|
The
American Schools of Oriental Research |
PRESENT: Jeff Blakely, Oded Borowski,
John Camp, Douglas Clark, Norma Kershaw, Honorary Trustee, Øystein LaBianca,
Al Leonard, Jr. (also for COP), P.E. MacAllister, Chairman of the Board, Jodi
Magness (also for AIA), Victor Matthews (also for CAMP), David McCreery (also
for CAP), Eric Meyers, Austin Ritterspach, James F. Ross, Bruce Routledge, B.W.
Ruffner, Thomas Schaub, Richard Scheuer, Life Trustee, Joe Seger, President,
Lydie Shufro, John Spencer, James F. Strange, Stuart Swiny, Gerald Vincent,
and Randall Younker.
VISITORS: David Detrich for CAARI, Sidnie White Crawford for AIAR, Holland Hendrix,
Development Consultant, Mike Fuller for the Damascus Committee, Lee Seeman from
the AIAR Board, Paul Zimansky for the Baghdad Committee.
STAFF: Billie Jean Collins for Publications, Rudy Dornemann, Executive Director.
ABSENT: Walter Aufrecht, Andrea Berlin, Kent Bermingham, William Dever, Nan
Frederick, Charles Harris, Timothy Harrison, Philip King, C.C. Lamberg-Karlovsky,
George Landes, Kyle McCarter, Robert Miller, Tammi Schneider, Ingrid Wood.
1. CTO 9:06am. The Chairman suggested that we handle the Nominating Committee report first so that the elected Trustees would be able to vote. There was no objection.
RESOLVED, that the minutes be approved as distributed. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
Chairman P.E. MacAllister ceded his time to those who follow.
2. Joe Seger gave the Nominating Committee report for Randy Younker. The election results from the Membership Meeting:
| Class of 2004 | Class of 2004 |
| Institutional ASOR Board | Individual ASOR Board Trustee |
| Oded Borowski Tammi Schneider Martha Risser |
Nan Frederick
|
Class of 2003 |
Class of 2003 |
| Agenda Committee | Agenda Committee |
| Jodi Magness |
Dave Morley |
| Class of 2004 | Class of 2004 |
| Nominations Committee | Nominations Committee |
| Oded Borowski |
Jodi Magness |
CAP—Class of 2004: David McCreery.
CAMP—Class of 2004: Douglas Clark.
RESOLVED, that Ed Gilbert be elected
to the ASOR Board. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
RESOLVED, that Tom Schaub be elected Vice-President of the Board to replace
Holland Hendrix. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
The Chairman of the Board confirmed the election of all those above.
3. Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute Report by David Detrich. New trustees of CAARI include R.C. Ewing of Annandale, VA, G. Feissel of Santa Rosa, CA, J.A. Greene of Belmont, MA, J.S. Smith of New York City, S. Swiny of Dover, MA, and F.B. Wilkins of Washington, D.C.
CAARI has just completed upgrading the internal operations of the library with a grant from the USDOE. The J. Paul Getty Trust has granted funds to change the library records to international electronic access format.
NEH has extended their support one more year. CAARI has applied for a three-year extension beyond this.
The American Overseas Research Program of the DOS (formerly USIA) will partially fund operations in Nicosia.
4. Sidnie White Crawford reported for the W.F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, Israel. The situation is tense, but only one Fellow has returned to the USA. The AIAR Trustees commend Dr. Sy Gitin, Director, for holding the whole together. Neolithic to Byzantine at the Centennial Observance. New program al Quds University seminar. They come to AIAR bi-weekly with the Fellows. They also use the library. Summer Seminar in bio-cultural anthropology by Susan Sheridan and Robert Haak. This is for USA undergraduate students and takes place at Augusta Victoria Hospital. The financial situation is good. The NEH match is about 90% complete. Munira Said comes in on Saturdays and is well.
6. Sten Labianca reported for the American Center for Oriental Research in Amman, Jordan. The Board expressed a tremendous sense of loss with the passing of Ann Ogilvy. Pierre Bikai is giving good leadership for ACOR and for the work of ACOR. Two new appointments: John Oleson and Neil Silberman. Finances are sound. One concern is the income from the hostel, which is down because of disquiet about the Middle East situation. The endowments are moving forward. Hope for a $2mil endowment from the US Govt. There ensued discussion of fundraising and the issue of empowering the Boston Office to help. There followed discussion of formulation of a Strategic Plan for ACOR. A committee is in place to do so comprised of Tom Parker, Jim Weismann, Sten Labianca, and Pierre Bikai. Applications for Fellows are up, thanks to some aggressive advertisements. Plans are in place for an Anne Ogilvy Library endowment and for a Jim Sauer Endowment. ACOR Research projects have focused on Petra. Patricia Bikai has turned more efforts to these projects. There were sixteen field projects last year. These were not only all successful, but are very aggressive about conservation, preservation, and presentation of the sites. ASOR has fostered this, and it is paying off in the field.
Joe Seger read a memorial for Anne Cabot Ogilvy. He called for a moment of silence in memory of Anne Ogilvy, Said Freij, and Omar Jibrin.
7. Report of the President — Joe Seger (printed and circulated).
Moved the passage of the Resolution honoring and remembering the founding societies.
RESOLVED, that the American Schools recognize each of its Founding Societies, SBL, AIA, and AOS by remembering the initiative and support provided at is founding and in appreciation of their services to American Scholarship from their respective beginnings in the nineteenth century. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
Requests for Personnel Committee meeting after this Board Meeting.
ASOR is not an employer. We lease the services of our staff from Boston U.
Stressed the importance of retaining Institutional Members, which is the purview of the Institutional Member Committee.
There is no charge as yet for the Individual Membership Committee.
New Institutional Members approved by Exec. Committee on Nov 18, 2000:
· Dept of Classics of the University
of Buffalo, SUNY with Sam Paley as representative.
· Fernbank Museum of Natural History, Atlanta, GA with Max Miller as representative.
In response to a question from Norma Kershaw, we have information available for institutions who inquire. There are plans to post this information on our web site.
Called for the Nominations Committee to search for a new President and other officers, as his second term will be finished by the Annual Meeting 2001.
RESOLVED, that an Officers Search Committee be formed to search for a new President and other officers of ASOR as the current slate will leave summer of 2001. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY
8. Baghdad Committee by Paul Zimansky: The Nies Bequest enables the Committee to continue with publication of field work and to fund one or two fellowships per year in Mesopotamian Studies. There were two fellows last year. These fellowships stimulate research in Mesopotamian Studies.
9. Damascus Committee by Michael Fuller: There were nine American based excavation projects and one such survey in Syria during 2000. Leadership of the Direction Générale des Antiquités et des Musées has passed to Dr. Abdu Razzaaq Moa’za.
The Exhibit “Syria, Land of Civilizations” opened in Québec on May 30, 2000 and will travel to San Jose, CA, NYC, and Denver. The Trustees request that those interested consult this URL: http://www.mcq.org/syrie/aaindex.htm.
10. Gerry Vincent gave the Financial Report for Ingrid Wood. Rather than repeat Ingrid Woods’ text, he moved to item 2 of the line item budget. (Budget distributed)
RESOLVED, that the 2000-2001 Budget be approved with the caveat that the numbers for Publications may change. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
RESOLVED, as a recommendation of the Executive Committee that the spending rate on invested Endowment and Board designated funds be 3%. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
The Treasurer and the Executive Committee recommends formulation of a committee to be called the Finance, Investment, and Audit Committee, which requires change to the By-laws. This change will be voted on during the spring 2001 meeting.
RESOLVED, (The President moves) that the ASOR Board endorses the change to the by-laws. Seconded. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY
RESOLVED, that the Board name the auditors for the ensuing year. Seconded. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
11. Development Committee by Austin Ritterspach. The Development Committee is comprised of Austin Ritterspach, Chair, Ed Gilbert, John Camp, Eric Meyers, ad Stuart Swiny. In addition P.E. MacAllister and Joe D. Seger serve ex officio. Vic Matthews, Al Leonard, and David McCreery have been asked to serve when possible as chairs of the operations committees. Holly Andrews will staff the committee.
The Annual Fund for FY2001 has collected about $96,000 as of 11/13/00. The Torch Campaign has nearly $1mill in combined donations and pledges as of Nov 18, 2000.
12. Al Leonard reported for the Committee on Publications (distributed):
RESOLVED, that the Board of Trustees Endorses the COP request that the Baghdad Committee provide a budget to the Executive Committee, part of which would cover past Journal of Cuneiform Studies subvention and part of which would cover ongoing additional funds for the JCS. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
RESOLVED, that $30,000 removed from the COP budget be returned from opportunity funds. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
13. David McCreery reported for the Committee on Archaeological Policy (distributed).
14. Victor Matthews reported for the Committee for the Annual Meeting and Program: The umbrella organization establishes a venue for the 2001 meeting in Denver. Visited four hotels, recommends that we contract with the Omni Interlocken Resort Hotel near Boulder, a new, state-of-the-art hotel.
We voted at the Members Meeting that we continue meeting with AAR/SBL for three years. After two years, the CAMP will bring another recommendation. We now ask the Board to approve that action.
RESOLVED, that the ASOR Board of Trustees approves the above action recommended by CAMP and formally approved at the Membership Meeting. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
The Outreach Committee planned more than they could deliver. They posted a public program which did not succeed as much as they had hoped. On the positive side they have put up a website which includes the capability that visitors can ask questions of scholars. That is more successful.
The Program itself was a success.
Honors and Awards Committee had their actions approved last night.
Chairman P.E. MacAllister expressed thanks to Victor Matthews and the committee.
15. Report from the Executive Committee — Rudy Dornemann. (distributed).
16. New Business.
Sten requested that we consider that the relationship of the ASOR Board to the centers abroad. He asks how this relationship is to be worked out.
Rudy responds that the new budget and the current campaign includes the overseas centers.
President Joe Seger pointed out that $3-$6k is distributed to the overseas centers via the Publications Committee. Less tangible is our institutional affiliation with the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, which requires that we be a consortium. ASOR is the consortium and makes it possible to CAORC money to support the overseas centers. The Annual Meeting is another such opportunity.
Sten stressed that we need to be proactive in spelling out this relationship.
The spring meeting of the Board is in Providence, R.I. with the American Research Center in Egypt.
11:27 Meeting Adjourned.
Respectfully submitted,
James F. Strange, Secretary