have $500 and reasonable social connections? well, then, you could be a proud owner of your very own asa section-in-formation!

From a mass e-mail sent to the Wisconsin sociology listserv:

PLEASE READ THIS.  OUR ATTEMPT TO START A SECTION-IN-FORMATION ON 
DISABILITY AND SOCIETY IS IN JEOPARDY.
 
WE need 100 people *WHO ARE CURRENT MEMBERS OF ASA* who are willing to 
support our petition to the Committee on Sections----or our petition 
will not be considered.  We have well over 100 people who indicated that 
they support the section-in-formation, but the problem is that many are 
not current ASA members. [...]
  
*If you are already an ASA member who has indicated support, how can 
you help*?  
 
Approach colleagues, friends, grad school buddies or graduate 
students who are ASA members and ask if they will support this...  
(Or, if you have grad students are not members, convince 
your chair that they should be and get them signed up 
pronto.)  Depending upon how much this is worth to you, and if you can 
afford it, offer to pay their section dues [$5-10/yr] for them for two years.   
All we need right now is their names--no money.  Frankly, at this point I 
would pay their section dues in order to get this thing off the ground.  
(Yes, I will).

I understand that more sections = more money for ASA, regardless of where the money comes from. Still, does anybody feel good about these open listserv requests for recruiting "grad school buddies" with zero interest in a topic to sign up for a new section and have other people pay their dues for the two years it takes to get the section started (at which point they drop out)? Is there any integrity whatsoever to the process of forming and maintaining sections at this point?

This message also bothers me because the author later writes, "I am not trying to plug ASA membership.," and seems to think it's an abomination that ASA requires that the people who count toward becoming an ASA section be ASA members. Sections-in-formation take ASA resources beyond what they raise in dues. Besides, if ASA membership isn't important, why is becoming an ASA section so important?

And, what's with the part about getting chairs to have grad students sign up? Are there departments that pay for their graduate students to be ASA members?

Update: Instructions on how to form your own ASA section are here.