Dear Gobena and EC members,

This may be a good time to interject myself--very briefly--in this debate. I served as OSA Treasurer over the last two years--both under Mekuria Bulcha's and Asfaw Beyene's chairmanship. What I saw under both leadership was nothing but professionalism. They both sincerely tried to improve OSA's attendance, membership, and quality.

As far as I am concerned, the outgoing Executive Committee (of which I was a part) also did its best for OSA, based on its bylaws and an open, democratic and consultative decision-making process. Now, one can second-guess or even disagree with the collective decisions of the outgoing Executive Committee, but it is unfair to grossly dismiss the Committee as having failed to discharge its responsibilities.

Looking back, I personally admit there were areas we could have done better. One such area, for example, is opening up the award nomination process to all OSA members, including putting up the award guidelines on the OSA website for all to see. This was not done both under Mekuria and Asfaw. Doing so would have availed members the opportunity to participate in nominating and voting on potential awardees. In the future, I think OSA will benefit from reaching out to all its members for a bottom-up nomination process in determining who should receive the annual award(s).

Going forward, and being fully aware that I am relatively new to OSA, I see three key challenges facing OSA:
(i) how to maintain independence from politics and serve as a true forum-for-all-voices; (ii) how to raise quality; and,
(iii) how to improve its financial base so that OSA can involve more scholars, do more activities, etc.

On (i) I think the challenge is to be inclusive--not exclusive--of all Oromo voices (even non-Oromo voices studying the Oromo) regardless of their political orientation. This means that OSA members can have their own political outlook and can belong to any political organization they want, but in OSA they should be expected to contribute to its mission by engaging in formal academic discourses and discussions. Our OSA officers must truly uphold the bylaws of the organization, avoid any politically motivated decisions, and give, as much as possible, all voices a fair chance in the OSA conferences.

On (ii), the main problem in my view was that there were, in both years, too many panels and speakers, leaving little time for discussion and public participation (the more interesting part of OSA conferences). In the future, a more focused theme may help OSA deepen knowledge, cut back on panels and speakers, and open up space for discussion and participation from the audience. In addition, papers and presentations should be held to a minimum standard both in terms of quality and presentation (e.g. no presentation without a powerpoint).

On (iii), I think increasing membership remains one way--but not the only way--to improve OSA's finances. As an organization that has thrived for 20 years, I definitely felt OSA's finances were not where they should have been. Other ways of fund-raising (e.g. special fund-raising events) should be planned and implemented, and Auditor comments and recommendations should be taken more seriously. Without improved resources, OSA's growth and influence is going to be curtailed.

Cutting across all, what I found to be a serious handicap of OSA was the timing of its business hours. It's ill-timed and denies members the opportunity to discuss the business challenges of OSA more seriously. In both years, they were too late in the day and left little time to conduct election, much less carry out serious deliberations. This, in my view, has to change. It is ironic that we travel from all over the world for two loaded days of presentations, but find no time to discuss the business of OSA collectively. Hope the new OSA leadership will endeavor to change the business hours of OSA to a more suitable time in consulation with members.

I am firmly of the view that whatever concerns and differences we have, we should discuss them using the OSA forum (i.e. group email) . Indeed, we should work with the current leadership (Gobena and the EC) to change the business hours, investigate any past wrong-doings and allegations in an impartial manner (independent committee?), and table the key agenda items, including any committee findings, for discussion for next year well in advance of our conference. I think we must follow the formal institutional processes of OSA to steer it back on course even when we feel that it's seriously off-track.

Sincerely,

Abebe Adugna