constituted by members of the local organizing committee, joined by the MAP president and secretary. Other arrangements are possible, but the work should involve both local organizers and MAP officers.
Vetting of proposals and the organization of panels are to adhere to the following guidelines:
• Abstracts should be read and evaluated by the program committee without any identifying information regarding the person submitting the proposal.
• On the basis of the proposals alone, the program committee will decide whether to accept a paper and will arrange the abstracts into coherent panels.
• After the first draft program is assembled, two people from the MAP Council (this may include officers not already on the program committee or at-large members) will unblind the proposals to see if panels reflect a balance of gender and career stages. In particular, the committee should avoid panels that are not reflective of the diversity of scholars in that field or of the diversity that the field seeks to represent. If this is the case, the program committee should be tasked with reorganizing the panels in question.
• Once the full program draft is complete, the program committee will forward its recommendation to the MAP Council for final approval.
While the local organizers may choose to invite preformed panels, these panels should follow the guidelines laid out above regarding MAP’s values and the need for balanced panels. If a panel does not, the program committee may reject the panel or revise it by moving some of the participants to other sessions and including presenters from the general pool or another preformed panel.
MAP values in-person attendance at the annual conference as a means of building community around the organization and facilitating collegial exchange. At the same, MAP recognizes that the goals of inclusivity and access are often served by allowing remote participation. The local organizers and the Council should consider this balance in deciding what forms of virtual attendance might be appropriate and feasible in any given year of the conference.
Approved by the MAP Council, April 21, 2022.