The committee's central function is to develop (i.e. increase) the number of members in the organization and to retain existing members throughout their professional careers, in order to foster the aims of this robust and dynamic organization.

Recent approaches to membership development have focused on highlighting the accessibility of the organization, including the recommendation to change the CFP deadline from 14 months to 11 months in order to allow the energy of the October conference to manifest as proposals for the following year and to allow scholars might not have time to create a session during the summer ample time to do so in the fall. Creation of a graduate student award, designed to empower graduate students to lead/mentor other graduate students in the organization, also grew out of the committee’s mission to develop and retain members in the organization.