EA Groups Should Rename Intro Fellowships for Better Clarity
This is a quick post that serves as a call to action for university EA group organizers!
For university EA groups (and maybe other EA groups) the term âintroductory fellowshipâ can lead to various confusions: seeming religious, inaccurately prestigious, or too official, for example. I propose that most groups should switch to an alternative, such as Georgia Techâs âEffective Altruism Introductory Seminarâ or (one that Iâm particularly excited for, that weâve used at LSU this semester) calling introductory reading/âdiscussion groups the âIDEA Programâ:
IDEAâIntroduction to making a Difference through Effective Altruism.
Why is this better than the typical framing of âEffective Altruism Introductory Fellowshipâ?
Much harder to confuse as religious: In a recent popular thread in the EA Groups slack, there was discussion of alternative names to âfellowshipâ; quite a few group organizers expressed that newcomers to EA interpreted fellowship as religious, and that it promoted the idea of EA coming across as cult-ish. I would imagine this problem is not unique to the ~6 people who mentioned it in the slack thread, so eliminating this confusion seems useful for better outreach and communication for groups in the future!
Emphasis on both doing and learning: This framing puts more of a focus on what those in EA are actually trying to accomplishâmaking a difference (this is the D of IDEA). I think it does a good job of beginning to switch oneâs first impression of the fellowship from âHereâs this community called EA, I can sign up for this fellowship to read about what they have to sayâ to âhere are some ideas touted by this community called EA, maybe I can use their ideas to better make a difference/âhave an impactâ.
Better Epistemics: Similarly, this framing makes EA seem more like âa set of tools/âideas I can use to have an impactâ (i.e. making a difference through effective altruism) as opposed to âa set of dogmas or predetermined ideas about how to have an impactâ. The former is a more accurate conception of EA (or at least of what EA would ideally be).
Petty reason: It rolls off the tongue better.
Less prestigious-sounding: (disclaimer: anecdote) When I first heard the phrasing âEA Introductory Fellowshipâ I was confused as to why a reading group was being advertised as a fellowship. My impression was that fellowships are reserved for more prestigious (usually paid) academic or intern-like positions, and it was a little off-putting to see people in EA try to oversell their intro programs. The term âfellowshipâ could definitely still be useful in some places where participants are more heavily-selected, or maybe at schools where EA groups have very impressive reputations, but I think the phrasing usually seems inaccurate, especially if we are aiming for big tent EA.
In general, catchy acronyms can be fun to come up with and more engaging than long bulky names. âIDEA Programâ is probably not the best version of this, but itâs a step in the right direction compared to the unclear, long-to-pronounce âEffective Altruism Introductory Fellowshipâ.
For fairness: why we might NOT want to switch from âfellowshipâ:
Intro programs/âreading groups should be more selective, and âfellowshipâ better expresses the seriousness/âcommitment that is expected from participants.
âFellowshipâ is already pretty common and well-used among EA groups, so we shouldnât try to disrupt the equilibrium (I think this is probably a pretty bad reason; name changes require minimal effort)
âIDEA Programâ doesnât actually tell someone what itâs about in the name. Effective Altruism Intro Fellowship is more explicit about: A) the fact that itâs introductory and B) that itâs affiliated with effective altruism.
This is probably less of a problem with good marketing and design.
Overall, I find these latter reasons not as compelling, and changing fellowship names is low-hanging fruit for less confusing and more honest outreach. At the very least, I think more groups should try it out!
Thanks to Justin Guo for feedback, and Michel Justen for encouraging me to write this up.
Just found, at EA Oxford we just changed âintro fellowshipâ and âin depth fellowshipâ to âintro seminar programme (ISP) and in depth seminar programme (idsp)
To potentially confuse things even more: I know some groups in the Netherlands use the name âIDEA programâ to refer to the in-depth fellowship.
In-Depth EA program
As I write this comment, the post has negative karma, but nobody seems to have explained why they disagree with the post. I havenât made my mind up on this yet, and Iâd love to hear from the people who push back on this (e.g. the people who are downvoting it).
Perhaps one source of downvotes is that the main idea of this post is unoriginal. Anyone putting on an intro fellowship has put some amount of thought into:
Do I call it a âfellowshipâ to give it prestige, or do I call it a âseminarâ /â âreading groupâ to make it sound academic, or do I call it a âprogramâ or a more neutral tone, âŠ
Do I call it âAreteâ to sound fancy, or do I call it âintroâ to sound welcoming, âŠ
Do I explicitly put âEAâ in the title?
The one new thought here seems to be having the acronym âIDEAâ stand for âIntroduction to making a Difference through Effective Altruismâ. And this post isnât even a comprehensive exploration of the pros and cons of this acronym! OP leaves off one important downside: at other universities (e.g. Harvard, Brown), IDEA stands for âIn-Depth EAâ. Another point OP doesnât expand on is why âfellowshipâ had religious connotations for so many people. (Could this be more of an issue in LSU /â the US South in general, compared to other parts of US/âEurope?)
Finding good names is important, but this post doesnât really do much in aim of this goal. The pros and cons here are exclusively supported by anecdotal evidence or OPâs personal aesthetics. Stuff I would like to see in the ânaming CB interventions betterâ space:
More experiments such as âShould you use EA in your group name?â An update on PISEâs naming experiment
A compendium of names used at different universities /â regions, with attached retrospectives from organizers
(Probably too high effort) Proper user testing on group names
The name change sounds good to me.
Although, when I did the intro and in-depth course, it was simply called The Effective Altruism Introductory & In-depth Program.
If it was called a fellowship, it wouldnât mean a religious thing to me, perhaps because I have been on several fellowship programs and have co-run others, that has nothing to do with religion.
Thanks for sharing. I may adopt some of the suggestions to my EA group, when sharing about the programs.
Yeah I think college students will often think âFellowshipâ is religious because thatâs likely the only context they have seen the word used in, even though itâs often used for all kinds of non-religious opportunities.
Iâm not sure how important this isâI soon realized lots of fellowships at my school were not religious and that it had a broader meaning.
I guess people could try different things out and see how they work. Maybe something simple like EA reading group. Or focus on a topic name: people would probably be less likely to confuse something like âpublic health/âpandemic prevention/âAI Ethics fellowshipâ as something religious.
For what itâs worth, my independent impression was that the fact that âfellowshipâ sounded more prestigious was probably a good thing, mostly because it could fit within an academic culture very well[1].
I had never made the connection to religious fellowships[2], and I donât quite understand the argument from epistemics[3]. However, I do like the potential emphasis on doing and learning, which, I think, is a problem in the current form of most introductory fellowships (see here).
This might be very dependent on the communications strategy of each group. At our local student group, we found the connection with academia helpful; however that also raises legitimate concerns with diversity.
This might be cultural; my first language is spanish, where âfellowshipâ is mostly used untranslated and only in the academic sense.
Why would âfellowshipâ point to a set of dogmas but âseminarâ wouldnât?