Accountability Groups

DEFINITION: An “accountability group” is a small group of peers that meet informally on a regular basis to hold one another “accountable,” offer support, and all the other elements so vital for the hard work before us and so many aspects of our busy lives competing for our attention all at once. You decide when to meet. You decide how often. I recommend meeting at least a couple of times a month for at least 90 minutes each time, if at all possible.

PREAMBLE (or “Why We Need an Accountability Group”). Over the course of my life, I’ve been involved with multiple “accountability groups” both professionally and personally (family, fellow grad students, reading groups). As have you. However, the “organic” element of social discourse that brings such groups together can be difficult to replicate in situations like ours in times like these. Enter what I’ll call the “Academics for Black Survival and Wellbeing” version of that vital resource for this rallying point. 

Thousands of academics from around the world enrolled. To build community, they developed an infrastructure for finding and creating such a group in this sea of virtual strangers. It all started like so many things these days: with a Google Spreadsheet, followed by Zoom meetups (it doesn’t have to be Zoom, by the way).

• FIRST: SIGN UP for an accountability group. Instructions at the top of the spreadsheet.
• SECOND: If you’re the SIXTH person to sign up, email everyone else to say “hey, we’re a group!” See if you can find a time to meet up that first week. From there, you can figure out the rest. SIXTH PERSON: PLEASE DON’T FORGET TO STRIKE THROUGH THE EMAIL ADDRESSES YOU JUST CONTACTED. If you don’t, they’ll just get contacted again when the next person signs up. 
• THIRD: Once you have a time, set up a virtual meeting space (Zoom? a free version of Google Meet is also an option and pretty user friendly. Dealers choice.)
• FOURTH: Before your first meeting, I recommend you check out the first video here (A4BL Accountability Group “Introduction“). Granted, our course materials won’t be nearly as challenging (emotionally) as this one ended up being. However, they’re also not NOT going to be challenging. We’re talking about “representing race” and the “ambiguities of representation” after all. 

YOUR FIRST MEETING: As we have in our class, you’ll need to set up a “Collective Agreement.” The content of that is up to you and your group to negotiate. Here’s a starting place for you (“A Collective Agreement” or “Covenant“).

AFTER THAT: Up to you. Following A4BL’s model as represented in the video “Introduction“, we usually started with an informal “check in” Anything goes, though we definitely tried to relate it to the material, our experiences with it (both practically, in terms of powering through all the requirements, and every other way such groups tend to work in terms of supporting each other while challenging one another). At our first “official” meeting that Tuesday, we followed the models offered in the A4BL Accountability Group video.

A KEY DIFFERENCE: We had “reflection” questions specifically designed for the accountability group. You won’t. The questions to guide your group are your own, as well as those asked in the Forums and via your other assignments. Again, the A4BL institute was not a course with grades. With no grades, our accountability group was the ONLY way we were held accountable to keep up with the readings and other assigned activities. Our situation is different, of course. Our class IS an official, formal course with grades.

MY OWN EXPERIENCE: Over the past few weeks (August 1-21), I’ve been involved with an intensive institute we called A4BL. No grades. No one looking over my shoulder. Life is busy. The materials difficult. So many of them. The content deeply emotional. Had it not been for the five other A4BL participants I meet for 90 minutes of every few days (six meetings over three weeks), I don’t know what I would have done. The sheer volume of material before me overwhelmed me. But I took it one step at a time, knowing the others were right there with me. THIS is how such groups work out in the wild, right? You pull some friends together. A “study group” of sorts. But what if you don’t have such a group at-the-ready? I knew one other person taking this institute, and we already talked about this stuff. Thousands of people took up A4BL over the last few weeks, most of whom were in the same boat I was.

Besides, it’s always fun to meet new people. Or at least it CAN be fun. Two of us met right away, knowing that it was far too early for any of us to have read the materials. We just wanted a chance to get oriented the Sunday before things really got going. At our first “official” meeting that Tuesday, we followed the models offered in the A4BL Accountability Group video “Introduction.” At first, things were a little awkward. We admitted that to one another. It got better. As recommended, we met for 90 minutes each time. We usually decided our next meeting time just ONE meeting at a time. One person (me) set up the meeting. I just gave them my Zoom ID. After we met each time, I would email everyone with our agreed upon meeting time and my Zoom ID. You guys should decide who will take that on.

At our last meeting, we decided we’d really like to keep checking in with one another. We’d really begun to look forward to our meetings. We challenged and supported one another. We’ll keep doing the same. I suspect you will too.