September 2015 ICAS E-Newsletter

September 2015 ICAS E-Newsletter

Link to the PDF of the E-Newsletter
https://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/ICAS-E-Newsletter-September-24-2015.pdf
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Hello Friends of the Institute for Critical Animal Studies,

While ICAS was founded in 2001 by Anthony Nocella and Steve Best, we really began to grow internationally in 2011 and our first monthly board meetings via Skype started in 2014. This year we are dedicated to reorganizing, streamlining, simplifying, defining roles, and developing a process and structure so we can better address our goals, including improved internal and external communication. We are working hard on a 80 + page manual with procedures, bylaws, and organizational structure. This year, we also became a 501(c)3 again, which will further aid in our restructuring.

Since 2013, the Board has been comprised of eight Executive Directors, as we eschew the traditional hierarchical scheme of president, vice-president, treasurer, and secretary. ICAS is a private think-tank with decisions made by an internationally based Board of Executive Directors. ICAS is unique in that it is not a typical apolitical academic association wherein members have voting or decision-making responsibilities; however, members can certainly help the organization make decisions within certain volunteer positions for which anyone can apply. Members are supporters of and donors to ICAS, which we greatly appreciate.

We are currently working on ICAS’s Intersectional Research Collectives (IRCs); we have seven now, but we are moving to two this fall: (1) Theory and (2) Practice.

We are also looking at streamlining the amount of publications we have so we are not so stretched in so many directions.

We also eliminated the ICAS Northwest/British Columbia chapter to merge with ICAS North America chapter. We also eliminated the not active ICAS Middle-east chapter.

We are making donating to us much easier and eliminating donations from one’s will or donating property such as cars. We are changing paypal accounts so stay tuned and we hope there is no problems with the transfer.

For those new to ICAS, here is our Mission, which is also the mission of Critical Animal Studies as a field: “The Institute for Critical Animal Studies (ICAS), rooted in animal liberation and influenced by anarchism, is an intersectional, transformative, and holistic theory-to-action global center for scholar-activists that strives to support, examine, explain, and be in solidarity with radical and revolutionary actions, theories, groups, and movements for total liberation; we seek to dismantle all systems of domination and oppression in hopes for a just, equitable, inclusive, respectful, and peaceful world.”

If you would like to check out the history of our board, please see this link: https://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/…/HISTORY-OF-THE-INSTI…
You can also see our website’s design history to observe how we’ve grown with the technology available to us: https://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/…/institute-for-criti…/
And to know more about our history, see the following link: https://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/about/

Finally, we have two great annual conferences coming up:

North America Conference for Critical Animal Studies: https://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/…/15th-annual-icas-no…/
Students for Critical Animal Studies Conference: https://www.facebook.com/events/524972497647281/

Despite all the exciting things we have going on, ICAS cannot be all things to all people; thus, we encourage those interested in CAS around the world and in other languages to develop their own journals, conferences, book series, organizations, and blogs.

Again, thank you so much for the support and friendship! We are striving to do our best for all animals and the Earth.

Until all are free …
ICAS Board of Executive Directors