Amy Ferrer has been Government Director of the APA since 2012. She holds a bachelor’s diploma in girls’s research and a grasp’s diploma in public coverage and administration, each from the College of Massachusetts Amherst. She has spent greater than fifteen years in nonprofit administration, having beforehand labored for nationwide and regional organizations specializing in civil liberties, public well being, and advocacy.
What do you do on the APA?
As govt director, I’m accountable indirectly for nearly all the pieces the APA does. I work with the opposite members of the APA workers to serve and assist our members, arrange divisional conferences, plan communications, handle the APA funds, and facilitate the work of the board and committees, together with the manager committee of every division. I serve on the APA board of officers and work carefully with the board chair and the divisional secretary-treasurers on each day-to-day and large image points. And I additionally signify the APA to our companion organizations, such because the American Council of Learned Societies and National Humanities Alliance.
What’s your favourite a part of your job?
I actually get pleasure from collaborating in conferences and conferences—APA divisional conferences in addition to different conferences and occasions. I benefit from the journey, however extra importantly, conferences are fantastic alternatives to fulfill and spend time with pals and colleagues I in any other case work together with largely by means of electronic mail (or Zoom). APA conferences are an particularly priceless venue for connecting with APA members and members of APA committees and process forces, and people conversations usually lead on to modifications in how the APA does issues. Different conferences, just like the American Council of Realized Societies annual assembly and the Nationwide Humanities Convention, present alternatives to study from and share with leaders of different scholarly societies and organizations.
What are you most pleased with in your skilled life?
I’m pleased with simply how a lot the APA has modified and developed over the previous decade. The affiliation has modernized and professionalized in all kinds of how. There have been plenty of administrative modifications which can be largely invisible to members, however that make it doable for the affiliation to be extra environment friendly and do extra with much less. However extra visibly, over the past ten years the APA launched a journal and a weblog, added at-large members to the board, established the Graduate Student Council, partnered with the PhilPapers Basis to create PhilJobs: Jobs for Philosophers, secured grants from each the Mellon Basis and the Nationwide Endowment for the Humanities, held its first digital conferences, created the APA Reside on-line occasion collection and APA On Demand video library, and a lot extra. It’s been a number of work, however actually rewarding to see how a lot the APA workers and management have achieved collectively.
What do you love to do outdoors work?
My husband and I are beer nerds and beer vacationers, so we love to go to breweries wherever we go and style the very best of the native choices. We’re particularly huge followers of Dogfish Head and often make a visit to their brewpub in Rehoboth Seashore, DE, a couple of occasions a yr—they at all times have new brews for us to strive.
I additionally get pleasure from cooking and received into baking bread through the pandemic (cliché, I do know). My favourite factor to bake lately is sourdough popovers—they’re surprisingly simple and remind me of going to the Jordan Pond Home in Acadia Nationwide Park in Maine, which I did yearly rising up.
And I spend most likely an excessive amount of time watching TV—largely the Nice British Bake-Off (and all its spinoffs), RuPaul’s Drag Race (and all its spinoffs), and absolutely anything within the true crime style.
Do you’ve any pets? In that case, inform us about them.
Three cats! Brothers Ajax and Orion, who’re simply over a yr outdated, and Persephone, who’s about seven. They’re the very best.
What’s your least favourite kind of fruit and why?
Bananas. I hate the flavour of them and might detect it even in tiny quantities. I principally can’t ever order a smoothie as a result of they’re at all times tainted with banana.
Which tremendous energy would you wish to have?
Teleportation. I like to journey however not the effort of getting there. My thinker husband insists it’s not doable (and would kill me anyway), however I’m nonetheless holding out hope.
