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The
American Schools of Oriental Research |
PRESENT: Doug Clark, Eric Meyers,
Dave McCreery, President Joe D. Seger, Gerald Vincent, Chairman P.E. MacAllister,
Nan Frederick, B.W. Ruffner, Austin Ritterspach, Vice-President Tom Schaub,
Richard J. Scheuer, Secretary Jim Strange, Ed Gilbert, Walter Rast.
STAFF: Rudy Dornemann, Holly Andrews, Billie Jean Collins.
ABSENT: Al Leonard
1. CTO at 2:00 PM.
RESOLVED, that the Minutes of the meeting of March 3, 2001 be approved as modified. PASSED unanimously.
2. President’s Report—Joe Seger stressed that ASOR will have a retreat Friday-Sunday, Sept 7-9, 2001 at the Emory Conference Center Hotel in Atlanta, GA. Attendance will be by invitation. The invitation is to those who ought to be present, such as the Executive Committee, the Nominating committee, Standing Committee Chairpersons, staff, two additional people from each of the committees, and representatives of the Centers. Through Dick Scheuer’s generosity the three directors of the centers abroad can come in also. Others include the Damascus Committee, the Baghdad Committee, and at large people including both senior and junior members. Joe Seger points out that the costs at Emory are competitive. Jerry Vincent suggested that we include a facilitator. There was some discussion, including that we rotate chairs or otherwise devise our own facilitation process. Joe Seger recommends that we take this in two parts.
RESOLVED that we approve the venue, date, and basic plan. Moved by Joe D. Seger, Seconded by Eric Meyers. PASSED with one abstention.
P.E. suggests that Joe Seger come to decision himself on other matters. The consensus was that this would be the process, Joe using his committee.
Joe Seger called attention to item 6 on institutional membership.
RESOLVED, that the Annual Dues for Institutional Membership be increased beginning in fiscal 2002 in accordance with Scheme A presented in the President’s report, to wit, that we raise rates for the 2002 and 2003 fiscal years by $100 each (to be $800 in fiscal year 2003; and by $50 each of the succeeding four years (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007) to stand at $1000 per year in 2007 and following. Moved by Joe D. Seger, seconded by Austin Ritterspach. Discussion ensued as to why there are fewer institutional members than before. There has been some follow-through and some institutions have returned to the fold. Walter asked what it costs to belong to the American School of Classical Studies in Rome and the benefits that schools realize. Jerry Vincent suggested market research. Joe Seger points out that the institutions are getting a cost break if they pay institutional dues. The motion PASSED 6 to 3.
Joe Seger had no motion on Regional Societies.
RESOLVED, that the ASOR Executive Committee and Board of Trustees record the acceptance with regret of Ingrid Wood’s resignation as ASOR Treasurer effective April 6, 2001, and that Chairman MacAllister send to her a warm letter of appreciation, thanking her for her excellent service and for the many contributions she made to the financial well being of the organization during her two years of work on ASOR’s behalf. Moved by Joe Seger. Seconded by Austin Ritterspach. PASSED unanimously.
RESOLVED, that ASOR-sponsored (“Sponsored”) excavation and/or publication projects be only those that are formally authorized and recognized as Sponsored by resolution of the ASOR Board of Trustees which agree to comply fully with the oversight, budget, accounting, and audit procedures otherwise established for ASOR program activities within the ASOR Executive office. Such ASOR-Sponsored projects should not be confused with excavation and publications projects operating outside of and independent from ASOR that are approved as ASOR-affiliated (“Affiliated”) projects by virtue of their application to the Committee on Archaeological Policy (CAP) and which receive accrediting through peer review for compliance with the Statement of Professional Standards and Ethics promoted by CAP for ASOR members. Moved by Joe Seger. Seconded by Austin Ritterspach. PASSED unanimously.
There was discussion whether Bab edh-Dhra and Tell el-Hesi should be ASOR-Sponsored projects. Jerry suggested that we wait until the audit of ASOR is complete. Also the projects should apply for Sponsorship. Rudy pointed out that the auditors themselves raised the question. Tom Schaub mentioned that the projects themselves have to consider whether this is a good idea for them.
IT WAS THE CONSENSUS that, pending the feasibility of the invitation by the auditors, ASOR would like to have continued sponsorship of Bab edh-Drah and Tell el-Hesi projects. No formal motion was entertained.
4. Financial Reports—Rudy Dornemann (distributed)
Publications Budget its relation to the overall budget is in a handout distributed to all. The Publications Budget shows an anticipated negative balance for FY 2001. Jerry pointed out that the Publications Budget as distributed does not cohere with those reported as the “Proposed Revised Budget for 2000/01 and Preliminary 2001/02 Budget.”
Billie Jean Collins distributed spreadsheets on publication budgets. She pointed out that we decided to defer publications income from this year to next year, which meant that we had less money to function. We also had to produce four more journal issues than before. We are much less in the red than ever before. Billie Jean Collins is reasonably optimistic that we will net us more income by June 31, because our book sale is going well.
RESOLVED, pending the auditors’ approval, that we use the unit cost basis for deferring monies in the Publications Budget, as per the sheet distributed before the meeting and redistributed during the meeting by Billie Jean Collins, to wit:
BASOR/NEA/JCS sustaining 60203020-120 250 Foreign 60203020-120 250 NEA/BASOR Professional 602030--- 110 Foreign Professional 602030-20- 130 NEA/BASOR/Professional student 352030--- 85 Foreign 352030-20- 105 NEA/JCS Professional 6020---- -
Moved by Austin Ritterspach. Doug Clark seconded. The objection was that the unit cost does not reflect the administrative component. This amounts to booking our costs as production alone without administrative costs. PASSED 5 to 4.
Billie Jean Collins called attention to the spreadsheet of Subscriptions Categories. The spreadsheet reflects projected subscription income, which comes to $233,895 for FY2002. Deferred income is not shown, because it equals the income released. There was considerable discussion of the fiscal propriety of publishing books without clear projections of income and cost or where subvention is unknown.
Rudy pointed out that we have released $30,000 of the Opportunity Fund to Publications. He is in favor of using the OF as a revolving fund for publications, if that is desirable.
5. Development Committee—Austin Ritterspach’s report will be given at the full board meeting April 29, 2001.
6. Committee on Publications—Billie Jean Collins. (distributed) We will produce two extra issues of NEA so far this year. She seeks sponsorship of a special Ugarit issue for next year. The last issue of the current editors is a double issue in the spring of 2002. Discussion ensued that it seems odd that there is little or no queue for the Annual but a four-year queue for BASOR. One idea is to publish some of this material in the Annual.
RESOLVED that the Executive Committee expresses its deep concern for the length of the queue in BASOR and asks the editor to meet the Committee on Publication immediately to seek to resolve this matter, in order to be fair to the authors and to ASOR’s goals, that alternative outlets be sought including the Annual or a double issue. We ask that the report to the Executive Committee no later than the September 9 meeting of the Executive Committee. Moved by Eric Meyers, seconded by Tom Schaub. PASSED unanimously.
Billie Jean Collins thinks we could get monies from granting agencies for some of these books that have been accepted. BU will give us a new web site free because of our affiliation with BU.
Eric Meyers asked whether the COP has considered outsourcing some of the books to commercial publications so as to reduce the queue and gain some income. Co-publication with certain scholarly publications may relieve the queue.
RESOLVED that the Executive Committee instructs the COP to explore forthwith the notion of outsourcing some of the appropriate titles in the book queue to accommodate a timely publication schedule. The resolution was moved by Eric Meyers and seconded by Doug Clark. PASSED unanimously.
7. Committee on Archaeological Policy—David McCreery. David emphasizes that we have 65 Affiliated Projects, one of which is a Sponsored Project. CAP awarded $6000 for funding of five projects. Of this total $5500, came from the Harris Fund and $500 from the Torch Campaign. CAP wishes to award Harris Grants and Torch Grants next year. There were 15 projects applying for a Harris grant.
8. Committee on Annual Meeting and Program—Doug Clark. We have a page ad for the annual meeting in the current issue of NEA. There has been discussion of when the awards should be given. The first page of the Newsletter has an announcement. It can be at the Members’ Meeting and at the banquet. There was also discussion of the hotels for Toronto 2002. The Committee favors the Marriott, but the cost is high. The food costs are especially high. We must make 90% of our projected room occupancy to cut costs. It was agreed the Doug will prepare a cost projection based on previous years for the Board Meeting April 29, 2001.
9. Executive Director’s Report—Distributed. No additional comment.
10. Report from the Chairman—No Report
Billie Jean Collins asked if the Budget had been approved. That was not accomplished, but was referred to the Board Meeting. The Finance Committee will meet for preparation for the Board Meeting at 8:00 AM.
13. Adjournment called at 5:30 PM.