I want to respond to part of Jim Gibb's recent message, where he asks
again for information on three questions:
 
"1)  how many grievances have been filed and exactly how many have been
successfu
lly prosecuted by SOPA;
2)  what are the anticipated costs for SHA members, SAA members, those with memb
erships in both as well as in the AIA; and
3)  what are the anticipated application fees and annual dues for those seeking
ROPA certification?
 
1) Number of grievances, and their outcomes.  Hester Davis, in a recent
posting, provided some information on this.  I have a call in to Chuck
Cleland to see if he can provide some more details.  Either he or I will
put them out on the list when they are available.  Keep in mind that the
goal of the SOPA/ROPA system is not "prosecution" but furtherance of ethics
and standards.  There are a number of ways to do this, short of censure or
expulsion. Those are last resorts.  Even if the grievance coordinator
determines that there is a valid basis for a complaint, he or she may be
able to achieve some resolution of it through advising or negotiating with
the SOPA member against whom the complaint was lodged.  If so, this counts
as a win for SOPA.   Keep in mind also that the membership of SOPA has
hovered around 700 and 800 for some time.  This means that only a
relatively small part of the archaeological profession has signed onto a
system that holds them accountable for adhering to a detailed code of
ethics and set of performance standards (and hence subject to the grievance
procedure).  The goal of ROPA is to increase the percentage of
professionals who participate in this kind of system by gaining the
sponsorship and endorsement of the major American archaeological societies.
I think that SOPA has not been ineffective, but that if a "critical mass"
of professionals can be reached, the system that it has developed and
tested over more than two decades will be more effective in promoting
professionalism in the field as a whole.
 
2) The costs for memberships in the SAA, SHA, and AIA  would be whatever
the dues for those societies are; if a person chose also to become an RPA,
these costs would be added to those of the society memberships that person
held.  That leads us to Jim's question 3)--what are the anticipated
application fees and annual fees for those choosing to become RPAs.   The
latter information is included in the ROPA proposal, which has been
published in the newsletters of the SAA, SHA, and SOPA, and is also
available on the web sites of those organizations.  I will quote from the
published proposal:
"The ROPA application fee will [initially] be $35 (with a first year rate
of $30 for new applicants), and subsequently will be set by the ROPA board.
The annual registration fee will initially will be set at $45 (with a $25
first-year rate for new registrants) for an individual who is a member of
one or more of the sponsoring organizations and $125 for the other
individuals. Subsequently, these rates will be set by the ROPA board.
Current SOPA members who are not members of a sponsoring organization will
have a year's grace period before the higher annual fee is imposed."
 
I believe that these rates mean that the cost of belonging to both ROPA and
SHA will be less for many SHA members than the current cost of belonging to
both SOPA and SHA.  Because of the discount for members of sponsoring
organizations, there will also  be an incentive for professionals to join
SHA or SAA when they become RPAs if they are not now members of either
organization.
 
If Jim's question is what the actual annual costs to SHA for sponsorship
will be, that is also set forth in the published proposal.   SHA wouldpay
an annual allocation of $5000 to ROPA plus make a one-time first-year
contribution of $5000 to help with start-up costs (including a membership
drive).   The boards of all the sponsoring organizations (initially, SAA
and SHA)  would have to approve any increase in the $5000 annual
allocation.   As I noted in a previous posting, the $5000 annual allocation
works out to be about $2.15 per SHA member.   I am sure that the SHA budget
includes income from sale of publications, subscriptions, annual meeting
registrations, advertising, etc. as well as from dues.  That means that the
$2.15 per member  (i.e., the $5000 total) will be spread over the entire
SHA budget, so that the portion of each member's dues that would go to the
annual ROPA allocation would be substantially less than $2.15.      If the
ROPA incentive to belong to a sponsoring organization results in increased
membership in SHA, there would be an increase in dues revenue.  At a dues
rate of $55, it would take 91 new regular members to generate new revenue
equal to SHA's annual ROPA allocation of $5000.
 
In concluding, it seems that some of the participants in this discussion
are confident that the Advisory Council, the Dept. of the Interior, various
federal agencies, and the SHPOs will serve as diligent guardians of
archaeological ethics and standards.  Reference has been made to the role
of these entities in "monitoring" standards, as well as issuing "numerous
admonishments", filing "lawsuits" and taking a proactive stance to
"promulgate and enforce historic preservation regulations."   I am not well
informed about the nature and scale of these activities on behalf of ethics
and research standards in archaeology, and would appreciate having more
concrete and convincing information about the effectiveness of these
bureaucratic mechanisms.  In the meantime, I will continue to press for
extending to a larger proportion of the archaeological profession a
time-tested system of promulgating and enforcing standards that has been
designed by archaeologists and is run by them.   I will also continue to
make the argument that most professions that serve the public have some
type of mechanism to ensure professional accountability; that there are
good reasons for this and archaeology should not be an exception; and that
a peer-run system is preferable to one dependent on politically appointed
state licensing boards, or to the lack of such any system for ensuring
professional accountability (which I believe to be the current state of
affairs, the Department of the Interior professional standards
notwithstanding).